The many faces of Kim Jong Il





(CNN) -- Kim Jong Il has been portrayed as everything from a nuclear-armed egomaniac, to a cognac-swilling playboy with a bouffant hairdo, to a smart and skilled political player.

Although much about the North Korean ruler remains a mystery to Westerners, his power and importance are undeniable.

Almost 15 years after the Berlin Wall's fall signaled the end of the Cold War, Kim holds firm to his nation's communist roots. He leads the world's fourth largest military -- and one of its poorest economies.

He has been thrust into the global spotlight several times since becoming Supreme Leader following the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994. Most recently, he has engaged in a standoff with U.S. President George W. Bush after Bush grouped North Korea with Iraq and Iran as members of an "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address.

"The concern is that North Korea could turn into kind of a nuclear Kmart, where they could sell nuclear material to Iran ... or, God forbid, to small sub-national groups [like] al Qaeda [or] other terrorist organizations," said Jon Wolfsthal, an analyst with the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace.

According to one legend, Kim Jong Il was born on a sacred Korean mountain amid double rainbows and bright stars. Others say he was born in 1942 in the Soviet Union, where his father served in the Communist army. An official North Korean account says that Kim was born at his father's guerilla base on Mount Paekdu, North Korea.

After World War II, his father -- "The Great Leader," Kim Il Sung -- became head of North Korea. He invaded South Korea in 1950, prompting the United States and other countries to send forces to the area. The war ended in a stalemate three years later, with Kim Il Sung viewing the United States as likely his nation's greatest enemy.

Although many North Koreans live humbly, Kim Jong Il grew up being told he was "the son of God," said Jerrold Post, a professor of political psychology at George Washington University. "One of the challenging aspects of trying to profile Kim Jong Il is separating the man from the myth."

After graduating from his father's namesake university in 1964, Kim Jong Il served as the Workers Party's culture czar, focusing on producing plays and films.

But he soon took on a more prominent, if behind-the-scenes, role in higher-stakes government affairs, and his father formally designated him as his successor in 1980.

Western intelligence has long blamed Kim for masterminding the 1983 bombing in Yangon, Myanmar, that killed 17 South Korean officials and the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 people.

When his father died of a heart attack in 1994 and Kim rose to power, he was still an enigmatic figure -- by design, experts said.

"Mystery is a source of leverage and power," Han S. Park, director of the University of Georgia's Center for the Study of Global Issues, said in 2000. "It's maintaining uncertainty."

In 1994, with North Korea on the verge of economic collapse, Kim agreed to regulations of his nation's developing nuclear programs in return for massive food and oil shipments from the United States.

But the tenuous peace between the two long-time rivals disintegrated when Bush singled out North Korea in his first State of the Union speech after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. Kim soon toughened his stance, with U.S. sources saying North Korea had resumed its nuclear program and possessed one or two nuclear weapons.

"Those three words -- 'axis of evil' -- may have more of a bombshell impact on Kim Jong Il's anger and mentality, and his perception toward the new administration than anything else," said Kongdan Oh of the Brookings Institution.