SEOUL , South Korea -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Former South Korean President and Nobel Laureate Kim Dae-jung , who struggled for democracy for decades and prodded communist North Korea toward rapprochement , died of heart failure on Tuesday , hospital officials said . As president of South Korea , Kim Dae-jung helped bridge differences with North Korea . He was either 83 or 85 , according to conflicting sources . The Nobel Prize Web site indicates he was born on December 3 , 1925 . The Kim presidential library lists his birth date as January 5 , 1924 . He served as president from 1998 to 2003 , and in 2000 , he won the Nobel Peace Prize for fostering better relations between North and South Korea . Kim was admitted to Seoul 's Severance Hospital more than a month ago for pneumonia . Before winning the presidency , Kim struggled for decades as an opposition leader . A former political prisoner , he endured a suspected assassination attempt , a kidnapping , repeated arrests , beatings , exile and a death sentence . Shortly after taking office , Kim vigorously met political leaders of Western countries in a bid to gain support for his `` Sunshine Policy '' to establish relations with the North . Kim 's policy of detente culminated when he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in June 2000 , becoming the first South Korean leader to do so since the Korean War unofficially ended in 1953 . But Kim left a mixed legacy as president . Although he helped pull South Korea out of a financial downward spiral , many of his promised economic reforms failed to materialize . A series of corruption scandals , including the imprisonment of two sons on graft charges , also tainted his tenure . `` Broadly speaking , his place in history is going to be a positive one , '' said Brian Bridges , a political science professor at Hong Kong 's Lingnan University who specializes in politics and foreign policies of the two Koreas . `` While it is true that his presidency ended in a cloud of controversy ... he did have a very significant impact in two ways : He took over at a time when South Korea was on its knees and pulled it out from a tremendous economic downturn . And he helped in significantly changing public opinion and popular thinking of South Koreans toward North Korea . '' Kim was born to middle-class farmers on Ha Enido , a small island in South Cholla province , but the family moved to the nearby port of Mokpo so Kim could complete high school . He began dabbling in anti-establishment politics while working in the shipping industry . After his fifth try for political office , Kim was elected to the National Assembly in 1961 . One month later , Gen. Park Chung-hee seized control of the government in a military coup , launching Kim 's career as a key opposition figure . The tough , authoritarian Park proved the perfect foil for the fiery oratory of the charismatic Kim . The more Park persecuted Kim , the more Kim 's popularity grew . During the height of the Vietnam War in 1971 , Kim proclaimed his liberal views on the reunification of North and South Korea . The government branded him a communist , but in his first presidential race he won 46 percent of the vote against Park . Kim was headed to a rally in Seoul a month after the election when a truck turned directly into the path of his car , forcing him off the road . The truck hit another vehicle , killing two people . Kim was left with a permanent limp from the incident , which was widely considered an assassination attempt . Park tightened his hold in 1972 , scrapping the constitution and doing away with any pretense of democratic rule . Kim traveled to Japan for medical treatment and continued his anti-Park campaign . In August 1973 , South Korean agents kidnapped Kim from a Tokyo hotel and took him out to sea in a small boat , on which he spent several harrowing days . When then-U.S. Ambassador Philip Habib was informed of the abduction , he warned Park that he would face severe repercussions from the United States if Kim were killed . Kim was returned to his Seoul home , battered but alive , and spent the next nine years under house arrest , in jail or in exile . In 1979 Park was assassinated by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency . Another general , Chun Doo-hwan , imposed martial law as he moved to take over the presidency . Kim and other leading opposition figures were arrested as tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Kwangju , in South Cholla province . Troops used force to quell the demonstrations , killing at least 200 people , by some estimates . Kim was charged with sedition and nearly executed , but again the United States intervened . Under a deal with then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan 's administration , Kim boarded a plane to the United States in 1982 . When he returned to his homeland a few years later , however , the United States could not help him . As soon as he stepped off the plane in Seoul , Kim was knocked down by Korean security officers and dragged back into house arrest . Kim made two more failed bids for president -- in 1987 and 1992 -- before declaring that he was quitting politics . His retirement did not last long and he was elected president in 1997 , at the height of the Asian economic crisis . His inauguration marked the first peaceful transfer of power between rival parties in 50 years . At the time of his inauguration , Korea was plunging headlong into a financial crisis . He told CNN then that he felt as though he was handed an empty vault . Kim called on global investors to have faith in his country 's future -- and on his people to forge their own recovery . Thousands answered , trading in gold rings for cash as a symbol of their desire to revive their country . The watershed moment of Kim 's presidency came in June 2000 when he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il , grasping hands and beaming . But rapprochement talks between the countries hit a wall after conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008 , with a tougher stance toward the North than Kim and his successor , Roh Moo-hyun . In an interview with CNN in 2006 , Kim looked back on his long political life , secure in the belief that -- despite setbacks -- his convictions were worth fighting for . `` After I was sentenced to death , people from the military regime came up to me and said , ` If you cooperate with us , we will let you live . If you do n't cooperate , you will die . ' `` I said , ` If I compromise with you , I 'll live temporarily , but I will die forever . If I do not cooperate with you , my body will be dead , but I will live in my people 's heart and history forever . I rather choose to live in history forever . ' '' CNN 's Sohn Jie-Ae and Saeed Ahmed contributed to this report .