As Kim Jong Il continues to elude efforts to constrain his nuclear program, a grudging regard for the North Korean leader's tactical skills is rising.

Mr. Kim was once thought to be over his head as a leader. But 12 years after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, the son is showing brilliance as a dictator. Some experts say that Kim, in his own way, may be shrewder than the father who built the nation.

"Kim was in many ways dealt a weaker hand than his father, but he has played it better," says Brian Myers, a North Korea specialist at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea.

Certainly, Kim has become a skillful player on the world stage. He retains firm hold of the most totalitarian state on earth. His nation has survived an epic famine. Kim has astutely nullified a dawning realization among his people that the world beyond North Korea's borders is a better place. He's even created a new image for himself at home – not as a towering patriarch – but as a figure of sympathy, a beleaguered, America-taunted leader who eats soldier's gruel and deserves care by the masses. He's played a smart propaganda game in South Korea, where some elites admire him as a nationalist torchbearer for "true Korean-ness," and for outwitting the great powers.

Now, Kim has tested a nuclear weapon – the eighth nation to publicly do so – and has developed a ballistic missile program.

"Why shouldn't Kim be seen as extraordinary?" asks Alexander Mansourov of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. "He's poked his finger in the eye of the US hegemon. He's tested missiles and nukes. At home he's more popular than ever."

Abroad, Kim is seen as enigmatic, reclusive – part fox, part oddball. He's reported to hold all-night parties that serve as loyalty tests. He chain-smokes, loves Ferraris, goes gaga over gourmet food, has 30 homes, wears 12-centimeter high (4.7 inch) platform shoes, kidnaps the occasional South Korean actress, and is crazy about karaoke, James Bond films, and the Internet.

Yet that image, though partly true, is itself propaganda, say former Pyongyang diplomats, high-level defectors, and Korea experts. They say the real Kim is a bit unsure, frightened of China and the US, and may suffer from a learning disability. Kim's sister-in-law told a diplomat that Kim is "often timid." His father may not have offered him much respect.

Bradley Martin, author of "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty," says Kim may suffer from stage fright. Surprisingly for a state leader, especially a "godhead," Kim's voice has been heard only once by the nation, for a total of nine words. "Glory to the heroic soldiers of the People's Army," he said in 1992 at an obscure rally at a military base. Invitations to one state reception noted that one may speak to Kim, but that Kim would "not speak in reply," a Eastern European diplomat remembers. Kim has never appeared live on TV. Even in the period of mourning after the death of his father, the "Great Leader" – when posters stated mystically that "Kim Jong Il is now Kim Il Sung" – there was no fireside chat by Kim junior to his people.

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