Peerlessly Great Man of All-round Knowledge
It happened in a year when President Kim Il Sung was on a visit to a country in Europe. One day he had a talk with the leader of the country.
Discussed in the talk were some issues of mutual concern in such fields as politics, economy, culture, military affairs, etc.
The talk lasted from the morning to the afternoon. Eventually, the talk was coming close to an end, when suddenly the hall witnessed a spectacle unprecedented in the history of diplomacy.
The leader of the country hesitantly rose from the seat to glance at the small pocketbook laid before the President, which was a breach of etiquette.
In the center of the attention of the dumbfounded people, he asked, “President Kim Il Sung, may I ask what is in the mysterious pocketbook? You have been talking smoothly on the issues in all fields only relying on it without even an outlined plan for the talk.”
With a generous smile on his face, the President showed the blue-covered pocketbook to him. Gazing into the “mysterious” pocketbook, the leader was amazed. It was because he could find only a few symbols and three or four lines of keywords.
It was beyond his understanding because right from the beginning of the talk he had been dependent on the thick file of detailed plan of the talk prepared by the subordinate officials.
‘President Kim Il Sung has had no outlined plan throughout the whole course of the talk, but he has talked over that palm-sized pocketbook only before him.’
That evening he expressed his feeling to the President.
“President Kim Il Sung, you are a peerlessly great man of all-round knowledge, if ever there was one!”
