Dictator's former sushi chef tells all

TOKYO — For North Korea's ruler, Kim Jong Il, the latest tell-all book on the shelves in Japan is the rawest of betrayals: the confessions of the Dear Leader's own sushi chef.

Lured to Pyongyang from the sushi bars of Tokyo in 1982 by a Japanese trading company and a $5,000-a-month contract, the 56-year-old Japanese chef caught the eye of Kim Jong Il a few years later and for more than a decade catered to Kim's exotic tastes.

Today he is back in Japan, and under his pen name, Kenji Fujimoto, wrote a best-selling memoir, "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook." While North Korea is dependent on international food aid so that millions of its people do not starve, Fujimoto described Kim — a despot to some, demigod to others — as a sushi chef's dream: the ultimate gourmand.

"He particularly enjoyed sashimi so fresh that he could start eating the fish as its mouth is still gasping and the tail is still thrashing," Fujimoto said. "I sliced the fish so as not to puncture any of its vital organs, so of course it was still moving. Kim Jong Il was delighted. He would eat it with gusto."

Fujimoto agreed to be interviewed in a central Japanese town on the condition that the location not be disclosed. He said he still fears North Korean spies are on his trail because the end of his tenure in Pyongyang was not mutually agreed upon. The burly cook won permission to leave Pyongyang, he said, after telling Kim a fish tale about heading off to buy fresh Japanese sea urchin for a tasty new dish.

Fujimoto's book about life inside the Dear Leader's kitchen — published last year in Japanese and Korean — has piqued the interest of Japanese intelligence and foreign diplomatic officials who characterized Fujimoto's accounts as being largely credible.

Fujimoto tells of an episode in 1994 — the year Kim became head of state after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung — when he was invited to attend one of Kim's notorious "pleasure parties." Holding court while sporting his trademark bouffant hair and chunk heels, Kim beamed with excitement as his top aides boogied to American dance music with shocked young women who had been ordered by Kim to strip naked.

Fujimoto said he was dazzled by Kim's massive liquor cellar, stocked with nearly 10,000 bottles. To satisfy the Dear Leader's demanding tastes, Fujimoto was sent on international shopping trips, hauling back winter melons from China, pork from Denmark, caviar from Iran and Uzbekistan, but especially the finest sushi from Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, the largest in the world.

But Kim relished his meals, and could move himself to tears with his own toasts, often getting tipsy and, later, wistful. During fragile moments, Fujimoto said, Kim would often bemoan that Kim Jong Chul, his 22-year-old son, would never rule because he had turned out to be "like a girl."

Fujimoto said Kim doted on his youngest son — Kim Jong Woon, 18, who looks like his father.

"They were great boys," Fujimoto said. "(But) Kim Jong Woon will be his father's successor. Everyone used to say it. He looked and acted just like him."

Washington Post special correspondent Sachiko Sakamaki contributed to this report.