O Kuk-ryol

After attending Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, Kim Il Sung University, and air force academies in the Soviet Union, O served as an air force commander, beginning as a major general and superintendent of the Kim Chaek Air Force Academy, the North’s top air force academy, in 1964, and then as a lieutenant general and became the commander of the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force in 1968 before joining politics in 1970 as a member of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. He was elected deputy to the Supreme People's Assembly in 1967.[8] In 1973, he was among the pilots who were sent to aid the Egyptian Air Force during the Yom Kippur War.[3]

He was promoted again in 1979 to Chief of General Staff of the Korean People's Army, after serving two years as the deputy chief of staff.[10] He became part of the "1980 group," who rose to power as Kim Jong-il started succeeding Kim Il-sung at the Party's 6th Congress, when O was elected member of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission. He was later awarded the Order of Kim Il-sung, promoted to general and put in charge of the Mirim Electronic Warfare Institute for developing cyber warfare.[10] A dispute with Minister of People's Armed Forces, O Jin-u in 1988 led to his demotion and forced him to undertake a period of re-education;[10] this may have had to do with enabling his later counterfeiting activities.[3][8]

In 1989, O was pardoned and appointed head of the Civil Defense Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, then head of the Operations Department, which was transferred under the National Defence Commission in 2009.[2][5] O Kuk-ryol migrated with the department assuming the post of vice-chairman of the NDC in April 2009. He was reelected Central Committee member at the September 2010 WPK Conference, but kept out of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission. Nevertheless, he was considered among "senior officials of party, state, army, security organs and national institutions".[10]

O Kuk-ryol allegedly took part at a meeting of top leaders held immediately after Kim Jong-il's death on 17 December 2011 in order to plan funeral and succession.[11] He was a member of the Kim Jong-il funeral committee. As a Kim loyalist, speculations named him as an possible successor of Kim Jong-un, and the regime appeared to be purging O's protégés in January 2011 to prevent him from being a threat to Jong-un.[12] After the execution of Jang Sung-taek in December 2013, a powerful rival, O re-emerged as more of a public figure.[13]