"The Korean Nuclear Confrontation"

Robert Carlin, Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization 

February 4th, 2004

The Ethics of Development in a Global Environment (EDGE) 

Transcribed for Professor Bruce Lusignan by Stella Shin 

 

 

Good evening. Why is this man smiling? Because I'm going to talk to you about North Korea, something I like to do.  It's been a favorite topic of mine. We should be almost done in an hour, leaving lots of time for questions.  

The Korean Energy Development Organization, an international consortium, comes out of the 1994 Agreed Framework signed between the DPRK and the United States. Why an international consortium? Well, to be blunt, the US Congress was not prepared to fund all of the obligations the United States undertook in the Agreed Framework.  There were two main obligations: first, 500,000 tons per year of heavy fuel oil to be shipped to North Korea as compensation for the energy they said they would be losing by not pursuing their indigenous reactor program. Five hundred thousand tons of heavy fuel oil is about 70 million dollars a year more or less, and the United States wouldn't even fund all of that.  We needed to go around asking other countries to get enough money. The second obligation we undertook, and this was the big one everyone is focused on, was providing  two light water reactors-one thousand megawatts each at a total cost of several billion dollars, more than three, less than five. To pay for that, we got South Korea and Japan as part of the consortium, and then eventually the European Union joined as well.  Now we have four what we call executive board members.

The heavy fuel oil was suspended in November 2002, because of U.S. suspicions about a clandestine program that some people think North Korea is pursuing to develop highly enriched uranium.

Although the LWR project is actually an astounding feat-a transformation of what was merely a gleam in the eyes of diplomats, into concrete and steel, real life construction in a remote site in North Korea, lots of work, an incredible amount of work both in terms of civil construction and in terms of negotiations with the North Koreans to get proper access to the area as well as a legal framework of privileges and immunities

for what was  to be several thousand foreign workers operating within North Korea. Although the LWR project was suspended in December 2003, as it happens, KEDO is still alive and this is a good thing, which I will attempt to explain to you throughout the course of this evening.  

My role is as a senior policy adviser.  I'm not a nuclear engineer. I've learned a lot about nuclear engineering; I've learned a lot about making nuclear weapons, but basically I'm no scientist, not at all.  I am a political science major who fell into working with North Korea in 1974 and never got out of it.

In KEDO, I have been involved in negotiations with the North Koreans. I realize that there is an impression that there really isn't much negotiating going on with North Korea these days.  There certainly isn't at the higher levels.  But KEDO is in constant contact with the North Koreans, almost every single day. We are either in contact with them at the LWR site, which is on the East coast of North Korea, or we travel to Pyongyang or to other places in the North for talks.   I was originally scheduled to leave from here to go to North Korea on Friday  That would have been my fourth visit in four months-a lot of washing of socks and laundry. But more importantly, it meant  I was preparing for two presentations at the same time, I was preparing our negotiating position for talks with the North Koreans, hard at work on that, and at the same time I was preparing this presentation for you tonight.

So, if when I finish this evening, you are all prepared to cooperate with me in suspending the LWR project, it means that I have drawn the wrong notes from my notebook.

A bigger problem is if a week from now-- when I go to North Korea--I finish my opening presentation at talks and the North Korean negotiator turns to the deputy and says, "Huh, Stanford what?" than it means I really have picked the wrong notes.  

We're going to talk tonight about the Korean nuclear crisis. That is an issue drowning in polemics, and I'm going to avoid polemics this evening as you don't need to hear any more of them.

I'm going to cover four things.  Our current problems on the Korean peninsula are not really about nonproliferation and weapons of mass destruction, or that's what I think. Our current nonproliferation difficulties are actually a reflection of deeper problems in dealing with North Korea. This is something that transcends administrations. So what you're going to hear tonight is a brief rendition of the lessons I think I've learned over the past 30 years in government working on North Korean issues. That's the first thing we'll cover.

The second thing is we'll look at is history-just a little bit, because we need to put all of this into some sort of context. The third thing is how to read North Korea, so you can do some of this on your own. This is what some people refer to as Pyongyangology.  Finally we're going to look at where we were not so long ago, was about three years ago, and then we're going to look at where we are right now. I'm not going to look at where we are going, because I don't know. And I'll leave that to others.  

Let's begin with one of life's deep mysteries.  This is sort of an existential problem of perceptions and experiences. I look out at each of you and I am fairly confident that I can say that there is not a single Cyclops among you-we each have two eyes. Some of your eyes work better than others, if you're an old man like me your eyes aren't working as well as they used to, but we've got two eyes. What is that? That's called binocular vision. And it helps us deal with the fact that the world is three-dimensional. It may have a fourth dimension or a fifth dimension, but it does have at least three dimensions. And if you live in a three-dimensional world you must have senses which allow you to perceive them: height, width, and depth.

So where is the mystery? Well, if the world is three-dimensional, then why is it that no article in Time magazine written on North Korea ever gets beyond a two-dimensional portrayal? And this is not just Time magazine, this is everything in American media, almost everything that emerges from the US Congress, these days almost anything out of the Executive Department. Why do people, when they think about North Korea, always think in two-dimensional terms: black, white, good, bad, yes, no?

This is a problem, an inability to see North Korea in all of its dimension.  This is a big problem.  And this is an American problem. Again, notice I'm not saying it's a problem for a particular administration. It's critical to understand that this has been with us for a long time. I have served under seven presidents, six directors of central intelligence, and five secretaries of state. This problem of dimensional impairment, as we might refer to it, has been with us for a very long time. And what we're going through now is just a peculiar manifestation of that.  

Now, North Korea didn't always seem like such a big problem-why is that? It used to seem easier to some extent. And that's because it used to be considered strictly a security problem, not a diplomatic problem. The commander of US forces, who was a four-star general--which there are not very many of-- drove around in a big, gold, armored Mercedes with motorcycle outriders. The US ambassador had a black Oldsmobile. This spoke to the South Koreans. This told them something about American priorities and American perceptions.

 But sometime in the 1980s, a new idea began to tiptoe into our perceptions-that aircraft carriers and new weapons for our infantry division, which is along the demilitarized zone, weren't enough to cope with North Korea anymore. We were actually going to have to begin to talk to them. We were actually going to have to think about diplomacy and engagement with North Koreans.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  If we were at a cocktail party and the North Koreans walked in one door, we couldn't flee out the other door. We were going to have to stay there and if they walked up to us, we'd have to engage in conversation. But you can't talk to people you don't know anything about, at least you can't do it very effectively. So, we had to learn something about North Korea.

  That wasn't very easy, and it still isn't very easy to do. North Korea is one of those places that has an unlimited capacity to baffle and to irritate us. There are many reasons for this. One of them is that it's a very difficult place to visit, and as a result very few Americans have been there. And most of those who have visited only go there once. As a result, what you get is a lot of first time impressions. And on their first visit to a place like North Korea, people have a tendency to think that they have landed on the moon-they think they were the first humans in history to see these things. And they are overwhelmed by their impressions. They have an urge to draw out conclusions as a result of these impressions-not just little conclusions, sweeping conclusions.

 Let me give you a very simple example, something very typical which stands for the totality of the problem. We used to get persistent reports from visitors that people in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, walk along the streets singly and silently, with blank expressions. Now, implicit in this, and sometimes explicit, is the conclusion that the people walk around like this either from repression or from hunger. You had this sense of an army of puppets trudging along the streets in the morning.

 Alright, this is a little experiment. Pretend that you have just landed in a spaceship in any US city.  Not on a college campus, but in the real world somewhere. And what do you see? You see a lot of people striding or trudging, walking by themselves, frowning, blank expressions on their faces. Sometimes you see people walking in pairs, they each have cell phones, and they're having separate conversations. That is socially dysfunctional, I would say.

Now, go back to Pyongyang and stand on the street corner. What do you see? The same thing, but look a little closer and you see young girls walking hand in hand, giggling and laughing. Alright, now get out of the city, get on the bus. Take a bus out on one of the main highways, on a snowy day in February or January as I did last month.

And you'll run across work gangs of people clearing the highways with shovels. Not terribly efficient, but the work gets done. Let's say you have a gang of twenty people, maybe two or three of them will be actually doing the work and the rest are standing around chatting, laughing, having a good time. Except when you drive by, suddenly there will be silence and they'll all watch you. And then they'll go back to their interactions. So what? S-o-o-o what?

 That's the point, that's exactly the point. From these things you can't tell if this is a happy place or a sad place, or a free place or a place of terrible, terrible repression. When people go to North Korea, they forget that what you see depends on where you stand, and when. A lot of the observations on which we base some of our most fundamental views of North Korea have less to do with North Korea than they do with us. Maybe what passes as cogent observations about North Korea are really observations about our own perceptions. When you read newspaper articles or when you listen to speakers, bear that in mind.  Try to do a little mental adjustment. And think about this rule I'm going to give you, because it's one of the central rules I've developed over the years. And it is a rule often breached by journalists and intelligence analysts. This is the rule that applies to observations about pedestrians, and food, and traffic, and the nuclear issue. It's this: what you think you know about North Korea sometimes leads you away from what you need to learn.

 I'll give you an example.  In October 2000, Secretary of State Albright visited North Korea. This was a very, very important event, not just because it was the first such visit.  It was substantive, she had hours and hours and hours of conversations with Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader. We got a lot accomplished. And what did the accompanying press corps do? Well, they went out to a North Korean department store, and they discovered that among the children's toys were toy tanks and toy fighter planes. Shocking! Amazing! Have they ever been to Toys R Us? Did this really tell us anything about North Korea? But it was on the front page of the New York Times.

 North Korea has become a playground for the media. Pick up any newspaper article on North Korea, and you will run into two awful tendencies by reporters.  First, if you lack understanding of the place, fall back on ridicule. One thing very easy to ridicule, of course, is Kim Jong Il, and his appearance-you can spend paragraphs on that.  And if you lack facts, substitute adjectives; it works every time.

 Two months ago, I ran across a newspaper article that referred to "the desolate, wind-whipped coast where KEDO is building the LWRs." Well, I have been to the LWR site several times, and there may be windy days, usually on a sea coast there are windy days.  But, actually the stretch of the coastline where we're building the reactors is quite

pretty. And the landscape is really very pastoral. Had this reporter ever been there?  But I just let it pass;  I mean it's just sort of a minor journalistic hiccup. Then, when I was on the airplane yesterday, I ran across an article in the New York Times. Also on North Korea, and the first paragraph read like this: "On North Korea's desolate-desolate-Eastern coast, six hundred miles across the Sea of Japan from here, soldiers stand guard on an abandoned site where two nuclear reactors were to be built."

Well, desolate-we already took care of that. Abandoned? We still have about 250 workers at the site. We're going in and out all the time. There's activity, there's no actual construction actively, but ***(TAPE BLANKED OUT)*** Guarded by soldiers? I don't think so. So in this first paragraph of three basic ideas, all three of them are wrong, and it's just the first paragraph. I didn't even want to go through the whole article. This is the New York Times!

What do we have here? We have a problem which is rooted in the concept that I call the "black hole" approach to North Korea. At a presentation or a newspaper article, you're often going to run across this assertion: North Korea is a black hole when it comes to information. When you hear that, sit very still, raise your defensive shields. Count your silverware. You know why? Because even coming from a normally intelligent person, that is either a dodge or a trap. Implicitly, what's the message? The message is: Nobody knows anything about North Korea, therefore my conclusions are equally as valid as the next guy's. That is emphatically false. It's absolutely not true that North Korea is unknowable and therefore his conclusions (POINTS TO ONE SIDE OF ROOM) are equally as valid as his conclusions (POINTS TO OTHER SIDE). That is fertile ground for bogus logic, intellectual sloth and rampant moralizing. It's phony, and it's very dangerous.  

            So, if knowing about North Korea isn't easy, and ignorance is what we have in abundance, what's the remedy? Many of the experts, so-called, don't know what they're talking about because they don't do their homework. Homework. Painful word, homework. But that's the remedy. And how do you do it? Well, you take advantage of one excellent free resource, the US government's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which monitors North Korean radio, television, newspapers, and press services 365 days a year. FBIS is the single best source that exists on a day-by-day basis to give you insights into North Korea insights and plans. But you have to read it meticulously, and systematically, and rigorously. And by that I don't mean you move your lips when you read it.  I mean to read and use it correctly, you have to be prepared to do a lot of research.

             Let's say the North Koreans issued a statement today on subject X-let's say it had something to do with Japan. You can't draw any conclusion on the basis of reading that just by itself-it's meaningless. You have to do some

comparisons. You have to see what they said last year on the same subject. Then you have to go back five years, you may have to go back ten years, to see whether there have been any changes in their formulations over time. When you've done the research, you're going to have to ask yourself some critical questions. What are the differences over time? Are they significant or not? If the changes are significant, when was the last time there was a similar shift in formulations, and were there any policy implications? And, this is the most difficult thing-not only what did they say, but what didn't they say?  If something was omitted, why was it omitted this time? What if they didn't say anything this time at all, how are you going to know that that's significant? How do you record a zero? Very, very, very tough to do. You'll have to get into the habit of reading North Korean media, and get past the agony of the novice who says, "Oh God, they say the same thing over and over again," which happens to be the beauty of reading and analyzing North Korean media, because if they say the same thing over and over again, when they make a change, you can assume that it's deliberate. The analysis you'll be doing is a type of  reverse engineering, trying to figure out whether the regime changed what it said, and then working to discover the reason it made those changes.  

            Alright, I told you we'd go into the methodology in the Q&A if you wanted to, so I'll set that aside for now. Let's look at history, just a little history.

             A point of comparison observers frequently make between the current crisis and crisis of June 1994, which is when-you may have read about it in the newspapers-the Clinton administration was contemplating, seriously contemplating depending on who you listen to, but thinking about the possibility of a military strike on North Korea. And there was a lot of angst about this. Some people say, well, this situation today is similar to that one, the implication being that we could solve it same way; maybe.  The logic is, if we have a similar problem and we adopt a similar approach, we could probably come up with a solution.  There are, of course, similarities, but there is one crucial difference, and that is, the presence--or actually the absence--of a diplomatic foundation. You have to remember that by June 1994, the US and the DPRK had held two full rounds of substantive diplomatic high-level talks--in June 1993 and July 1993. And the basic tradeoff for what would become the Agreed Framework was already understood by the two sides. They had already put in place experienced diplomatic teams which were actively planning the diplomatic path, and most important, had a mandate to negotiate. So, to resolve the crisis of 1994, both sides could step back from the edge onto an already existing diplomatic platform. That was quite important.

            By contrast, in the current situation, the two sides have nothing to fall back on. There is no diplomatic structure in place anymore. The previous one has been shattered, maybe sadly beyond repair. The US and the DPRK have not had substantive

discussions for over three years. I would say the confrontational meetings of October 2002, March 2003 and August 2003 don't count as serious substantive exchanges. By contrast, from 1997 to 2000, we had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of meetings with the North Koreans, formal and informal, all over the globe. And the experience gained in those extensive contacts was critical to building progress in the relationship, progress that has all but been lost. The channels of communication have so atrophied that neither side stands much of a chance of reading the other's intentions.   And the possibilities for miscalculation have correspondingly increased. That rather gloomy assessment, in my view, won't change even if the six-party talks resume at the end of the month. All this doesn't mean we're doomed-that's not the point. It does mean that there is a lot of work to do, and I mean a lot of work to do, to get us back to a level of understanding and even some trust that's necessary to get to a solution.  

            Now, of course if there is one key difference with 1994-that is, the absence of the diplomatic platform--there may also be a significant thread of continuity. A central element in the resolution of the 1994 crisis was not what the US did, but what was going on within North Korea. In 1994, economic imperatives were the driving force in DPRK policy. The military goals were secondary. Most importantly, Pyongyang believed that it had the option of transforming its overall security situation through improving its relations with Washington. And when the security situation was improved, it could then focus its intention and resources on economic priorities. That is exactly the formula Deng Xiaoping used in launching Chinese economic reforms in the late 1970s.  Quite apart from whether these impulses in North Korea would ever have really turned into successful economic reforms, they were a very powerful engine in DPRK diplomacy at the time. And it was the pursuit of these economic goals that provided a strong incentive for North Korean leadership to move out of the crisis of 1994 and back to the negotiating table.  

            We had, what was to me a frightening moment last spring, the spring of 2003, that came about because of the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq had not encouraged Pyongyang to focus on diplomacy. Against the backdrop of two years of what it considered unremitting hostility from Washington, the North Koreans concluded that they were going to be the next target, and that therefore they had to prepare militarily to cope with the United States. It may be that they, at that time, launched on a course leading to full development of a critical nuclear arsenal. And it seemed to be that the preliminary decision to move in that direction came soon after we suspended the heavy fuel oil. Most important to me, through the spring of 2003, there were authoritative signals in DPRK media that the process of economic reform was about to be derailed in North Korea by

conservative forces who were going to use the nuclear crisis to consolidate their ideological position in the leadership. In May of last year, we began to pick up signals-signals reinforced throughout the remainder of the year--that the economic reforms were in fact NOT derailed, that the powerful conservative forces weren't able to capitalize on the nuclear crisis. So it may be that the heavens will smile on us, and that the economic engine will once again pull us onto firm ground. And from that firm ground, we can shape-if we're lucky-some sort of resolution to this nuclear problem. But, we're not going to be able to know that if somebody doesn't sit down and talk to the North Koreans.  

            So, where are we now?  At this point, I think we have returned to the days of something I call the era of "Echo Chamber Talking Points," or ECTP. What is ECTP? Well, a good test of ECTP is if you stand in front of a mirror when you recite some talking points, and as you read these--if they are ECTP--you will begin to puff up with self-importance because they sound so good to you. And not only do they sound good to you, but in your heart you know they will satisfy the most conservative, fundamentalist elements in US government. And you know that your bureaucrat flanks will be covered if you deliver these talking points. Now, so pleased will you be with the talking points that you'll forget to consider whether they will have any influence at all on the North Koreans. The name of the game, of course, when you sit down with the North Koreans is to get them to do what you want. That's why you're here for negotiations. So the talking points you write really should be designed either to appeal to them, or pressure them, but in any case certainly to get through to them. ECTP points don't do that, and unfortunately that's what we're getting these days, I think, out of the bureaucracy.  

            Alright, now let's have a little bit of fun. You all have a handout which is two documents, June 1993 and October 2000. You can follow along. First, June 1993. This was the joint statement we issued with the North Koreans at the end of the first round of the talks we had in New York City. These were the first substantive high-level talks we had ever had with the North Koreans. The second statement is the October 2000 joint communique issued at the end of Vice Marshall Jo Myong Rok's visit to Washington. This was a big deal, because Marshall Jo was the number two leadership figure in North Korea-he went to the White House, he met with the Secretary of State, he met with the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, a dinner was held in his honor in the State Department's main banquet room-it was truly important. Almost nobody can remember it now, of course, but this is the communique that came out of that visit (HOLDS UP ONE OF THE HANDOUTS). At some point, historians will be tempted to look at these two documents as the bookends to an extraordinary, but ultimately unsuccessful, period in US foreign policy. June 1993 was the opening, it was the first document we had issued with the North

Koreans since the armistice. Almost 40 years passed, there was nothing between us, and then came this. The North Koreans were absolutely delighted by this document. Their diplomats were hailed when they got back home.  Our diplomats were beaten around the head and shoulders for agreeing to it, but the North Koreans were rewarded. Why? The US certainly didn't give anything away in this document; if you read it carefully, you'll see that it's mostly composed of language taken directly from the United Nations charter, which we already subscribe to anyway. But the North Koreans liked the second tick, especially the one that begins, "peace and security on a nuclear-free peninsula"-that's not so important, but this next phrase "mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and noninterference in each other's affairs."  For the North Koreans, that was  heavy, heady stuff coming from the United States. It was seen by the pragmatists, or the realists, in North Korea-they like the word "realists" in referring to themselves-as starting the process of fundamentally improving the relationship with the United States, thus opening the path internally, within North Korea, for updating, modernizing, changing, improving, in a word, REFORMING both the political and economic system that had been in place for the previous 40 years. This was going to be their key to start making changes internally. In other words, for the North Koreans, this June 1993 document was important not primarily for what it achieved with the United States, but for what it signified for domestic political developments. For us, this June 1993 document was a foundation, literally and symbolically. It gave us common ground with the North Koreans from which we could finally move up and out of the swamp we'd been in on the Korean peninsula since the end of the Korean War. This was going to be the rope that could pull us out, and in fact, it did.  

            If June 1993 was the beginning, why wasn't October joint communiqué the endpoint?  I'll tell you my view. My view was that this was not supposed to finish the process.  Instead, this document of October 12, 2000 was supposed to be the anvil on which we were going to forge a new geopolitical reality in Northeast Asia for the next 50 years.

            But what about the North Koreans cheating? We now know that at the same time, the North Koreans were pursuing their clandestine nuclear program. Well let's see what this document says. On the bottom of page 33 and 34, speaking of the Agreed Framework, this document says: "to this end, the two sides agreed on the desirability of greater transparency in carrying out their respective obligations under the Agreed Framework. In this regard, they noted the value of the access, which removed US concerns about the underground site at Kumjong-ri."

             Kumjong-ri, what was that? Well, in 1998, intelligence was developed suggesting that the North Koreans were engaged in some sort of nefarious activity in a big cave in

some mountain west of Pyongyang, and that this activity was in direct contradiction to the Agreed Framework. And this was leaked to the press.  A lot of pressure was put on the administration. So we were told to march off to Pyongyang and talk to North Korea.

            Actually, the New York Times had published a map previously, with a mark on the site supposedly where this activity was taking place. And it turned out to be the wrong site. The New York Times had been wrong. But the North Koreans didn't know that; they felt we wanted to look at that. So when we came to the talks, we came with a big map, laid it out...and said to the North Koreans, "We want to visit." And we said, "here." Here is where the New York Times said we wanted to visit (MAKES MARK ON BOARD). And here is where we told the North Koreans we wanted to visit; we said, "We want to visit here" (ANOTHER MARK). And they said, "Where?" And we said, "Here." And they said, again, "Are you sure?" And of course this increased our suspicion that something was there. Well, we had about five months of pretty good negotiations, the North Koreans finally agreed we could visit. We agreed that we would not "inspect" this site, we would "visit" it, and in the process of visiting we would take pictures and such. And the North Koreans said to us, "You're going to be very surprised...because there is nothing there." We said, "Yeah, right." So we went to this site. There was nothing there. We had convinced our allies that this was a big proble...does this sound familiar to anybody? It should.  

            So, anyway, we considered this a diplomatic success, because you have to remember this is North Korea. And North Korea is powerfully defensive about its sovereignty. The idea of letting foreigners come in and dig around, even in some place where there is nothing, is a big deal to them. And they agreed to do it, because we told them, if they wanted to develop a relationship with us, and we had suspicions about them, they had to clear up these suspicions. We weren't accusing them; we were simply saying this is a matter of practical reality: clear up our suspicions. So, we considered this a diplomatic success, and we referred to it in the October 2000 communique. Why did we do this? Why did we talk about greater transparency? Because we already had some suspicions about a program. We already knew, sooner or later, that we were going to have to confront the North Koreans on this issue. And what's the worst way to confront them? Out of the blue, surprise them. Just come up to them one day and say, "Goddamn it, you gotta show us this place."  Instead, we decided we were going to try to build a foundation, slowly but surely. The North Koreans are very smart. And when they saw "transparency" and references to the site in Kumjong-ri, they knew something was up.

            Okay, so we were setting the stage to look for something else that was out there. But this language by itself was not going to be enough to get us back into North Korea to look for another site where some sort of activity we thought might be going on. So there was another step we were going to have to take.

You don't have it. And you never will have it. It's the Joint Declaration that was supposed to be issued after President Clinton's visit to Pyongyang and his talks with Kim Jong Il. But, the visit didn't take place, so the Joint Declaration was never issued.

            There is, however, an early draft, of this Joint Declaration. And I know there is an early draft, because I wrote it. I wrote it soon after we got back from Pyongyang with Secretary Albright. Now, the North Koreans had not seen that draft; I'm not going to try to sell it as something that I know that they would have accepted. But, I really felt that in the context of what we had accomplished-what the Secretary of State had accomplished in her visit and in her talks with Kim Jong Il-we were moving in the right direction, and this was something that the North Koreans were liable to accept.

            There were two main points. Don't forget that this is draft language; it had no standing in the government; it's only a little bubble, a little thought bubble over my head. The US would have explained, that "as a Pacific power, with vital security interests throughout the region, it considered non-hostile relations with the DPRK as consistent with its existing, long-standing close ties with the Republic of Korea and Japan. The DPRK would have explained that "it was not a threat to any country in the region, and noted the contribution the US presence makes to stability on the Korean peninsula and in the region as a whole." What was that? What was that? That was North Korea accepting US military presence on the peninsula? Why would Carlin think that the North Koreans would do such a thing?

            Well, in fact, we'd had lots of signals from the North Koreans in the previous several years suggesting that's exactly what they were prepared to do. That they were prepared to put up with an American military presence-in fact, welcomed it-in Korea, because they thought we were a balancer to other great powers in the region, about whom they had some doubts. So, the question was not, would the North Koreans live with our troops on the peninsula, but would they formally state it? I think they would have. The second point goes to the question of the HEU program. And here is where I got right on the edge of where I thought we needed to be. "The two sides supported the effort by the international community based on accepted international norms and agreements to limit and control the development, testing, possession, and spread of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. In this regard, the two sides noted the accomplishments and contribution of the US-DPRK Agreed Framework and stressed the need to sustain and strengthen it, in light of their improving relations. Both sides look forward to implementation of the Agreed Framework in a manner they'll fully and completely realize its fundamental intent."

            This is "diplo-speak." And if the North Koreans had taken it, I think we would have been in a very good place from which to negotiate on this question. Now, I can't say

for sure, that we would have been in such a good place, but I can say it would have been a hell of a lot better place to begin than where we actually did in October 2002, when the US in time-honored ECTP fashion sent an interagency team to Pyongyang, thumped the table, accused them of having an HEU program, and as it headed for the door, said, "When you fix this problem, give us a call."

            That's why we're stuck where we are today, more than a year later, with no progress and a completely unfettered North Korean nuclear weapons program. What was absent in October 2002, though fully present in October 2000, was the notion that nonproliferation problems didn't fix themselves and couldn't be remedied by fiat and threat. That they were in part a parcel of a historical, political setting that had to be not only considered but used as part of the solution. That's why at its heart, the 1994 Agreed Framework was not simply a nonproliferation tool-it was a political engine that was supposed to be assembled and fueled and ultimately attached to a long train of problems and policies in Northeast Asia. It was not a legal agreement. You hear people say the North Koreans breached the Agreed Framework.  No, you cannot breach the Agreed Framework. It is a not a legal agreement. We didn't want it to be...because we didn't think we had built up a level of trust with the North Koreans where we could have such relationships. It was, instead, a very carefully conceived series of reciprocal steps, each one building on the previous one and reinforcing it. It wasn't perfect; it was far from perfect. It needed improvement, which is why I had that language in there about "sustaining and strengthening the Agreed Framework." Change it, amend it, fix it; it needed improvement. Circumstances were such that by 2000 and 2001, it really needed to be adjusted to the times. But it was a very precious commodity in 1994 because it was a first step. We had to take a first step. And because of the way it worked from 1994 to 2000, what had seemed impossible in October 1994 became routine by October 2000, because the diplomacy which was rooted in the Agreed Framework transformed reality as it moved.

            That's such an easy, easy concept, yet intelligence analysts cannot grasp it. Diplomacy changes reality. So if you're an intelligence analyst and you draw a straight line of projection right here, and this is what we got: (MAKES MARK ON BOARD) the North Koreans were here, on their planning for a nuclear program. "The North Koreans will never, never"-intelligence analysts love to say this-"give up their nuclear program (MAKES ANOTHER MARK). So, you're going to fall off the cliff...the negotiations are hopeless." You can't tell that to a negotiator; that's a ridiculous thing to tell a negotiator. Because he knows that his job is to get the North Koreans from here to just a little bit up here, because once they get up here, they can move up here, and once they're up here, the whole world looks different to them (REFERRING TO "CLIFF" DIAGRAM). The whole world looks different. And once you do this on a step-by-step basis, the impossible becomes the possible.  

            Okay, a few final thoughts. At its core, US policy about North Korea can't be anything more than what we think about North Korea-what we think we know about North Korea, what we fear about North Korea, what we fantasize about North Korea. Again, let's underline: this is not a problem of a particular administration of a particular political party, or of a particular political philosophy. It's true, there can be progress, we can lose ground, we can lose opportunities. But basically, fundamentally, this is a long-term problem that we have to deal with. Right now, where are we? We're in the middle of a crisis. The intellectual and emotional underbrush has grown back. And so have the myths, about how impossible it is to deal with North Korea. The human capital in terms of experienced negotiating teams-disappeared. The lessons we've learned over 10 years of contact and talks with the North Koreans-squandered. The momentum and the imagination, the intellectual imagination without which there can never be a solution, has all but disappeared. So, I wish us good luck. And I'll welcome your questions. Thank you.  

(Q&A) 

Q: How close is the North Korean regime to an internal collapse? 

A: I don't think they are anywhere near internal collapse...which means tomorrow morning you know it will be in the press-"collapse" (LAUGHS). This is a regime that lasted, survived, the toughest challenges any regime could face in 1995 and 1996, after Kim Il Sung died. After the one leader North Korea had known for its entire existence disappeared, fell off the stage, and the place was in emotional, moral, and psychological shock-huge shock-they survived that. They went through this awful period of starvation, they went through this period when the economy ground to a halt-they're past that now. So I don't think they're close to a collapse at the moment. If Kim Jong Il were to die suddenly, then you might have a different situation.  

Q: How close is North Korea to China, in terms of people having relations and collaborations?  

A: The myth is, or used to be-it's because they used this formulation--that the two sides were "as close as lips to teeth." That was always baloney. The North Koreans ultimately loathe or despise the Chinese, because the Chinese, in their view, treat them with contempt and are not loyal allies. It's always hard when you're a small power--especially if you're Korean and you're very proud--to have a good relationship with your big power ally. It's not all that different from the ROK and the US. In fact, I was at a dinner in Beijing, and I heard a fairly high-ranking Chinese official talking about "how difficult it was to deal with these North Koreans...do you know how ungrateful they are, and they are so stiff-necked." I said to him, "It's amazing, you sound like a US official talking about the ROK." And he looked at me, and I said, "It's a question of proximity, really."

Sometimes we think the North Koreans are easier to deal with than the South Koreans are. Not true, but it's harder if you're allies. So the Chinese and the North Koreans do not get along very well, but they happen to know perfectly well that they're geographically...they're not going to get out of the fact that they are linked. So there are limits to how bad things get. And then they welcome that.  

Q (Professor Lusignan): The coalition that you have with the energy development organization-you mentioned that it is still an existing body. Is there an opportunity or a possibility of those members continuing on with the development of the alternative power systems under the current circumstances, whether we foot the bill or not? 

A: Well, there is certainly logic to that. One has to assume that if there is a resolution to the North Korean nuclear crisis, part of that resolution is going to be an energy package, supplied by the other powers. And if there is an energy package, you have to assume that there's going to have to be some sort of international cooperation to put it together, because no one country is going to fund it. And if there is an international consortium, then the question is: do you want to form a new one, do you want to go through all the trouble of putting together technocrats and diplomats from four or five different countries, get them working in a bureaucracy, bringing it up to speed, and negotiating-I don't know how many we have now-six, seven highly complicated protocols with the North Koreans which took years to work out.  Do you want to duplicate all that work? Or do you want to use your organization that's already up, running, dealing with the North Koreans. That's the choice that you're going to have to make. And they haven't made it yet.  

Q (Follow up): But the governing body of this is multinational, right? 

A: It is. But it answers to the individual capitals. So it couldn't make a decision strictly on its own.  

Q: What is the best approach that the South Korean government can take to bring us one step closer to resolving the current crisis? 

A: I always pass on this question, honestly. Because I can't begin to imagine what it looks like sitting in Seoul, really. That's the question. The whole problem is transformed when you sit in Seoul. It's definitely not a nonproliferation problem from the ROK standpoint; it's a vastly more complicated and immediate problem. So the range of steps to take is very different from what appears rational to an American government.  It's an excellent question, but it's not the sort of thing I'm qualified to answer. Because you can ask the same thing about Tokyo, and Tokyo's view would be vastly different from Seoul's, you can bet.  

Q (Professor Lusignan): In John Lewis' presentation two weeks ago, he mentioned the kind of mistranslation and so forth on the issues that started the breakdown. Could you

make some mention as to what were the mistranslations and reactions that started the breakdown? 

A: Well, we don't really know exactly who said what to whom, but the story that the US delegation originally told when it came out of Pyongyang in October 2002, was that the North Koreans had been confronted with intelligence on the HEU program and that they had admitted that they had done that. Later, the US chief negotiator Assistant Secretary Kelly said, no, he hadn't confronted them with intelligence. He had accused them, but he hadn't laid out any intelligence-the first important point. Secondly, the North Koreans said they never admitted they had anything, but what they said was they were entitled to any sort of program, in order to protect themselves. Now, they did not deny that they had an HEU program. So, the absence of denial, coupled with that ambiguous formulation of what they said they were entitled to, sort of led the Americans who were predisposed to hear that, led them to conclude that the North Koreans had admitted it. And this, in an astounding way, drove the situation quickly into a crisis.

            At the present time, this is all so far in the past that it's hard to believe....even if you could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that North Koreans never admitted it. Actually, the question is, so what? The question is not that they admitted it, but the question is, "Did they have it?"  Who cares if they admitted it? Did they really have some? That was the issue that I thought needed to be highlighted in October 2002. But, you've got to take account of personalities in this sort of situation as well. The North Korean first vice minister-who was involved in these discussions on the second day...the one who allegedly admitted these problems-can be a very prickly character. He's a very good negotiator, and he's extremely smart, very capable, but he can get very annoyed and pop off. So, one can imagine when confronted by a bold American accusation, he got angry. And he sputtered. In sputtering, he sort of fudged his formulations a little bit. And...the American team should have said, "Well, let's go into that a little bit more. Did you just say the following to me? Does it mean I should conclude the following?" If he wants to step back from what he said, you give him room. You don't leave it at the high point of his anger; you let him get back to the formulation where he needs to be. As far as I know, that is not the sort of interchange that took place....so it was muddled.  

Q (Professor Lusignan): One final question. Are the groups that have been undertaking the economic action to help the economic structure there-are they continuing to develop better economic ones to give the Koreans a better view of what the possibilities are?  

A: Well, that in fact is one of Seoul's primary objectives, to engage the North Koreans economically and help pull in international economic assistance. As was the case with China, the more involved the North Koreans get in the cooperative system, the more enmeshed they get with international legal conventions and everything, the more change will take place within the government in its thinking, and within the

entire regime. I really don't know what the Chinese are doing. A lot of what's going on between China and North Korea is private, in a sense. There are a lot of Chinese businessmen who have this feeling that they can make money in North Korea, and they're right. And so that's what they're doing, by golly. They're going in there and they're setting up little shops, and this is how they could transform North Korea as well. It's not so much a formal, intergovernmental program.  

THANK YOU. 

(END OF PRESENTATION)