and that was the assessment of kim il sung and kim jong il, they were logical in their own context, they in power, but they had these psychological disorders. >> the young kim appears different. >> he's not as cooperative or communicative as his father or grandfather. so this guy is unpredictable, he's brash, he's -- in essence, irrational. and quite a big ego. >> kim's grandfather, kim il sung, quickly deployed a personality cult around his leadership. after he was installed with soviet backing following world war ii. monuments to him are everywhere in north korea. his birthday is celebrated with giant festivals. kim jong-un emulates his look, even his hairstyle, analysts say in an attempt to derive legitimacy. >> kim jong-un wants to project the image of his grandfather, kim il sung was viewed and is viewed by the people of north korea as a great revolutionary. he gave them independence. he fought against the colonials, he fought against japan, he fought against the united states in the korean war and south korea south korea. >> kim jong il was next in line with his penchant for luxuri

almost every page has a picture of kim il-sung. a young man brilliantly leading his troops here at there are no mentions of the chinese even though they sent hundreds of thousands of troops to support the north koreans. there is almost no mention -- there is no mention of the soviet union, which provided all the arms and equipment for the early attack in 1950, and also the military planning. that brings us as we move up in our look at how the war has been memorialized, the korean war memorial here on the mall. it wasn't until 1984, two years after the vietnam veterans memorial was dedicated that the first national korean war veterans association was even organized. they began immediately to lobby for their own recognition. it is only after the vietnam veterans have lobbied successfully, raised money, and built their own very dramatic memorial on the national mall. unlike -- the building of the korean war memorial, just the planning alone, people complained it took longer than fighting the war. there was all kinds of disputes betwee

guest: the founder of north korea, kim il-sung, had to lobby the soviets to back off of the deal they made with united states to partition the peninsula they made after world war ii. it is interesting, when stalin and mao gave the green light for kim il-sung to attack -- i would encourage listeners to go to and listen to this report. there is a great report a couple of months ago talking about how china continues the historical fiction today that the united states invited -- invaded the north. i agree with john totally. history matters a lot. but it is complicated. you have to fight for preserving a truthful narrative of history. and we certainly need to know more history in this country. host: let's say hello to illinois. mike on the independent line. caller: i would say that hiller's chief propagandist -- hitler's chief propagandist said tell a lie and people will start believing it. douglas macarthur did not want to start a war. he wanted to bomb the supply line and destroy them coming from china to korea. one other point. remember -- russia declared war on japan a week before they

narcissism and an abnormal attraction to violence and that was the assessment of kim il-sung and -- >r: it's kim il-sung who the young tyrant is believed to most want to emulate from the clothes he wears to his hairstyle. >> kim jong-un wants to project the image of his grandfather. viewed by the people of north - korea as a great revolutionary. he gave them independence. he fought against the colonials and japan and against the united stat states. >> reporter: is he under threat and could that cause him to flex his muscles in a show of strength? >> kim jong-un's leadership appears to be very solid. he has insulated himself and protected himself from any threats to his leadership. whether those be physical or political threats. >> reporter: analysts say it's possible north korea's elites may get nervous and move against kim if he keeps takes his country from one crisis to another. he keeps his generals under such close surveillance it would be tough for them to gather forces against him. brian todd, cnn, washington. >>> joined now by martin, a military expert at kings college in londo

watching president carter on a sort of pleasure cruise on a river with kim jong-un's grandfather, kim il-sungd stood in gardens of the embassy in seoul and we asked him, why had he had any reason to believe kim il-sung was telling the truth? it was cardinal statement of naivety in national security policy. he said, well if we don't think he would keep to the deal i would have to believe he was just three lying to me. this is a regime he lying to the world and its own people for three or four generations. time for america to be tough with them and to state things really forcefully. trish: that said, now that we have said, what we've said, now that the president has talked about this fury, we need, we need to mean what we say, boyd. so we don't have a situation as in the red line with syria, et cetera. not that that would happen, but, we are now out there, and we have made it clear that we're not going to tolerate north korea. so does that mean we're going to have to back it up? >> i think we do need to back it up. i think we needed to back it up for 25 years now. i mean ultimate in after all i

his father, by comparison, had nearly 20 years in the spotlight as kim il sung's chosen successor butn is put into power and over the course of six years, he's consolidated his power, he's executed all top officials who opposed him and thought he was too young, including his own uncle, and he rewrote the country's constitution to make north korea a nuclear power and also try to grow the economy at the same time. and from the north korean perspective, their economy grew by almost 4% last year because of trade largely with china, and they have an icbm with a miniaturized nuclear warhead so the word on the street in north korea is they think he's taking the country in the right direction. granted, it's an authoritarian regime, political dissent is not tolerated so what else would somebody say to a western journalist. >> just watching documentaries, seeing all the photos of kim jong un in the homes and how people just genuflect and the whole thing. will went through, you know, father and son. what are the similarities, and maybe more significantly, what's the biggest difference between so

rally in kim il-sung square in the center of pyongyang, a place i visited many times. hundreds of thousands attending this military rally chanting anti u.s. slogans and speaking out against the united states and president trump. >> will, thank you very much for that information. north korea says it has a plan to launch missiles near guam within days as the pentagon prepares for a preventive attack involving launching b-1b bombers from andersen air force base. ivan watson is live in guam with more. what have you learned, ivan? >> reporter: alisyn, the governor of guam, eddy calvo, i spoke with him at length. he says there's been no raising of the threat level here for this u.s. island despite these threats coming from pyongyang. he pointed out for missiles to reach here from north korea, they would have to pass through an umbrella of defense and security architecture that includes the u.s. and the south korean military and then the japanese defense forces and the u.s. military stationed on japan before reaching guam itself, which is also protected by several american mi

it got serious in 1976 when kim il-sung decided to invade the south. the presence of u.s.ces in the peninsula, they want us to leave. a lot of this nuclear blusterring is a means of trying to dedeuce this president or future president to pull out of the peninsula. as long as we stay in place and build an effective anti-ballistic missile shield which is fairly easy to do, we can check mate all of this bluster by the north koreans. >> a lot of people have talked -- the language the president and vice president and others have used there is too much of an error of strategic patience going back to the '70s and to now. i guess i like to bring up the iran example where while there are a lot of people who think the iran deal was bad, in a lot of ways they did trade off their nuclear weapons capability and so now we have whatever we have is not a nuclear capable iran. should we have done more of that with north korea in the '70s and '80s and '90s and 2000s? >> absolutely right. just so you know, the key game changer here is think of it this way, ali. think of sort of a strategic i

on kim il-sung square, a place i visited many times in the center of the city, i visited many times mobilized tens of thousands to protest the united states. to protest the new round of u.n. sanctions. these are not like protests in america. this is mandatory for people to attend. they leave their workplace. they leave their schools, they go, march, they hold up propaganda signs. this is what life is like in north korea, but they're doing this because they want to send a message of the solidarity of their people. of course in an authoritarian regi regime, political dissent is not tolerated, solidarity, support kim jong-un and his plan for the country or you're not a part of this society. >> all about imagery. the notion that any of those people came because they just really wanted to get out into the streets and say that the -- the united states is bad, you know. nobody really believes that, but will ripley, thank you so much for all of your insights and inspecially context given your experience. somebody else is at the table with context and experience in the region. cnn chief national secur

tens of thousands of people packed kim il-sung's square for the event. >>> the fbi searched the alexandriaia, home of paul manafort, president trump's former campaign manager, in the pre-dawn hours of july 26th. according to the "washington post," which broke the story, it was in connection with the investigation into russian meddling in the 2016 election. >>> and fans gathering and leaving plours at glen campbell's walk of fame star in hollywood. campbell died on tuesday after a long battle with alzheimer's disease. he sold more than 45 million records. dpl glenn campbell was 81 years old. you are up to date brian's back in town and he's got what's coming up on "power lunch" >> coming up, north korea and your money why aren't stocks reacting more to the fire and fury of rhetoric with pyongyang is it because we've seen this movie before or is this time really different >>> plus, will disney's dumping of netflix and a big bet on streaming be a winner for or it is a mouse of cards? >>> and look out l'oreal and estee lauder, the kardashians are coming for you scott, back to you >> pete is tra

setting aside the frictions of the 50s and 60s but beginning with deng xiaoping, trying to show that kim il sung once you could achieve if you changed your orientation and without getting into the gory details, that failed profoundly. it failed again after kim jong-il had a stroke. the chinese made a calculation, you get this young kid who spent time in switzerland. maybe this time the system will open up. it didn't happen that way. particularly after the execution of -- the chinese are reluctant to there is this. what we need is a private or dare i say confidential discussion with china because the other aspect, this is a big puzzle, for all the arguments about chinese assertiveness and big bed china, if i could use a phrase from richard nixon, when it comes to north korea china is a pitiful helpless giant, they -- paying said things to north korea -- to president obama, he said comparable things to donald trump, that basically -- this kid bite the hand that feeds him, not only is he ungrateful but he is putting at risk x why the. but paying for reasons that we don't have time to explore, dips

taught, but there is absolutely incontro veritable evidence that the korean war started because kim il-sungand stalin sat down and had conversations and planned it, and if you want further evidence, i strongly suggest that you look at the woodrow wilson center, one of my former students by is in the audience, james person, one of the leading experts in the country on international documentation about the korean war, and i think the evidence of this, how the war started in the first place, and who bears ultimate cholesterollal cuppability is very clear. >> i -- very briefly. from the little i know, greg is completely correct that the south koreans don't think it's a big new deal. they're kind of used to that. for 70 years. i'm not sure it's true for japan. i'm not sure it's true for guam. and so we need to go back to the situation you heard about earlier. somebody comes into the president, says they put a nuclear wind on top of a intercontinental missilement the response of the government doesn't wait until the president has a 15 minutes left. they talk about it ahead of time. i'm not saying

when we dealt with kim jong-il and kim jong sung, we would always cave in.he president made it clear there will be no appeasement. that may, they are trying to do. i'm sure president trump is very serious. david: you can still have diplomacy. there is room for both. some people say the many good cop-bad cop. i say it's diplomacy without appeasement. i single out one person. that's general mattis who is a tough marine general. he knows how to be tough an also knows how to be diplomatic. he sent a message earlier in the week that was tough. he said cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and destruction of its people. but listen to what he said a little bit later. >> right now secretary tillerson and ambassador haley, you can see the american effort is diplomatically led, it has diplomatic traction and gaining diplomatic results. i want to day right there. the tragedy of war is well enough known. it doesn't need another characterization beyond the fact it would be catastrophic. david: the mainstream media jumped on that and

. >> his father and kim il-sung before -- we think he is crazy person. what if he is a crazy enough to do it? connell: the rhetoric by the president criticized by some, making it worse. >> we've been screwing it up 25 years. president obama did exact same thing with iran and they will have nuclear weapons. president clinton did this in the '90s. we gave them that so they would give up nuclear weapons. same with iran. this is bad now. we're not good-looking into the future. what happens if we have nuclear terrorism with iran? that is something we need to get people come to the table to lie to us. we're not being mean. we're being nice. look how quick north korea came around the week ago it was isis. now oh, crap they have nuclear weapons they will use on our forces, allies and citizens. they hit alaska, san francisco. chicago, they could be here in 40 minutes. connell: in order of preference as final question, put pressure on china? >> put pressure on china. with the u.n. security council with unanimous sanctions against north korea. connell: that was a b

just talking about a different kind of leadership we're stuck with the moment of the grandson of kim il-sungerrible killer and started the terrible korean war. it runs in the family. what you need is somebody from outside the family >> but that sounds like a different regime a regime change. >> we're arguing about words there's a very big -- we're not talking about eliminating -- we're not talking about what happened in iraq and afghanistan. we're not talking about a military action to remove the regime, and replace it with something entirely different it's more the kind of change that took place in china under the leadership of deng xiaoping when china became oriented toward reform and open to the outside world and not so interested in flexing its power and its muscle >> do you see north korea not having nuclear weapons do you see that as a potential future when the current leader is saying there's no way, that's not a negotiating point? >> look, i think a north korea that was oriented on economic reform and interested in improving the condition of its people, instead of constantly demonstr

. >> reporter: it's his grandfather, kill il-sung, who is young tie rant wants to imitate. is kimg-un under threat internally? and if so, could that cause him to flex his muscles against the u.s. in a show of strength? >> kim jong-un's leadership appears to be solid. he has insulated himself and protected himself from any threats to his leadership, whether those be physical or political threats. ro >> reporter: analysts say it's possible the elites may move against kim if he keeps taking his country from one crisis to the other. but he keeps his generals under such close surveillance, it's tough to gather forces against him. >> interesting what john brennan said. he said he's a megalomaniac, and then that pause, i wouldn't say he's reckless at this point. that was last september. is he reckless now? big question for the world tonight. thanks for joining us. you can watch us any time, anywhere on cnn go. have a good weekend. see you monday. "ac 360" begins right now. >>> good evening. we begin with more startling headlines from president trump. in just a last four days, he's threat

il-sung. it's behind kim jong-un's statements. the national consciousness, so there is a question, are they deterred in the normal way? just with one other interesting thing, in their response to donald trump's fire and fury comment, they seemed to almost to be setting up the ladder of escalation by saying well we'll strike at guam, we'll envelope guam with fire. they didn't say they'd strike alaska, and i think people are going to study that comment very carefully, as they think how do the north koreans imagine this playing out as we go forward? >> and willie geist, we have breaking news. north korea, this according to the "wall street journal," not confirmed yet by nbc news, but the "wall street journal" in breaking news reporting that north korea has released a korean canadian pastor it has held since 2015 among rising tensions with the u.s. >> interesting timing on that, sir. we'll look more into confirming that as well, mike. >> you know, mark leibovic, in washington over the past 24 hours and throughout this country, there's