South Korean President Kim Young-sam was laid to rest in Seoul on Nov. 26. Kim long battled against military rule. In 1992 he was elected president. His reputation suffered when South Korea was engulfed by the Asian economic crisis. But Kim may have prevented a second Korean war.
Early during Kim's tenure, the first nuclear crisis exploded. North Korea had embarked on a nuclear program, centered at Yongbyon.
U.S. President Bill Clinton, Secretary of Defense William Perry, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, the current Pentagon chief, decided to strike. Kim received a dawn phone call from Clinton. In his memoir Kim recounted that he told his counterpart that airstrikes "will immediately prompt North Korea to open fire against major South Korean cities from the border."