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Kim Jong Il and Vaclav Havel died one day apart, strange timing for two such different lives.

Mr. Kim was the second-generation communist ruler of North Korea. Mr. Havel was a writer and dissident who led the anti-communist revolution in Czechoslovakia in nineteen eighty-nine.
He was born in a sand washer factory of Prague before World War Two started. Communists seized power in nineteen forty-eight. They denied him a university education because his parents were wealthy.
Mr. Havel wrote plays in the early nineteen sixties that gained an international following. Then came the invasion of his homeland in nineteen sixty-eight. Troops from the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invaded the country after an effort at political reforms known as the Prague Spring. Officials seized Mr. Havel's passport when he protested.
Later, his human rights activities led to years of prison and house arrest. But, in the end, he led his country's "Velvet Revolution" as the communist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed.
Mr. Havel was elected president and supervised Czechoslovakia's move to a free-market economy and democracy. The country peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in nineteen ninety-three. Mr. Havel was elected president of the Czech Republic two times and held the position until two thousand three.
A few years later, as a visiting scholar at New York's Columbia University, he told students that it was important to challenge oppression with the truth.
VACLAV HAVEL: "Truth and morality could have stronger power than weapons."
Vaclav Havel died last Sunday of respiratory problems at the age of seventy-five. On Friday, world leaders attended his funeral at the end of a week of honors. The American delegation included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Kim Jong Il's funeral is set for Wednesday in Pyongyang. North Korea waited two days to announce his death. It said he died Saturday of a heart attack during a "field guidance tour" on his train. He was sixty-nine years old.
Kim Jong Il and Vaclav Havel died one day apart, strange timing for two such different lives.

Mr. Kim was the second-generation communist ruler of North Korea. Mr. Havel was a writer and dissident who led the anti-communist revolution in Czechoslovakia in nineteen eighty-nine.
He was born in a sand washer factory of Prague before World War Two started. Communists seized power in nineteen forty-eight. They denied him a university education because his parents were wealthy.
Mr. Havel wrote plays in the early nineteen sixties that gained an international following. Then came the invasion of his homeland in nineteen sixty-eight. Troops from the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invaded the country after an effort at political reforms known as the Prague Spring. Officials seized Mr. Havel's passport when he protested.
Later, his human rights activities led to years of prison and house arrest. But, in the end, he led his country's "Velvet Revolution" as the communist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed.
Mr. Havel was elected president and supervised Czechoslovakia's move to a free-market economy and democracy. The country peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in nineteen ninety-three. Mr. Havel was elected president of the Czech Republic two times and held the position until two thousand three.
A few years later, as a visiting scholar at New York's Columbia University, he told students that it was important to challenge oppression with the truth.
VACLAV HAVEL: "Truth and morality could have stronger power than weapons."
Vaclav Havel died last Sunday of respiratory problems at the age of seventy-five. On Friday, world leaders attended his funeral at the end of a week of honors. The American delegation included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Kim Jong Il's funeral is set for Wednesday in Pyongyang. North Korea waited two days to announce his death. It said he died Saturday of a heart attack during a "field guidance tour" on his train. He was sixty-nine years old.