INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA — On a drizzly December morning, Lee Min-bok kneels on the cold ground near the North Korean border and consults his laptop.
He's scanning satellite weather photos to pick just the right spot for his launch. Satisfied, he and a helper grunt as they load 20 large orange helium tanks into a ramshackle van and then head west.
The vehicle is so laden with gas containers, the chassis bounces with a sick thud atop its struts at each bump in the road. Lee and his partner, Kim Sung-soo, say little, apparently lost in their own thoughts. They have brought a baggie of peeled, browning apples to eat.
Less than a mile from the border, they back the van into the cemetery of a small chapel. One by one, they fill plastic balloons with the hissing helium, creating 36-foot-tall cylinders that snap in the wind and tug hard on the ropes, as if eager to be set free.
Lee, a compact man with thick black eyebrows and a baseball cap pulled low on his head, consults a compass for the precise launch direction, then double-checks his calculations on a map.
He attaches a plastic satchel packed with thousands of vinyl fliers. He sets the timer, and waits for the right wind gust.
The first balloon floats up silently, joining the plodding gray clouds on their easy drift toward North Korea. Lee takes pictures and says a few prayers aloud.
"No one can stop this," he says. "These balloons fly under the radar. No one sees them. They're perfect messengers."
Lee is equal parts meteorologist, tinkering inventor and political dissident, a man obsessed by a singular goal: to spirit messages to those left behind in his native North Korea -- 23 million countrymen living under the ironfisted rule of Kim Jong Il.
To reach the isolated society devoid of outside newspapers, radio and television, the 52-year-old defector uses a simple yet elegant method to fly under the radar of North Korean intelligence watchdogs: He sends millions of leaflets northward by way of his towering helium balloons.
In this high-tech age, the balloons have struck a nerve with Pyongyang and landed Lee and other launchers center-stage in the Korean peninsula's high-wire political standoff.
Last week, North Korea cited Seoul's inability to control the launches -- by defectors and a handful of civic groups -- as a major reason to again close its border, banning tourists and reducing trade.
