Mun Se-gwang wept in remorse before his execution

Jang Seok-kwang

The author is the general secretary of the Academy of National Intelligence.

Despite controversy, the film “The Assassin(s)” (2026) surpassed 3.3 million admissions on Friday, passing the threshold needed to recover its production costs. It revives questions surrounding Mun Se-gwang’s attempted assassination of President Park Chung Hee in 1974.

In the early 2000s, I taught National Intelligence Service personnel and counterespionage police officers about North Korean operations against the South. Drawing on Mun’s statements during investigation and trial, I explained the alleged channels through which Pyongyang transmitted orders and the roles played by members of Chongryon, the pro-North Korean organization in Japan. I also discussed intelligence suggesting that North Korea’s Ministry of Social Security Intelligence Bureau, which I believed directed the operation, was dissolved after the failed assassination and that its chief, Ri Se-gwan, and Japan intelligence division head Ri Jae-yong were punished.

At the time, inter-Korean dialogue had stalled. Relations with Japan had deteriorated over the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung, while the National Democratic Youth and Students League case heightened domestic political tensions. Offensives by North Vietnamese forces and the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam were also intensifying, increasing the prospect of a communist victory. I interpreted these developments as conditions Pyongyang might have viewed as an opportunity for revolution in the South. My analysis was that the assassination attempt sought to provoke turmoil and encourage antigovernment resistance.

For my lectures, I used approximately 30 minutes of archival footage. It showed the shooting at the National Theater, televised at the time, followed by Mun’s trial, execution at Seoul Detention Center and burial. The final frame carried the name of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, identifying its source. I showed this footage to students. My assessment remains unchanged: North Korea was behind the operation.

Other major assassination attempts targeting Korean presidents included the 1968 Blue House raid, the 1970 bombing at the National Cemetery and the 1983 bombing at the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Yangon, Myanmar. Why did North Korea repeatedly seek to eliminate the president?

Its leaders may have assumed that Korea’s president wielded absolute power like Kim Il Sung. Removing him, they might have calculated, would collapse the government and facilitate communist reunification. But democratization in 1987 established peaceful electoral transfers of power, making such a strategy less plausible.

The Mun case differs from the other three in the evidence linking it to Pyongyang. Those cases produced physical evidence and official investigative findings. Myanmar’s government formally attributed the Martyrs’ Mausoleum bombing to North Korea. In Mun’s case, however, investigators presented insufficient independent evidence beyond his confessions and testimony to establish direct North Korean orders or operational links. Japanese police traced the stolen handgun and fraudulently obtained passport but found no decisive evidence implicating Pyongyang or Chongryon. Their findings diverged from the Korean government’s judgment that this was an organized North Korean operation.

Clandestine operations are inherently difficult to unravel, particularly when those directing them remain beyond the reach of investigators. Couriers separate commanders from operatives, limiting what investigators can establish even after identifying an attacker. North Korean officials cannot readily be questioned or their agencies investigated.

Japan’s conclusion that Mun acted alone must therefore be understood alongside these investigative limitations. Failure to find evidence of North Korean involvement is not proof of noninvolvement. Equally, investigative gaps cannot themselves establish Pyongyang’s responsibility. Conclusions must rest on evidence, intelligence and circumstances considered together.

Several troubling questions about the specifics of the case remain unanswered. Why would North Korea choose Mun rather than a trained operative? Why send him on a mission from which he was unlikely to return, with success far from assured?

Korean authorities concluded that Mun acted under North Korean orders, citing his detailed, consistent statements during investigation and trial. The film instead connects unresolved questions to a theory that Park’s government orchestrated the attack beforehand. Yet unanswered questions do not prove advance orchestration.

There were numerous opportunities to stop Mun: when he stole a gun from Japanese police, obtained a Korean visa using another person’s passport, departed Japan, concealed the weapon inside a radio aboard an aircraft, passed Korean customs and entered the event despite security checks. The attack nevertheless proceeded. The investigations exposed a succession of security failures in both Japan and Korea. Does that mean every failure was deliberately arranged?

I remember Mun, 22, standing before the gallows at Seoul Detention Center. He had left an elderly mother, wife and young son in Japan. In the footage, he sobbed uncontrollably in Japanese.

I cannot recall the exact wording of the subtitles that appeared in the archival recording. He called himself a fool, apologized to President Park, prayed for the repose of first lady Yuk Young-soo and said Chongryon had deceived him into wrongdoing. He also asked that his apologies be conveyed to his mother.

Decades later, I can still picture his tears, runny nose and anguished cries.