PHOTOGRAPH BY KOREA NEWS AGENCY/AP

The overconfident pose, the fawning lackeys, the weird eyewear that suggests that no one can speak directly to him—the North Korean leader is a poster boy for dictatorship. Will U.S. troops one day roust a scruffy Kim out of a spider hole? For now Washington is trying diplomacy to persuade him to dismantle his nukes. But this doesn't look like a man who's eager to welcome U.S. weapons inspectors.

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FROM THE DECEMBER 29, 2003 ISSUE OF TIME MAGAZINE; POSTED SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2003

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