The Hungarian Ambassador in North Korea reports on the construction of the Kori Nuclear Power Plant in South Korea, highlighting that South Korea's projected power output would eventually surpass North Korea's by three-fold. As a result, North Korea was anxious to build its own nuclear power plant and perhaps even an atomic bomb.
May 22, 1979
Report, Embassy of Hungary in North Korea to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry
[…]
Assisted by the USA, the [South Korean] defense industry, with the exception of those weapons whose production needs great technological precision, is developing rapidly. South Korea started to manufacture guided missiles. A successful test of the latter took place last September. In 1980 they will start to manufacture the electronic equipment of arms and airplanes. Recently, in the 22 December 1978 issue of The Washington Post, American journalists Roland Evans and Robert Novak pointed out that “South Korea already possesses the technological documentation needed for the independent production of nuclear weapons.”
[…]
Ferenc Szabó
Ambassador
The Hungarian Embassy in North Korea reports on South Korea's nuclear capabilities and technology, as reported by the Washington Post.
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MOL, XIX-J-1-j Dél-Korea, 1979, 81. doboz, 82-5, 003675/1979. Obtained and translated for NKIDP by Balazs Szalontai.
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