North Korea sought 95 students for secret nuclear training
By Eleanor Voss ·
Czechoslovakia and East Germany blocked students from accessing state secrets in nuclear physics after Pyongyang urgently offered to pay all costs for 95 trainees.
Han Gi-hwan arrived in Prague and East Berlin as the vice-chairman of the Commission of Education, carrying a specific mandate for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He was not a stranger to the region; he had studied at Prague Technical University and possessed a "good command of Czech." According to a report from the Embassy of Hungary in North Korea to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, published by the Cold War International History Project, this familiarity steered the delegation's itinerary. They visited almost exclusively technical universities and colleges.
"State Secrets"
The objective of the visit was to secure technical expertise necessary to fulfill economic targets approved at the 6th KWP Congress. In Czechoslovakia, this translated into a request for the admission of 37 post-graduate students. The fields of study requested were not ordinary; they belonged, as the report notes, "mostly to the category of state secrets."
The list included microelectronics, laser technology, nuclear physics, and enrichment facilities. The delegation also sought training in reactive engine technology, the protection and electronic equipment of nuclear reactors, and isotope separation. This was not an isolated surge of interest. The record notes that the previous year, the Koreans had sent five post-graduate students to Czechoslovakia in nuclear physics, but the Czechs were "compelled to reject" the program because of the "strictly confidential nature of the field."
Despite these hurdles, the North Koreans demonstrated a high degree of urgency and financial commitment. They offered to cover all expenses for the 37 students, including a year of language training and three years of probation. They pushed for the first half of the group to arrive as early as February 1981. The Czechoslovak side refused, stating it was impossible to receive the students that year or the next without a formal inclusion in the work plan of cultural cooperation.
The Korean-Chinese Border
In the GDR, the pattern repeated. The delegation requested slots for 17 post-graduate students and 41 trainees. The academic wishlist again centered on confidential technology: microelectronics, optical electronics, laser technology, cybernetics, and nuclear physics, alongside photogrammetry and non-ferrous metallurgy.
While the East Germans cited language barriers as a reason for delaying the students—proposing instead to send two German instructors to the DPRK for three months of intensive training—they harbored a more significant reservation. Like the Czechoslovaks, the GDR officials were wary of the confidential nature of the requested fields.
Beyond the classrooms, the North Koreans made a specific territorial request. They asked the GDR to establish a "high-capacity observatory" on the Korean-Chinese border. The East Germans rejected the request. In a move that highlighted the disconnect between the two parties, the German comrades suggested that the Koreans send students to study social sciences. The North Koreans did not respond to the proposal.
Sándor Etre's Question
Ambassador Sándor Etre, summarizing the experiences of the North Korean visits to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the GDR, observed a fundamental contradiction. He noted that while the DPRK's desire for highly qualified technical experts was "understandable" given its economic objectives, the scale of the request was mismatched with the country's existing capabilities.
Etre concluded that the DPRK lacked a "technical and technological basis"—specifically in nuclear technology, microelectronics, and laser technology—that would justify the training of so many experts in those specific fields. He noted that the North Koreans appeared to "overestimate the opportunities of the fraternal countries" while ignoring the difficulties those countries faced in hosting such students.
This gap between the DPRK's current technical capacity and its ambitions led Etre to a final, unresolved question: in which fields and for what purposes would these experts actually use the knowledge they were so urgently seeking to acquire?