Former S. Korean Leader Kim Dae-jung Dies

Former President Kim Dae-jung, who survived assassination attempts during his years as a dissident and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation efforts with communist North Korea, died Tuesday. He was 85.

Kim, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia since last month, died shortly after 1:40 p.m. (0400 GMT), said Park Chang-il, chief of Severance Hospital in Seoul. He said Kim suffered respiratory distress, a pulmonary embolism and multiple organ failure.

The Nobel laureate's wife, three sons and ex-aides were at his side, according to Park Jie-won, Kim's former presidential chief of staff and culture minister.

South Korean leaders, from friends to former foes, had been paying their respects for days at the hospital to a man whose epic career spanned South Korea's political upheaval, from the decades of harsh authoritarian rule to its transformation into a full-fledged democracy.

As a pro-democracy opposition lawmaker, Kim built a reputation as a passionate champion of human rights and democracy who fought against South Korea's military dictatorships.

He survived several suspected assassination attempts, including a dramatic 1973 abduction at a Tokyo hotel, allegedly by South Korean agents.

And as president from 1998-2003, he was architect of the "Sunshine Policy" of reaching out to wartime rival North Korea as a way to encourage reconciliation.

His efforts led to an unprecedented thaw in relations with the North and culminated in a historic North-South summit - the first on the divided peninsula - and a jubilant meeting in Pyongyang with leader Kim Jong Il in 2000.

His successor, the late President Roh Moo-hyun, maintained the Sunshine Policy but Kim Dae-jung saw his work unravel with the election of conservative President Lee Myung-bak in 2007, who conditioned aid to the North on the regime's commitment to nuclear disarmament.

North Korea cut off nearly all reconciliation ties last year and suspended most of the joint projects that had sprung up in the wake of warming relations, although it announced its intention this week to resume some of them, including reunions of families divided for decades after the 1950-53 Korean War.

Over the past year, as international tensions rose over Pyongyang's continued nuclear defiance, Kim rallied up until the end for Seoul to find a way to engage the North.

He said in January that Koreans on both sides of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone must be mindful of their "painful and tragic" history and work together to establish peace and security on the Korean peninsula.

"The South and North have never been free from mutual fear and animosity over the past half-century - not even for a single day," he told reporters. "When we cooperate, both Koreas will enjoy peace and economic prosperity."

Kim was devastated by Roh's suicide three months ago amid a broadening corruption probe focused on the Roh family.

"I feel like half of my body has crumbled," Kim said after learning Roh had jumped to his death in May.

Kim was born to a middle-class farming family on a small island in South Jeolla Province in Korea's southwest when Korea was still under Japanese colonial rule. The region later became the base of his political support. He went into business after World War II ended Japanese rule.

Kim survived the three-year war that left the Korean peninsula divided, but as South Korea fledgling government veered toward authoritarianism, he resolved to go into politics.

After three losing bids, he was elected to the National Assembly in 1961. Days later, Gen. Park Chung-hee staged a military coup and dissolved parliament.

Kim ran for the presidency a decade later - and nearly defeated Park. That close call prompted Park to tinker with the Constitution to guarantee his rule in the future.

Just weeks after the presidential elections, Kim was in a suspicious traffic accident that he believed was an attempt on his life. For the rest of his life, he walked with a limp and sometimes used a cane.

Kim persevered in the face of nearly successful attempts by the military-ruled government to shut him down.

In 1973, suspected South Korean agents broke into his Tokyo hotel room and dragged him to a ship where he claimed they planned to dump him at sea.

The would-be assassins aborted the plan following intervention by U.S. officials, who sent an American military helicopter flying low over the ship.

Donald Gregg, who was the U.S. ambassador to Seoul at the time, visited Kim at the hospital last week during a trip to Seoul.

"My husband would rise from the bed if he knew you were here," Kim's wife, Lee Hee-ho, told Gregg. "You played a crucial role in saving my husband's life when he was kidnapped in 1973 and have helped us greatly since then."

After the ship incident, Kim returned to Seoul - but was immediately put under house arrest by the Park government, and then imprisoned. His release came only after Park's own assassination by his spy chief in late 1979.

Kim was pardoned and his civil rights restored a few months later, allowing him to resume his political activities, but the drama did not end there.