He attended North Korea's most prestigious schools for cadres, including Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kim Il Sung University, and started working in the Workers' Party of Korea from the late 1940s.

As the propaganda department fell under the future leader's control, Kim was transferred to director of the Culture Department in 1971 and president of the Kim Il Sung Higher Party School in 1976, but then he apparently fell out of favor and was exiled as ambassador to Ethiopia.

[1] Kim Kuk-thae was called back to North Korea in 1980 to arrange preparations of the 6th Party Congress.

In 2010 he was transferred to chairman of the WPK Central Control Commission and promoted to the top decision-making Politburo.

He died on 13 December 2013 from heart failure after a five-decade career, and was laid in state in the Central Workers' Hall (home of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea) in Pyongyang before being buried in the Patriotic Martyrs' Cemetery.