Kim Dae-jung, when he was an opposition leader before becoming President of South Korea, went into exile twice: first from 18 October 1972 to 8 August 1973, then from 23 December 1982 to 8 February 1985. Prior to his exile, Kim had been severely injured following an assassination attempt on 25 May 1971 and traveled to Japan for treatment. After the October Restoration established a military dictatorship under Park Chung-hee, Kim applied for asylum and did not return to South Korea.

During his first exile, Kim lived in Tokyo and toured the United States twice. He publicly opposed the Restoration in Japanese press and lobbied Japanese politicians across the political spectrum in support of democratizing South Korea. He continued this work during his tours of the US, organizing American politicians, Korean expatriates, and the general public to apply pressure on the Park regime. On 8 August 1973, Korean intelligence agents kidnapped Kim outside the Grand Palace Hotel in Tokyo and after failing to drown him, took him to Seoul. The Park administration placed Kim under house arrest after the US government intervened to ensure his survival.

For much of the next nine years, Kim remained under house arrest, and the South Korean government imprisoned him twice and even sentenced him to death. From early March 1976 to 27 December 1978, the Park administration jailed Kim for demanding that Park resign and that the Yushin Constitution he promulgated be abolished. In January 1980, the succeeding military dictatorship under Chun Doo-hwan lifted Kim's house arrest, only to arrest him during Chun's second coup on 17 May 1980. On 11 September 1980, the government sentenced Kim to death; this was eventually commuted to twenty years in prison after the intercessions of Pope John Paul II and the US government.

On 23 December 1982, after a two-week negotiation with Kim and his wife, the South Korean government suddenly and discreetly flew him and his family to Washington, DC. While in exile, Kim leveraged American press and mass media in his fight for democracy and against the military dictatorship. From mid-1983, he conducted related research at the Harvard Center for International Affairs as a visiting fellow. On 8 January 1985, he and his ally Kim Young-sam established the New Democratic Party of Korea. One month later, Kim Dae-jung, accompanied by an entourage of prominent Americans for his safety, returned to South Korea to assist in the legislative elections that year.

First overseas exile and Tokyo kidnapping case

Due to the fatigue of the presidential and parliamentary campaigns and the worsening of his injuries after the attempted vehicular homicide, Kim was bedridden. The Park Chung-hee administration began to monitor Kim 24 hours a day, and including tapping his home phone. The houses around Kim's home were also rented by the authorities for surveillance, while his name began to disappear from newspapers, television and radio. On 17 October 1972, while Kim was receiving treatment for a hip injury in Japan, Park Chung-hee launched the October Restoration. Ten days later, Park Chung-hee promulgated the Yushin Constitution, changing the direct election of the president to an indirect election by the National Conference for Unification, and abolishing the term limits on the president. On 23 December, Park Chung-hee was elected in the eighth presidential election of South Korea as the only candidate. After careful consideration, Kim decided to apply for political asylum in Tokyo to seek intervention from the Japanese and American governments. On 18 October, Kim invited journalists from various countries to a press conference in Tokyo and wrote articles in several Japanese newspapers and media outlets to oppose Park's October Restoration.

In late 1972, Kim flew from Japan to the United States to lobby American politicians to put pressure on the situation in South Korea. Through introductions from two Harvard University professors, Kim met with several prominent American political figures, including Democratic Party senator Mike Mansfield, who later became the US Ambassador to Japan. He also gave speeches at several American universities, including Columbia University, Missouri State University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Washington, talking about the Yushin coup and calling on the United States to support South Korea's democratic struggle against Park Chung-hee. Reportedly, these universities received protest calls from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, demanding that they not provide venues for Kim. On 5 January 1973, Kim returned to Japan from the United States. As in the US, Kim maintained extensive contact with members of both ruling and opposition parties in Japan, including Kakuei Tanaka, Takeo Fukuda, and Tomisaburo Hashimoto. During his exile in Japan, Kim published the book Dictatorship and My Struggle. On 6 March 1973, he came to the US for the second time and established a political organization with Korean expatriates in the US to develop democracy, oppose Park Chung-hee and promote national reunification, called the National Conference for the Restoration of Democracy and Promotion of Unification of Korea.

On 10 July 1973, Kim returned to Japan in order to establish the "Korean Democratic Unification Japan Headquarters". Kim Dae-jung's activities overseas angered Park Chung-hee. On 8 August 1973, Kim Dae-jung met with Yang Yi-tong, the president of the Democratic Party of Unification, who came to Japan from South Korea for medical treatment, at the Grand Palace Hotel in Tokyo. Since Yang Yi-tong and Kim Dae-jung were close friends, Yang Yi-tong was followed by South Korean agents on this trip. When Kim came out of Yang Yi-tong's room, he was kidnapped by five or six unidentified men in black sent by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). After being drugged, Kim was tied up and taken to the sea. He was almost drowned and was eventually kidnapped back to Seoul. Later, with the help of the American Central Intelligence Agency, Kim Dae-jung was released on 26 October, but was placed under house arrest. During this period, he was designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Kim reflected on these events during his 2000 Nobel Peace Prize lecture:

Philip Habib, the US ambassador in Seoul, had interceded for him with the South Korean government; the "airplane" referred to was a patrol plane from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force which was tracking the kidnappers. In October 2007, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), successor to the KCIA, admitted that the KCIA carried out the plot. The NIS expressed its regret and had planned to kill and dump Kim into the sea. While the NIS panel said President Park "at least gave a passive approval", the panel added it could not prove Park directly ordered the kidnapping at the time. The kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung on Japanese soil was clearly an infringement on Japanese sovereignty. This matter has attracted much attention in Japan. However, the Park Chung-hee administration described the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung as "a play written and directed by Kim Dae-jung himself". In order to quell Japanese public opinion, South Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil visited Japan and expressed his apology to Japan. On 15 August 1974, South Korea's Liberation Day, Moon Se-gwang, a Japanese Korean who travelled to South Korea to assassinate Park Chung-hee, shot and killed Park's wife, Yuk Young-soo, at the National Theater in Jangchung-dong. This put Japan in an awkward position, and after that, Japan's investigation into the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung was also left unresolved.

Myeongdong Declaration of Democracy and National Salvation Following the October Restoration military coup, opposition democratic forces suffered severe suppression under Park Chung-hee's dictatorial rule. After the abduction of Kim Dae-jung shocked the government and the public, the democratic camp began to challenge Park Chung-hee's reformist system. Various democratic parties issued declarations demanding the restoration of democracy. On 24 December 1973, the New Democratic Party led a petition campaign with one million signatures demanding constitutional revision. On 14 October 1974, the New Democratic Party, under the leadership of Kim Young-sam, published its "Outline for Constitutional Revision." In March 1975, opposition democratic leaders including Kim Young-sam, Yun Bo-sun, Kim Dae-jung, and Yang Yi-tong reached an agreement to unite opposition forces and form a democratic united front as soon as possible. In response, Park Chung-hee issued Emergency Measures Decree No. 9, comprehensively prohibiting all activities opposing the reformed constitution. In January 1976, the Republican Party indicted Kim Young-sam for violating Emergency Measures Decree No. 9 and expelled Kim Ok-sun, the executor of Kim Young-sam's policies, from the National Assembly. Emergency Measures Order No. 9 plunged the South Korean democracy movement into another low ebb.

On 1 March 1976, Kim Dae-jung, along with seventeen other leaders of the pro-democracy movement, jointly signed the "Declaration of Democracy for National Salvation" at the Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul, demanding the resignation of Park Chung-hee and the abolition of the Yushin Constitution. Kim Dae-jung, along with Dr. Chung Il-hyung and others, also held a candlelight vigil in Myeongdong. Prior to this, Kim Dae-jung had told Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan that he was prepared to go to prison to awaken the Korean people. A few days later, the Park Chung-hee regime arrested eighteen pro-democracy activists who had signed the declaration on charges of violating Presidential Emergency Measures Order No. 9. Kim Dae-jung was accused of being the mastermind and sentenced to the maximum seven-year prison term. Following the arrests of these pro-democracy activists, demonstrations demanding their release were held by the public, including their families. The following year, the Supreme Court commuted Kim Dae-jung's sentence to five years in prison and deprived him of his political rights for five years. Meanwhile, Kim Hyung- wook, the former head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, who was in exile in the United States, revealed the truth about the 1973 kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung in the US Congress and listed the names of those involved in the kidnapping. On 6 July 1978, Park Chung-hee was elected in the ninth presidential election of South Korea by the "National Conference on Unification of the Mainland". He then granted Kim Dae-jung a pardon. On 27 December, Kim Dae-jung returned home after serving two years and nine months in prison, but was soon placed under house arrest by the military government.

Death sentence

On 26 October 1979, after Park Chung-hee was assassinated, Seoul experienced a brief political spring. On 10 November, Acting President Choi Kyu-hah issued a "Special Statement" proposing that, in accordance with national law, a "National Assembly for the Unification of the Mainland" be held to indirectly elect a president within three months. The new president would listen to opinions from all sectors as quickly as possible, amend the Yushin Constitution, and then elect a president in accordance with the new constitution. Choi Kyu-hah's speech was supported by the US government. The transitional government quickly lifted a series of emergency measures issued by Park Chung-hee. All sectors of the government and the public also began to prepare for the 1980 presidential election. Two months later, Kim Dae-jung's house arrest was lifted, while his citizenship was restored on 1 March 1980.