A newly disclosed diplomatic document shows that North Korea aimed to shake up the administration of South Korean President Park Chung-hee through the 1972 inter-Korean joint declaration.

The data was jointly found by the U.S. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies. It reveals that a secretary of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, Kim Dong-gyu, met in 1973 with Nicolae Ceausescu, who was then the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party. Kim told the Romanian leader that the North was exacting revolutionary effects on the South Korean people through dialogue with the South.

However, when the Park administration blocked its political opposition from taking part in inter-Korean dialogue, North Korea shifted its policy toward signing a peace accord with the U.S. But this strategy is also known to have failed after two American officers who were overseeing the pruning of trees in the inter-Korean Joint Security Area were murdered by North Korean soldiers in August 1976.