A funeral service is being held on this Wednesday for former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil who died last weekend.<br />On the order of the government,... Kim has been posthumously bestowed the Mugunghwa medal, the country's highest order of civil merit.<br />Kan Hyeong-woo reports. <br /> "The Kingmaker" and "The Eternal No. 2."<br />Those were the phrases used by many South Koreans to describe former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil... who died on Saturday at the age of 92.<br /> After an estimated 35-hundred people from all walks of life and from across the political spectrum had come to pay their respects to Kim over the past few days,...his send-off ceremony started early Wednesday morning with a eulogy by former Prime Minister Lee Han-dong.<br /> Former Japanese Prime Minister ( )Yasuhiro Nakasone, an old friend of Kim, sent his son to the service to pay respects on his behalf.<br />Kim's body was cremated and he will be laid to rest in his family tomb in Buyeo, Chungcheongnam-do Province.<br />His late wife, Park Young-ok, who died in 2015, is also laid there.<br /><br /> Kim Jong-pil was the founder of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency -- now the National Intelligence Service -- and served as prime minister from 1971 to 1975,... and again from 1998 to 2000. <br />He also served a record nine terms as a lawmaker. <br /> He was the last of the so-called "Three Kims" who were political heavyweights in the 1980s and 90s... together with former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam .<br />Kan Hyeong-woo, Arirang News <br />
