North Korea's former propaganda chief Kim Ki-nam, considered the mastermind of the Kim dynasty's cult of personality, died Tuesday at the age of 94, the Korean Central News Agency announced Wednesday.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un mourned silently Wednesday morning in front of his casket “with bitter sadness for the loss of a veteran revolutionary who remained tirelessly loyal” to the regime, KCNA reported.
The agency said that Kim Ki-nam, who had been hospitalized since 2022, died due to his old age and “several organ dysfunction.”
Kim Ki-nam was famous for heading North Korea's incitement and propaganda department from 1989 to 2017, after serving as editor-in-chief of the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper in the 1970s, and also serving as vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party. Korean Party (WPK).
He began his career during the reign of Kim Il Sung, who took power in Pyongyang between 1948 and 1994, and was considered a close friend of his son and successor Kim Jong Il (1994-2011).
He was the author of the main slogans of the regime and the speeches of its leaders. He is also considered the mastermind behind the personality cult around the Kim family, through numerous articles and essays, and by supporting the hereditary transition of power in North Korea.
KCNA described him on Wednesday as “a veteran of our party and the revolution, a distinguished theoretician and a prominent political activist.”
In 2015, photos broadcast by state media showed the late senior official, who was in his eighties at the time, diligently taking notes in front of Kim Jong Un, about fifty years his junior.
His role as the regime's propaganda chief eventually passed to Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, in 2018.
In 2009, Kim Ki-nam led a North Korean delegation to South Korea to attend the funeral of former President Kim Dae-jung, a supporter of dialogue with the North who made a historic visit to Pyongyang in 2000.
