Deadly Agents

Tongue looked sullen. Two soldiers approached him, grabbed him up by the elbows, and escorted him out of the room. The sixty seven year old official looked hunched and frail, as if on the verge of collapse. Within days he would be dead. The so called dreams and double dealings Uncle Tongue committed were never specified. All we know is that Kim jong nun considered him a threat, and some believe Kim jong nam factored into his death sentence. Chang

Song Tech clearly had a favorite nephew. He and Kim jong nam spoke on the phone regularly and shared common goals for the country. Chang reportedly wired money to his nephew and Macao. Some murmured that Change was hoping to install Kim jong Nam as the next leader. Others suggested that China was providing security for Kim jong Nam as a favorite to Uncle Change as a thank you for

his Chinese friendly policies. Few know what conversations were had in Beijing, but rumors have swirled China was taking a close look at Kim jong Nam just in case the incumbent leader needed to be well replaced. Kim Jong Nam was an obvious choice for that, because you know, he's

known to be quite friendly to China. He was somebody I think that China felt could be counted on and was beholden to them, And that is why I think he was living in Macau as well, a Chinese terror ary, a place where he could come and go easily, but under the protection of China. Even if China provided Kim jong Nam with security, it didn't provide much support financially, because shortly after Uncle Tang was dispatched from this planet with anti aircraft guns. No less, Kim Jong Nam's lavish

lifestyle began to flounder. The man who was accustomed to staying at five star hotels and oceanside villas was now desperately reserving airbnbs. Another former school friend of Kim Jong Nam told me that Kim jong Nam seem to have been kind of cut off from the regime finances once Kim Jong Nun took over. For reasons that aren't clear, the revenue stream Kim jong Nam had secured running his

gambling sites may have dried up. He was clearly working for a living, working for himself, and making money for himself. In the final years of his life. With Uncle Chang dead, Kim jong Nam became increasingly desperate for cash, and just days before his assassination in February, he took one of the biggest risks of his life, apparently in a bid

to make much needed money. He flew to Malaysia, away from the protection of his Chinese minders, and visited Langkawi, an archipelago known for its serene, palm dazzled islands, white sandy beaches, and turquoise waters. During his stay at a Western hotel hell on Langkawee, security footage would catch Kim jong Nam backpack and tow meeting a suspicious stranger. So some of the last footage of Kim jong Nam showed him in a hotel elevator with a man of Asian ethnicity.

The man's identity is a mystery, but according to South Korea's intelligence agency, the man was not some childhood friend from Switzerland, nor a friendly comrade from back home, nor even one of Kim jong Nam's gambling clients. He was American and he worked for the c I A I'm even lee. In this episode, we delve into the twisted relationship between Kim jong Nam, the United States and North Korea, and a big question was Kim jong Nam an American asset?

And it's so did the US government know what could happen to him? The regime has every interest to keep tabs on his brother. North Korea has chemical weapons capability, but the willingness to use UH is there. Kim jong Nam had been acting as an informant to the CIA, giving them information what he knew about Kim Jong Lan and the regime. This is big brother in North Korea. There may be no worse crime than working with or being sympathetic to the Americans. And that's because the United

States in North Korea's eyes is public Enemy No. One. The DPRK's behavior, it's obsession with weapons of mass destruction, it's devotion to military first policy, even the way it killed Kim Jong Nam, all tied into the country's tense relationship with the US. But to understand why, we have to go back to June the outbreak of the Korean War. I would say, with just the slightest exaggeration, that the

Korean War launched modern international history. As Dr Lee explains, the Korean War transformed the United Nations from a paper organization into a global force. It's why American troops are stationed at basis in more than seventy foreign countries, and it deepened the tensions that would come to define the Cold War. The Korean War was deeply consequential, and yet the conflict would be largely hidden from the American public. The Korean War has long been dubbed in the United

States It's as the Forgotten War. But for the five hundred thousand Korean War veterans still alive today from the various countries that fought in it, very little has been forgotten, especially in Korea. The war touched upon the lives of the vast majority of the people in both South Korea and North Korea in a tragic negative way. Virtually every Korean had a family member or relative who was maimed

or killed or lost. Over fifteen percent of North Korean civilians were sacrificed, ten million people probably displaced from home, hundreds of thousands of orphans. So the death toll and the suffering, and it's one relevant factor metric, of course, But of course that doesn't tell the entire story. That entire story really it's with the indiscriminate splitting of the Korean peninsula at the thirty eighth parallel, the line dividing

North and South. So late night on August tenth, the United States came up with a plan for temporarily dividing Korea at the halfway the midway point at the thirty eighth parallel, to block further advancement of the Soviet troops. So this was a proposal submitted by the United States to stalin North and South Korea. In other words, were inventions of other nations. No Koreans had a seat at

the table when their homeland was divided. The haphazard manner in which the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula came to take place is a source of ire for the people of Korea, but the initially the intention was to say at least half a loaf half of the Korean peninsula, to put South Korea under the U s fere influence. The line, however, was not something Koreans on either side recognized culturally or politically, so the United States and Soviet

Union made a promise the division would be temporary. In the United Nations tried to erase the dividing line and unite the peninsula under one government with an election, but when it came time to vote, the Soviet Union refused to let the UN Commission cross into North Korea. Locked out of the North, the UN decided to hold assembly elections anyway, but only in the South, and with that the government of South Korea was officially established and any

chance of uniting the peninsula peacefully vanished. And then two years later, in June fifty, the Korean War began. Under the strangest of circumstances, Koreans invaded Korea with the goal of unifying Korea. There's no doubt who started it, Kimils Hung and the communist North, but American officials refused to

believe the North Korean leader was actually responsible. When news of the North Korean invasion of South Korea broke, President Truman himself almost immediately decided to take action due to a misreading of the situation. Do you too seeing North Korea's invasion of the South as Stalin and Mao's ploy viewing the North Korean leader Kim Is Sung as a

mere puppet to Stalin and Mao. In fact, the high ranking State Department official said that the relationship between Stalin and Kimmi Sung is exactly the same as that between Won't Disney and Donald Duck. Kimi Song is not his own man, and Stalin is pulling the strings. In an effort to beat back the attack, the United Nations pour troops into the peninsula, both what out of misreading the situation.

Within weeks, North Korea had nearly taken over the entire South Korean peninsula, But with the backing of the U n the South Korean military would soon receive international support. Sixteen countries, including Turkey and Ethiopia, deployed military troops. Thirty nine other countries gave financial and material support, but it was the United States that provided the bulk of foreign

manpower and weaponry. The U n Forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, slowly began to beat back the Northern invasion. Only five is removed from World War Two. American officials chose a playbook that had successfully repelled Imperial japan air power. The air force weaken the North Korean advance by targeting the military's rear, disabling the chain of troops in charge of supplying the front with AMMO, gasoline, and food. They

also heavily targeted North Korean cities. This strategy, while effective, would lead to the most destructive bombing campaign in military history. As the U. S Secretary of Defense, Robert Lovett explained, we keep on tearing the place apart, we can make a most unpopular fair for the North Koreans. We ought to go right ahead. The extent of the bombing was unimaginable. North Korea was flattened. More than five percent of the country's buildings were destroyed. Some cities, like sina Ju, were

transformed into rubble. American pilots also targeted irrigation dans that have provided water for three quarters of the country's crops, flood waters destroyed squads of farmland. Suffering ensued. With their cities gone, millions of North Koreans resorted to living underground, and the hell fire continued. With a new lethal innovation that had been tested in World War Two, but now in the Korean War, made its real debut, napalm. This is what an a pound bomb does. When it hits,

it's searing flames spreads four hundreds of feet. The infantrymen then take over and advance at the crucial rate, despite the pounding of red buckers. It is a harrowing foot by foot operation. Deep in their trenches. There are still plenty of the enemy and after to pour fire into the attackers, but the flamethrower silence system at a smoke screen masks the attack. Grim is the word for Korea.

Napalm charred the countryside and the people in it. From June to October, the US would drop more than eight hundred sixty six thousand gallons of napalm on North Korea. By the war's end, more napalm was dropped on the DPRK than any other nation in history. Vietnam included to be clear, we're not trying to stoke sympathy for the North Korean regime, nor to excuse the terrible atrocities that has committed both during a war it started and in

the decades since. But the widespread bombing of North Korea is vital to understanding the country's attitude toward the United States, because while the Korean War might be forgotten in the US, in the DPRK, the air bombardment is taught in every school today. Most of North Korea as anti American propaganda

is built on easily disproved lies. But the difficult truth is that the foundation the spark for much of this anti americanism, according to journalist Blaine Harden, is quote rooted in a fact based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers. That lingering resentment is just one of many unintended consequences. Another is North Korea's obsession with weapons of mass destruction. Because in late n the U N Forces did more

than just repel North Korean attacks. They cross the thirty eighth parallel with the goal of unifying Korea for the South. But on the other side, a goliath was waiting. China kept issuing threats. If you enter North Korean territory. If you approach our border, we will fight you. We will send true and MacArthur dismissed those Chinese threats as just empty threats. But MacArthur was wrong. China did step in

not wanting Western soldiers anywhere near its border. China would send more than three million people to North Korea's aid. General Douglas MacArthur, who believed he could win the war with quote one hand tied behind his back, argued that the best way to cut off the Chinese advance was to drop nuclear weapons in Korea. I visualize a cul de sac. I see here a unique use for the atomic bomb to strike a blocking blow at the Pentagon.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected MacArthur's proposal, but MacArthur pushed and pushed and pushed again. He'd request a total of twenty six atomic bombs, and although those requests were denied, he would remain a shameless advocate for nuclear attack. I would have dropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombs strung across the neck of Manchuria. The bomb wasn't MacArthur's only go to. He also suggested releasing chemical weapons.

Arguing that the military should spread radioactive waste across the border, creating a chemical fence that would keep Communist ground troops barricaded up North. Instead, President Harry Truman would fire him for in subordination, but MacArthur's replacement, General Matthew Ridgeway, was also a fan of nuclear weapons. He would request thirty

eight atomic bombs. The Pentagon did not approve. It did, however, later approve of request from the Joint chiefs of Staff, who, according to Korean war scholar Bruce Cummings, ordered quote atomic retaliation against Manchurion bases if large numbers of new troops came into fighting. By ninette, the possibility of a nuclear attack on North Korea seemed so inevitable that Air Force pilots started flying practice runs dropping dummy bombs on would

be targets. By the time the armistice was signed in nineteen fifty three, with both sides effectively agreeing to a stalemate, North Korean civilians and leaders were paranoid about the threat of nuclear annihilation, and that paranoia would only grow. By nineteen sixty seven, the United States was storing approximately nine

hundred fifty nuclear warheads in South Korea. The United States removed the last of these weapons from the peninsula, but to this day, submarines and stations nearby provide a so called nuclear umbrella, and that fact has fueled North Korea's decision making. It isn't irrational for North kore you to think it might need um greater security. That again is Jenny Town of the Simpsons Center. The nuclear attack is possible,

they don't rule it out. It's you know, during the Korean War, UM, the US did threaten to use nuclear weapons, and there have been in the past US nuclear weapons, you know, stationed in South Korea, and there is the US nuclear umbrella, right, So there are reasons. It's a small country in the middle of economic and political giants, um, and it's a country that doesn't necessarily have any real allies, you know, it has a relationship with the Chinese, relationship

with the Russians. Doesn't really trust that, you know, in the case of something happening, not really. And you're looking at a nuclear dense region as well, right, China has nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear weapons, US has nuclear weapons, and South Korea and Japan have nuclear weapons by default, So there is a sense of insecurity that drives a

lot of their decisions. The North Koreans look at the history um and especially you know from the Korean War on and say that it's possible, no matter where you go in Korea, North or South, you cannot escape the dynamics created by the Korean War and the antagonistic relationship that followed. It's one of the reasons North Korea is

constantly rattling its saber, trying to look tough. It's one of the reasons Kimill's hung embraced che later investing obscene portions of his country's GDP to build up one of the world's largest militaries. And it's why North Korea has worked so hard to develop its own deterrent, a deterrent that Kim jong nam was well aware of because remember

his rendezvous in Langkawee, Malaysia. A few days after that hotel meeting with an American spy, Kim Jong Nam would try to leave the country with multiple vials of an antidote designed to combat the toxic nerve agent v X. Kim Jong Nam knew something, and that's this. When Western Powers began installing nuclear weapons in South Korea, the DPRK, then two Poor to counteract the arsenal with atomic bombs of its own, came up with a strategy one they

believed that could neuter the US is atomic power. North Korea would build a stockpile of chemical weapons so large it could end all human life as we know it, and North Korea wouldn't be afraid to use it. In the nineteen fifties, as blood and bombs spilled over the Korean Peninsula, chemists in the United Kingdom were waging a

very different kind of battle against insects. The pesticide industry was booming and Dr Ron J. Ghosh, a chemist working for Imperial Chemical Industries in gelts Hill, England, was looking for chemicals that could kill common pests, specifically mits. Ghost was directed to look closely at secret research on a group of toxic pesticides called g agents, which have been

developed by German scientists during the nineteen thirties. Glos went to work, and in nineteen fifty two, at the height of the Korean War, he and a fellow chemist named J. F. Newman, discovered a substance an organo phosphate esther of substitute amino ethiol called Amaton. The men celebrated the discovery. Ghost was convinced he had found the pesticide to end all pesticides.

Advertisers believed it too. By Amaton was being marketed across the United Kingdom as the next great bug killer, but within three years it would be pulled off the shelves. Turns out Amaton was much more than an insecticide. It was a nerve agent. So Ghosh went back to work. He continued trying to turn the Nazi G agents into effective and safe pesticides, but every time he attempted to

discover a less toxic substance, he failed. In fact, each new advancement seemed to make the G agents more toxic. The most noxious, most deadly, most terrified rying agent Ghosh concocted would be so potent that only a few milligrams were needed to kill a human. It would be named Venomous Agent X. Today it's just called v X. And

that is where our stories collide. Because during the Korean War, as American planes rain bombs and bullets on North Korean cities, Kimilsung directed his military to build a labyrinth of underground tunnels and bunkers for protection. North Korea hasn't stopped digging

since you might remember our friend historian Benjamin Young. They remembered the years of the US air bombardment, and so there's a reason why North Korea has built so many of its military facilities under the ground, in mountainous ravines, under mountains. They have a massive tunnel system. So North Korea's history has made it into this very deeply paranoid,

almost subterranean system. Today, it's estimated that North Korea has up to fifteen thousand underground layers acting as aircraft hangars, material depots, and weapons storage facilities. It's believed the majority of the country's military supplies are protected by these underground bunkers. I think that one day, perhaps the regime will collapse and we'll go then and we'll see just how huge their tunnel system was underneath the ground, and just how

prepared they were for any sort of airbombardment. And that might be one of the secrets that Kim Jong nam was harboring as the son of the dear leader. He knew that these underground cities held North Korea's war chests of chemical weapons, including what maybe the largest stockpile of VX nerve agent in the world. Today, North Koreas cash of chemical weapons is the world's third largest, lagging behind

only the US and Russia. The country is home to at least eleven chemical weapons facilities, almost all of them buried underground, that may produce and store up to five thousand metric tons of these deadly agents. But truth be told, nobody certain how much they really have. North Korea has um you know, chemical weapons capability, the extent of which we don't really know, but the willingness to use uh is there. We do, however, have a good idea of

what's in North Korea's stockpile. Anthrax, smallpox, amaton, mustard, gas saren, the plague, and yes, VX agent, all of which are ready for their neighbors to the south or anyone else who messes with them near their turf. North Korea has the capability of attaching you know, chemical weapons, even to their short range ballistic missiles. Chemill Song was right to bet on chemical weapons. Chemical missiles are cheaper and potentially more lethal than nuclear warheads. It would only take one

gallon of anthrax to end all human life. Indeed, for decades, this chemical stockpile has been a remarkable deterrent and a threatening bargaining chip. The US won't use its nukes because that would compel the North to release its chemical weapons, and the North won't use its chemical weapons because that would compel the US to use its nukes. It's led to a strategic standoff, a menacing game of chicken that allows North Korea to act belligerent lee with few consequences.

Anything else would be catastrophic. In the n nineties, the Pentagon calculated the cost of a pre emptive strike on North Korea. The results suggested that an attack would cost the US more than a trillion dollars and require at least a hundred thousand body bags just for American troops alone. The potential loss of life in a second Korean conflict is you know, millions of people. You have. You have to remember that Soul the capital of South Korea. It's only thirty miles away from the d m z Um

and about a quarter of the population lives there. Um The response time that it takes to defend Soul and the amount of damage that can be done very quickly is enormously high. This standoff has done more than preserved North Korea's existence. It's been a boon to the country's economy. It essentially uses weapons of mass destruction to extort foreign countries into lifting ancients. It's also a valuable export. These chemical weapons can be shipped rogue nations and terrorist groups.

North Korea never really admits to having chemical weapons are actually using it. That again is Sue Kim, our ex CIA analyst. But we know that it's actually tried to transfer chemical weapons to other countries. It's got the technology and equipment, so it should be a concern. In fact, we know that North Korea exported chemical equipment to Syria coincidentally around the same time Syrian President Bashar al Assad

was gassing his own citizens. Meanwhile, in the US, there's practically no VX at all in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention in agreement North Korea disregards the United States has destroyed almost all of its stock of VX. Today, one of America's largest collections of VX rockets. It's resting at the bottom of the ocean, just off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey. All of that's to say, while North Korea is nuclear weapons get most of the attention.

Perhaps it's time the country's chemical arsenal commands more of our scrutiny. We do talk constantly about the came regime's missile development, the provocations and those are all of course valid um incredible security concerns, but the chemical warfare component um the cyber components, I think are just as deadly and in some cases even more deadly. The chemical weapons in combination with the ballistic missiles, can lead to, I would say, much more broader, far reaching implications than the

time to think. Because of this perception that Earth crews backwards, because it's it's poor, because weird has a funny looking reader, we tend to sort of dismiss a lot of these serious developments. I think it's an advantage for North Korea to play this on all the while developing so many lethal options later to threaten the international community to use it,

or to actually do try to use it. As the world found out in It's exactly the kind of weaponry one might use too quickly and silently kill a target in a very public place. Over the course of this podcast, we've gone over a plethora of theories of who killed Kim Jong nam and why was it Kim Jongan ensuring his throne wouldn't be jeopardized. Was it North Korea and

elites with an eye on his money making software. Was it someone else in the regime who was threatened by his reform minded ideas To be honest, It may not just be one, because Kim jong Nam had evaded death before. In the early two thousand's, somebody masterminded a plot to kill him in Austria, but that, as you may remember, was thwarted, and in shortly after Kim Jongan was annointed successor, a North Korean spy paid a Chinese taxi driver to

run over Kim jong Nam with his car. The hit and run failed, and in after Yoji Komi published his tell all book, Kim jong Nam reportedly dodged another attack, the details of which are murky, but according to South Korean intelligence, the exiled prince was so distressed that he wrote a letter to his brother pleading for his life. Please withdraw the order to punish me and my family. We have nowhere to hide. The only way to escape

is to choose suicide. No matter who was trying to kill him, Kim jong Nam knew the bucks stopped with his brother. It seems Kim jong N didn't listen, and after Chang Song Tech was killed, North Korean spies apparently began tailing Kim jong Nam's movements. Even if Kim jong Nam wanted to divorce himself from all of his connections

in North Korea, it's not up to him. The regime that the Kim jong N leadership has every interest to keep tabs on this this brother one because of course he was family, and too because of the potential threat that he would pose to Kim jong N as the leader.

But actions, of course, can have unintended consequences, just as the U. S air bombardment and nuclear weapons inadvertently encouraged North Korea to build tunnels and beef up on chemical weapons, cutting off Kim jong nam slash fund had unexpected results too. Kim jong Nam needed money. According to the Washington Post, the circumstances may have quote thrust Kim jong Nam into the arms of foreign intelligence services as he tried to

maintain his lifestyle. So a very reliable source obviously can't name, told me that Kim jong Nam had been providing intelligence to the CIA while he was living in exile. I mean, we know that he was having to earn money for himself, that it wasn't the beneficiary of the regime's larges anymore

after Kim Jong nun took power. Um, so it stands, you know, it makes sense that he would be having to earn a living, and you know what is his more was unique marketable skill, I guess, is giving intelligence about about Kim jongan and what's going on in North Korea. Journalists at the Wall Street Journal would later corroborate five fields reporting suggesting that Chong Nam occasionally met CIA handlers

and undisclosed locations in Malaysia and Singapore. He wasn't an agent or anything like that, but he was providing the information that he had. There have also been multiple reports since then that he was doing the same for South Korea also potentially Japan. To learn more, we prodded deeper with Sue Kim, hoping she'd spill some CIA secrets to us.

She was understandably unable to confirm these suspicions. You know, I can't really comment about how the the Intel organizations obtained sources, so I'm not sure if I could help you with this question. But she was able to help provide us with the rationale. If the CIA did hypothetically see gout Tong Num, there would be I would say great value because he has lived inside the country. Um. He is the son of Kim jong so he knows a lot about the system. He knows a lot about

his family members. UM. He also knows how North Korea thinks. Um, not just the leadership, but just North Korean. I would say, just the the culture. So there would be a lot of value. And as much as there's a lot of value for foreign intel services, it's going to be an even greater threat for North Korea. We don't know what Kim jong nam told the CIA or how long he worked with them. All we know is that when Kim jongan was announced his successor, intelligence agencies had little information

about him. They scramble to learn anything they could, and what better source than his older brother. If the United States for South Korea were able to form relationship with Kim Jong nam, think about how much more vulnerable Kim Jong nan is going to feel about his decision making, about his health, about his interesting quirks. And on the day Kim jong nam met with the suspected CIA agent in Langkawi, he took the man into his hotel room. There,

it's believed he shared intelligence from his computer. We know this because days after Kim jong nam died, police found evidence that somebody had extracted extensive amounts of data with the USB drive. Cheng Nam would also try to leave the country with four bricks of cash, each bundle amounting to around thirty dollars, and of course those vials of antidote. Did Kim jong Nam request this his payment or did

the CIA offer it as an exchange. Honestly, nobody outside of those involved in the exchange knows, But we do know that Kim Jongan's own spies may have been lurking in the shadows the DPR case seemed to be aware of Toeng Nam's itinerary. It's possible that because they were tailing him, they knew that he was talking to American spies, and if that's true, that would present yet another reason for his half brother to want him out of the picture. The CIA has a history of trying to take down

foreign governments. It had tacitly endorsed the overthrow Vietnam's prime minister, had helped organize the downfall of Chile's president, and had plotted to assassinate the Democratic Republic of Congo's first prime minister with a deadly virus, And of course they famously tried and failed to poison Fidel Castro's cigars, So what was stopping the CIA from trying the same with Kim

jong un. Sue Kim is wary of how much Tongu Nam's links with the agency might have influenced North Korea's decisions. I think it had much more to do with leadership insecurities. The fact that this this oldest son who was roaming about freely outside North Korea getting to enjoy life, occasionally making these nonchalant comments about the North Korean system, the leadership, and and you know, just being critical about the country. It was not going to be. It wasn't going to

reflect well, obviously upon Kim Jongan. North Korea watchers like Michael Madden also questioned whether the CIA connection was really all that significant. In his opinion, the prince was already a marked man. Disregard all of us, disregard all of the stuff about Kim Jong Nam being a source for foreign intelligence. That's just a really nice story for the

news media. There'd be other motivations but that begs the question, if there had been so many reasons to kill this man for decades, now, why did it take so long for North Korea to pull the trigger. Madden suggests the reason Kim jong Nam lived until was because he still had a number of advocates in the regime. There were other elites, people who considered Kim jong Nam as family. There was Rios, a nineties something former hit man who was like a grandfather to the prince. He died in November.

A few months later, a former female comrade of Kim Il Song, also close to Kim jong Nam, died as well. By the end of Kim jong Nam's circle of influence had either defected, We're trapped in prison camps or were buried underground. He no longer had friends or family to speak up for him. Were put in motion Kim jong

Nam's assassination. I really think that's a huge factor. Madden might be onto something, because in late North Korea spies began hatching one of the most elaborate assassination plots ever devised. Since Kim jong Nam enjoyed protection in China and was now spending time with foreign intelligence agents, the spies realized

they had to be careful and strategic. So the hitman likely decided that the best way to assassinate Kim Jong Nam was to kill him with a unique method, a method that was understated, bloodless, immediate, and immaculately lethal, deep underground, stalked away in its hidden tunnels, North Korea had the

perfect murder weapon on its hands. What we know about VX nerve agent comes largely thanks to research done by Dr Van and Sim, the former director of human research at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, where the U. S. Army

used to test the effects of various chemical weapons. From eight to ninety Under the direction of Dr Sim, more than seven thousand American service members were exposed to substances like ketamine, LSD and nerve agents like the X. The Army believed live human experiments were important not only for defense,

but for intelligence gathering. As RAPI catch a Dorian writes in The New Yorker, Doctors like Sim wanted to know quote could an operative dose and adversary with a handshake, So Dr Sim started drugging American soldiers to find out. It sounds wildly unethical, and it is, but at the time Dr Sim's work was well regarded. He was a fearless researcher who always tested every chemical on himself before

exposing any soldiers to it. When he first encountered v X in Sim intravenously infused small doses straight into his bloodstream. It nearly killed him, but it thanks to doctor Sim and the servicemen he experimented on that we now know what v X does to the human body and what the North Korean spies had planned for Kim Jong Nam. Upon contact, a small drop of VX quickly penetrates the skin and soaks into the bloodstream, and it wastes no time.

The nerve agent blocks enzygns that help your muscles to relax. Within minutes, every muscle starts to contract uncontrollably. The eyes burned, the pupils narrow, sweat beads as vision blurs, The chest titans, making breathing more and more difficult. Muscles twitch and tire as the nose runs and the mouth drools. Fluid floods the airway, coughing, fits sputter as the whole body clenches.

After just ten minutes, nerve ending scream with pain. The body can't handle this type of stimulation, so the muscles become exhausted, and eventually they curl in on themselves, contracting to the point where the victim can no longer breathe. Consciousness fades, but not quickly enough. The victim's final thoughts will be consumed by one horrifying realization that their own body is suffocating them and it doesn't take much feex

to kill you. Dr sim concluded that it's it's just ten milligrams of v X, about the same as three rain drops to kill a human. This has prompted the CDC to call v X quote the most potent of all nerve agents. Tasteless, odorless, and deadly in small, almost undetectable quantities. V X is also shockingly portable. It can be broken down into two harmless compounds, allowing two people to hold these separate ingredients in their hands with minimal risk to themselves. That is, until you mix the two

compounds together. On the next and last episode of Big Brother, the elaborate means to which North Korea would go to wash its hands of an assassination of international proportions, and how Kim Jong Nam's death triggered a daring rescue Big Brother is a production of School of Humans and I Heart Radio and hosted by me Eat and Lee Lucas. Riley is our writer, co director and associate producer. Amelia

Brock is our senior producer, co director and editor. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and Jason English. Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore. Music composed by Jason Todd Shannon and Tune Walters. Original score mix by Vick Stafford. Audio editing by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed by Harper W. Harris. Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice acting by Mark Chung, June Yune, Ben Holst, Thiago Lima

and Mike Coscarelli. We'd like to acknowledge the work of Dr Bruce Cummings. Special thanks to Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson. Sound licensed from Critical Past. If you're enjoying the podcast, help us get the word out by leaving Obra in your favorite podcast app. Until next time, I'm evenly School of Humans m HM.