The US Central Intelligence Agency thinks that North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is a rational actor who is focused on staying in power and "waking up in his own bed" each day.

But if Mr Kim should suddenly not show up for work, well, don’t ask US spy chief Mike Pompeo about it.

"With respect to, if Kim Jong-un should vanish, given the history of the CIA, I’m just not going to talk about it," the CIA director said on Thursday, when asked what would happen if Kim suddenly died.

"Someone might think there was a coincidence. ’You know, there was an accident.’ It’s just not fruitful," he said to laughs from a Washington audience full of national security officials.

The US agency has a dark history of involvement in plots to overthrow or eliminate leaders in countries like Iran, Cuba, Congo, Vietnam and Chile.