kim il sung square was filled with thousands of people in a government rally against the united states and the united nations. >> andrei lankov is a historian who has studied north korea for decades. >> north korea is a notorious human rights abuser. arguably the world's worst human rights abuser. having said that these resolutions have no impact whatsoever. because they understand: it's official now: if they lose they are not going to be spared. so they are going to fight and they are going to be even more repressive, not less. >> in seoul, kim ji-woo ("kim jee oo") - not her real name - told us she had been arrested and tortured by the north korean security police after she was falsely accused of being a spy. she said she defected in 2013 and that her family is still in north korea. ji-woo told us that when kim jong il died many people had a secret hope his son would bring change but she says it could not be said publicly and they had to fake their grief but she said that hope didn't last long. >> did you ever see something like that? did you see executions? >> there is a small dirty

even the united nations -- and the point is, all on the side of kim il-sung. he was a dedicated communist no question. if this new book leaves that out -- there's no movie if they leave that out of the movie, that will be a tremendous -- >> host: did any of the hollywood ten ever repent? yes. demetri was a famous writer -- i knew him back in 1997. that ways the 50th anniversary of the hollywood ten and the hollywood put on this big dramatic show about the terrible plight of the hollywood ten. i feel differently about hollywood. the fact is that i feel differently if they were truly talking about people who had been black lifted unfairly. if they weren't stalinists or weren't members of the fifth column here in the united states, trying to destroy it and impose this sort of lawful symptom upon this country, and they -- they praised the people who were the stalinists. it's beyond my -- >> host: puppets of a foreign government. >> guest: yes, absolutely, and a foreign government that was our enemy. it wasn't like england or they were some -- i feel a little diffe

he has an alibi and i would defend both to the death about what he said and then here he is for kim il sung. this is another little interesting story as it seems to me. he was kicked out of the communist party. he was the head of the party that kicked out in 1945 on the ground that he was began believe there could be progressive capitalism and that there could be a peaceful transition to socialism and that even after the war come even after world war ii that the united states and the soviet union could actually be friendly for a while and as a result, it's a complicated story but anyway, people believe for a variety of reasons that they wanted him out. there was a big attack against him but everyone thought of as a that was a signal from stalin's or instantly the communist party here in the united states goes after him because he wants peaceful transition and once the united states basically to be cooperating in the soviet union after world war ii and they kicked him out. and above hollywood ten -- it might have even been in 45 but of the hollywood ten, they went against him and there was a

he first flew back to pyongyang to brief kim il-sung on what happened and then they communicated to the vietnamese. they were outraged and they talked about betrayal and the communist movement. but they diplomacy associated with this initiative was very complicated. >> let's explore what was going on in china at the time. the cultural revolution. was it from their perspective -- was it only now who could do this deal? -- was only mao who could do this deal? >> the fact was it was an enormous political risk for both mao and for richard nixon. one could say that rick -- that nixon managed his internal politics more successfully. there was a coed tent by the man we thought had been designated as mao's successor. we now know that -- we forget the exact day -- but after this coup attempt, he got on a plane fearing arrest and the plane crashed in mongolia. >> it was october 1971. there was a very heavy police presence and we did not know why. >> we later got the intelligence reporting there were people in the chinese leadership who were strongly opposed to this and it -- to this initiative. t

i was in korea when we signed at agreement with kim il-sung.have 17 sites across iran that are used to manufacture nuclear weapons. they're so far along in this program nobody can turn them back. the only person who could even push back their nuclear program is the united states. for the next two years, we're not going to do it. and the iranians know that. >> any deal is going to be a bad deal. our only alternative would be to bomb those sites. we're not going to do that. israel could do that but how likely is that? >> it's unlikely. because i don't want to get too much inside baseball with you here, but if you look at the correlation of forces and the size of the israeli air force and the size of the target. the israelis even with the help of some gulf states, wouldn't be able to put enough military force forward to even put a den the in the iranian nuclear program. they know that we're not going to help them, so i think the iranians now have sort of -- it's open season for them to complete their nuclear program, and i think mr. netanyahu is e

. >> very quickly, kim il-sung had been requesting assist -- assistance for invasion of the south from stalin. stalin finally decided to support the invasion. a memo cites some of the things that changed his mind. a prominent one was mao zedong's success in china. also, the soviet union's success in setting off a nuclear weapon, it would neutralize america upon using nuclear weapons in response. stalin cites those as factors in his decision. >> what i would like to do before we wrap it up completely, as if we were doing a television program in the old days, i want to ask you for a final thought. i don't want each of you to go beyond a minute. we will start with mark and go down the line. looking at the material -- >> looking at the materials that have emerged over the past 23 years in russia and outside russia, the thing that strikes me most, at the end, is simply the scale and aggressiveness of the soviet espionage effort during the stalin era. again, we have been focusing on the networks in the united states but it was true all around the world, at least, i have been able to -- i hav