[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 21, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: June 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S KOREA POLICY
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise today to comment on the truly
incredible developments that have occurred in President Clinton's Korea
policy, and I use the word ``policy'' loosely, since last week. I
cannot recall, and no one I have spoken with can recall, a situation in
which the abrupt collapse of a major U.S. international effort was
caused by the personal intervention of a former President.
Here, former President Carter took the initiative to travel to North
Korea to meet with Kim Il-sung after consulting with President Clinton
and being briefed by high administration officials. Then, Mr. Carter
engages in exchanges with Kim Il-sung in which he certainly sounds as
if he were representing the United States, even though he claims it was
a private trip. Finally, the representations that Mr. Carter makes to
Kim Il-sung effectively short-circuit current United States policy
toward North Korea.
Mr. President, I was under the distinct impression that the U.S.
Constitution provides for only one person to hold the office of
President of the United States at a time. Mr. Carter held that office
once, but he has not been in office since January 1981. Mr. Clinton
holds the office now.
I have the gravest objections, both on constitutional and substantive
grounds, to Mr. Carter's intervention in U.S. policy. He had no
authorization to speak for the United States on such a grave matter as
our policy toward North Korea. Reportedly, Mr. Clinton did not delegate
this authority to Mr. Carter, and Mr. Carter's actions reached far
beyond the customary scope allowed any informal representative acting
for the President in international situations.
This raises questions about the nature and degree to which Mr.
Clinton is meeting his constitutional responsibility to conduct the
foreign policy of the United States. In fact, the published
descriptions of the way Mr. Carter's visit was prepared for and
conducted, and how the administration reacted to it, paint such a
picture of confusion and disarray in the foreign policy process as to
be without parallel since the days of strongest internal dispute over
the conduct of the Vietnam war. In fact, even then it appeared that one
person--President Johnson--was clearly in charge, even though much
maneuvering, carping, leaking, and conspiring was going on around him.
Now, it is legitimate to ask whether anyone really is in charge.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a series of articles that
appeared in the press concerning this issue be printed in the Record
following my remarks. The articles are as follows: ``U.S. Shift on
Korea: Clinton Retreating From a Showdown,'' by Michael R. Gordon, the
New York Times, Saturday, June 18, 1994, p.1; ``Carter Visit to North
Korea: Whose Trip Was It Really?'' by David E. Sanger, the New York
Times, Saturday, June 18, 1994 p. 6; ``Carter Faulted by White House on
North Korea: Policy Statements Cause Confusion on Sanctions,'' by R.
Jeffrey Smith and Bradley Graham, the Washington Post, Saturday, June
18, 1994, p. A1; ``Carter Trip May Offer `Opening': White House Wary of
Ex-President's View N. Korea `Crisis Is Over,''' by R. Jeffrey Smith
and Ruth Marcus, the Washington Post, Monday, June 20, 1994, page A1;
``Mr. Carter's Trip,'' an editorial, the Washington Post, Monday, June
20, 1994, page A14; and ``U.S. Debates Shift on North Korea: Carter's
Visit Derails Sanctions Drive,'' by R. Jeffrey Smith and Ann Devroy,
the Washington Post, Tuesday, June 21, 1994, p. A1.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. D'AMATO. These articles, taken together, show why our allies
question our resolve and our judgment in a wide range of foreign policy
questions, not just North Korean policy. These articles document an
absence of commitment to principle--any principle--and an absence of
management of the policy process, that can only be described as
breathtaking.
What are the principles this administration lives by and is willing
to stand behind with blood, treasure, and steel if necessary? These
questions are being asked by our allies, but they are being answered by
our enemies.
Mohammed Aideed, Slobodan Milosevic, General Cedras, and now Kim Il-
song are providing the answers. These answers are dismaying our friends
and emboldening our enemies. And I believe that if we do not see an
abrupt and strong reversal of this disintegration of our foreign policy
leadership, more of our enemies will decide to act, and sooner rather
than later.
Mr. President, the price the people of the United States may have to
pay to redeem American leadership--and with it, U.S. national security
in a potentially hostile world--may be beyond the ability of the
present administration to imagine. Moreover, if we do not pay the price
when our enemies present the bill, we will find ourselves in retreat
behind our ocean moats, facing a much diminished future for ourselves
and our children.
This is the issue, and it demands an immediate and urgent response
from a focused and committed President. He can start by obeying the old
maxim, ``when in charge, take charge.'' He has not, and we are
beginning to comprehend what that means. It is not a question of
``inside the beltway'' maneuvering, it is a question of leadership and
character. We will soon know, whether Mr. Clinton desires it or not, if
he has the judgment and the strength to lead successfully when events
are turning against him. For the sake of this Nation, we must pray that
the answer is ``yes.''
Exhibit 1
U.S. Shift on Korea; Clinton Retreating From a Showdown
(By Michael R. Gordon)
Washington, June 17.--North Korea's latest offer to resolve
the crisis over its nuclear program appears to include little
that is new, but President Clinton's willingness to seize it
as an opportunity to avoid a confrontation reflects an abrupt
shift of policy.
The change says less about the prospects for a diplomatic
resolution than it does about the Administration's
apprehensions over a showdown and its difficulties in
marshaling an international coalition for tough sanctions.
The White House got to the precipice of economic sanctions
and sending military reinforcements, was nervous about what
it saw and decided to take another crack at diplomacy, even
though that meant backing away from a key condition for high-
level negotiations. The condition was its insistence that
North Korea insure that monitors be allowed to take
measurements to determine whether Pyongyang has ever diverted
plutonium for a nuclear weapon.
Administration officials say they are merely exploring new
signs of flexibility on the part of the North Koreans, and
argue that any agreement in which they would freeze their
nuclear weapons program while high-levels tasks proceed would
be a good bargain for the United States.
``As the President said yesterday, our policy has not
changed one lota,'' said Anthony Lake, Mr. Clinton's national
security adviser.
But the officials also acknowledged that the details of the
North Korean proposal, which would allow international
monitors to remain in North Korea as long as Washington made
``good-faith efforts'' to negotiate, remain to be clarified.
And they acknowledge that former President Jimmy Carter
complicated the picture by asserting wrongly that Washington
had stopped ``sanction activity'' in the United Nations,
where the officials said the United States is still
consulting with other nations on the possibility of
sanctions.
But even supporters of the Administration's new approach
say it represents a major change in Washington's stance.
Representative Gary L. Ackerman, the Queens Democrat who
visited North Korea in October, said the Administration was
right to try to follow up any opening that might have been
created by Mr. Carter's diplomacy in Pyongyang. But Mr.
Ackerman added that the North Korean statements, which the
White House has hailed as signs of a new policy, reflected
longstanding positions.
Mr. Ackerman said ``almost everything'' that the North
Koreans had proposed had been floated before. ``They they
have sold it to somebody new at a different time,'' he said,
referring to Mr. Carter.
Some experts were more critical. ``There has been a clear
change in our position. We put our markers down, and now we
are doing the very thing that we said was unacceptable,''
said Zalmay Khalilzad, the head of the Pentagon's office of
policy planning in the Bush Administration. ``When you state
you won't do something and then you do it, it undermines your
credibility.''
Dispute Began Last Year
The controversy arose last year when the International
Atomic Energy Agency determined that North Korea had produced
more plutonium than it had acknowledged when it shut down its
nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in 1989. The agency then sought
to carry out additional inspections to confirm its findings.
The inspections were important because the Central
Intelligence Agency believe that the North Koreans diverted
enough plutonium for one or two bombs, while Pyongyang says
it produced only a minute quantity of plutonium.
But the North Koreans balked at allowing the inspections.
That put the ball squarely in the Administration's court,
which debated how to respond. Pentagon officials argued that
it was more important to limit the North Korean program in
the future than to resolve the mystery of the past diversion,
but they were overruled.
Taking a resolute stance, the Administration vowed not to
engage in high-level talks unless the North Koreans took
steps to freeze their plutonium production and insure that
monitors could take future measurements to determine whether
and how much plutonium was diverged when the reactor was shut
down in 1989.
U.S. Demands Ignored
But the North Koreans ignored the American demands.
In April, they shut down the Yongbyon reactor yet again and
withdrew its fuel rods, destroying the evidence that
inspectors needed to determine its past plutonium
diversion.
In response, the Administration announced that it would
seek economic sanctions and that it would not engage in high-
level talks.
``This act undercuts the basis for our dialogue with North
Korea,'' Robert Gallucci, the Assistant Secretary of State
for Politico-Military Affairs, told the House Foreign Affairs
on June 9. ``We will not continue that dialogue until a
reasonable basis for it can be re-established.''
Until Thursday, the Administration held to its position
that North Korea had not offered a sufficient basis to resume
high-level talks. But when North Korea repeated its interest
in holding high-level talks to Mr. Carter, Washington's
stance changed.
Mr. Clinton announced that American officials were now
willing to engage in talks if North Korea would freeze its
nuclear program by refraining from future processing of
plutonium, refraining from refueling the reactor at Yongbyon
and allowing international inspectors to stay at the Yongbyon
site.
By exclusion it dropped its condition on making it possible
to trace past plutonium diversion.
In effect, Washington went for the most risk-free approach.
It put aside the policies that were difficult, that required
the painful building of international coalitions and that
raised the prospect of military intervention.
any headway unclear
By today, it was unclear whether headway was made. Pak Gil
Yon, North Korea's representative to the United Nations,
denied that North Korea would ever allow monitors to inspect
its waste sites to try to determine the extent of its past
plutonium diversion.
If the Administration's diplomatic gambit works, Washington
will have succeeded in the short run in limiting--but not
erasing--the North Korean nuclear menace.
But if it fails, the credibility of the Administration's
foreign policy, already under question for flip-flops over
China, Haiti and Somalia, may come under fire.
``I am not surprised that the North Koreans took the
opportunity of the visit of a former President of the United
States to `send a message,''' Mr. Gallucci said today. ``What
we don't know really is the meaning of that message, and
particularly what we don't know is whether the message they
intend to send is really one in which one can see a desire in
fact to re-establish a dialogue.''
____
[From the New York Times, June 18, 1994]
Carter Visit to North Korea: Whose Trip Was it Really?
(By David E. Sanger)
Seoul, South Korea. Saturday, June 18--Completing his
mission to North Korea, former President Jimmy Carter hugged
the country's dictator on Friday and called the trip ``a good
omen,'' but immediately touched off a squabble with the
Clinton Administration over whether North Korea had
specifically offered to freeze its nuclear weapons
development project.
President Clinton and his advisers, who had originally said
Mr. Carter was on a private trip and then became televised
participants in the delicate talks with the North Korean
leader, Kim II Sung, clearly distanced themselves from the
former President's initiative.
At times they seemed to openly contradict each other. On
Friday, Mr. Carter told Mr. Kim that the White House had
``stopped the sanction activity in the United Nations,''
where an American draft resolution has been circulating since
Wednesday. But Administration officials quickly responded
that they had done nothing of the kind, and questions swirled
over whether North Korea had simply repackaged old proposals
that Washington had already rejected.
Speaking to reporters in Chicago on Friday, Mr. Clinton
said:
``The position is just exactly what it was yesterday. We
are pursuing our sanctions discussion in the U.N. If the
North Koreans meant yesterday when they said they would leave
the inspectors and equipment there--if they meant they would
cease their nuclear operations while talks went on, then we
could have talks.
``But we have to go to sanctions if the violations
continue.''
verification is sought
The Administration's chief coordinator on Korean issues,
Robert L. Gallucci, said he was trying to verify, through
diplomatic channels, the exact meaning of Mr. Kim's vague
promises to open up his country's nuclear facilities after
high-level, official talks with Washington. Until they can
determine that the promises constitute a new initiative,
Mr. Gallucci said, ``we are going to continue
consultations in New York on a sanctions resolution.
Embracing Mr. Carter's efforts without endorsing its
results, Mr. Gallucci said that ``we will look at it very
closely and if it is something on which we can build, we will
try to build.
Similarly, Mr. Carter said that the Clinton Administration
had ``provisionally agreed'' to go ahead with the high-level
talks that North Korea has long demanded. But American
officials said there would be no such talks unless they
determined that Mr. Kim had actually agreed to freeze the
North's nuclear program, assuring that it could not produce
more weapons from the nuclear fuel it recently extracted from
its largest reactor.
Still, there were unconfirmed reports that Mr. Gallucci may
soon meet a senior North Korean official.
There was considerable suspicion that Mr. Kim may have
given up considerably less than Mr. Carter's optimistic tone
would suggest. Mr. Kim's offer to allow two United Nations
inspectors to remain in the country did constitute progress,
but merely preserved the status quo ante. Many of his other
offers were repackaged proposals that the Administration had
previously found unacceptable.
Opportunities and Risks
In Seoul, officials said that Mr. Carter's trip offered
some new opportunities, but was also filled with risks and
they clearly feared that Mr. Carter was not in command of the
complexities of North-South relations.
``I think that the U.S. has the same view we do, a mix of
concern and expectation,'' a top South Korean official said
today.
The White House had approved and even encouraged the Carter
visit, but American officials said they had viewed the Carter
mission as an attempt to gain a clearer picture of North
Korea's position and had not expected to get swept into
negotiations that were being carried out on television.
Taken by surprise by Mr. Carter's comments on Thursday,
Secretary of State Warren Christopher woke up several Foreign
Ministers in Asia to try to craft a response before Mr.
Carter went in for another negotiating session with Mr. Kim.
Chosun Ilbo, one of South Korea's most prominent
newspapers, said in the edition prepared for Saturday that
South Korea ``could not hide the bewilderment at such a turn
of events.
``There is nothing new in the North Korean proposal,'' it
said. It added that ``for an administration that has been
emphasizing its close cooperation with Washington, it was
difficult to hide its dissatisfaction with Clinton'' for
speaking before sorting out the North's intentions.
Still, the hope is that Mr. Kim's statements, particularly
as they filter down through the tightly controlled North
Korean Government, will end the cycle of threats and
counterthreats that have escalated tensions in recent weeks.
If the effort fails, one American official here noted
tonight, ``we can turn the sanctions back on fairly
quickly.''
The fact of the matter is that Mr. Clinton has time. It
will likely take weeks to get the sanctions resolution
through the Security Council, and then a 30-day grance period
kicks in before the first, mild steps are implemented.
American and South Korean officials believe that no
diversion of the fuel extracted last month from the reactor
is possible for at least another month or two. Until that
time the fuel rods are too radioactive to handle. After that
point, however, experts estimate that the rods could be
reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium in a matter of months.
____
[From the Washington Post, June 18, 1994]
Carter Faulted by White House on North Korea; Policy Statements Cause
Confusion on Sanctions
(By R. Jeffrey Smith and Bradley Graham)
The Clinton administration yesterday disowned statements by
Jimmy Carter in North Korea, saying the former president
evidently had misstated U.S. policy despite earlier
consultations between Carter and officials in Washington.
In an embarrassing split, administration officials said
they could not explain why Carter said in North Korea the
United States had dropped its recent proposal for sanctions
against the country, a day after President Clinton had said
the diplomatic drive for sanctions would continue.
``We have no way of knowing why he thought what he thought,
or why he said what he said,'' a senior official said.
Senior U.S. officials also said Carter apparently had
misled the North Koreans by telling them Clinton had already
agreed to hold new high-level diplomatic talks over the
isolated country's nuclear program.
Clinton, Vice President Gore, national security adviser
Anthony Lake and Assistant Secretary of State Robert L.
Gallucci each went to considerable lengths yesterday to say
Washington is still pursuing its sanctions drive even as it
explores new prospects for dialogue with the hard-line
communist state.
Clinton, asked during a trip to Chicago about the seemingly
mixed signals sent by Carter and Washington, said, ``We
worked all day long [Thursday] on a very clearly and
carefully worded statement so that our position could not be
misunderstood by [the North Koreans] or anyone else, and it
is the same position today.''
Clinton left open the possibility Carter's statement about
sanctions--in a brief appearance carried by CNN--could have
been misinterpreted.
In the presence of a television crew, Carter said to North
Korean President Kim II Sung, ``I would like to inform you
that they [the United States] have stopped the sanctions
activity in the United Nations,'' which Washington had begun
only on Tuesday. CNN reported Carter told Kim he was passing
on the message after consultations with the White House.
Clinton noted, ``There was no question and answer, there
was no clarification.'' Other officials said they had not
had a chance to talk with Carter yesterday to check the
remarks. But, for the second day in a row, U.S. officials
privately expressed anguish over Carter's public remarks
during his visit as a private citizen to the North Korean
capital of Pyongyang at the invitation of the government
there. ``We would not have scripted it this way,'' a U.S.
official said.
While publicly welcoming an unexpected North Korean
concession to Carter on Thursday--in which North Korea
promised not to eject international inspectors from a
sensitive nuclear site--the officials had been privately
scathing that the former Democratic president would so
embarrass his successor by challenging his policy at a highly
sensitive moment.
The official said that on Thursday Lake and Gallucci had
read to Carter over the telephone the text of an official
statement worked out by the administration in response to the
North Korean concession that made clear Washington was
``continuing to consult on our sanctions resolution at the
[U.N.] Security Council.''
Officials said during Lake's telephone call with Carter on
Thursday evening [Washington time], Carter had made clear he
was not happy with that policy. U.S. officials said both men
knew the conversation was subject to North Korean
eavesdropping.
Carter ``wanted to see more give in our position,'' the
official said. But Lake ``made clear to him'' in the 20-
minute conversation that the position was firm.
``Carter is hearing what he wants to hear, both from Kim Il
Sung and from the administration. He is creating his own
reality,'' said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on
condition he remain unidentified.
Asked if the scrambled signals could undermine U.S. policy
or reflect poorly on Clinton's handling of the dispute with
North Korea, another senior official said caustically that
``the implications are for Carter and what does it say about
Jimmy Carter, not what does it say about Bill Clinton.''
In a related development, Defense Secretary William J.
Perry and Gen. John Shalikashvili yesterday briefed members
of Congress on military preparations in light of tensions
over Korea. They hoped to calm concerns on Capitol Hill about
the readiness of U.S. forces in South Korea. Senators and
representatives emerged generally satisfied about the steps
so far but somewhat divided over the extent to which the
Clinton administration should move now to reinforce American
troops in Korea.
``Some members are pressing for more decisive action,''
said a congressional source who attended the briefing. ``But
others contend we must be careful not to take military
measures that would eliminate our diplomatic maneuvering
room.''
In weighing how quickly and how much to bolster American
forces in Korea, administration officials worry about
provoking a North Korean invasion but also worry about not
doing enough to guard against attack.
After weeks of intensive planning, the Pentagon has drafted
several options for building up U.S. military assets in the
region, ranging from a minimum of sending support
personnel to a maximum of dispatching squadrons of
fighters and bombers as well as an additional aircraft
carrier to supplement the one normally based in Japan.
Carter, who has regularly stepped in to try to help resolve
diplomatic disputes since his defeat by Ronald Reagan in the
1980 elections, told acquaintances before his departure for
North Korea that he wanted to try to head off what he feared
could be an unwarranted slide toward devastating conflict
there.
The dispute stems from a clash between the International
Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N.-affiliated nuclear proliferation
watchdog, and North Korea over promised inspections of the
country's suspected nuclear weapons program.
The dispute became more serious earlier this month, when
North Korea defied IAEA demands to conduct tests critical to
assessing whether North Korea in the past had sought to build
nuclear weapons. Washington then decided to seek a series of
gradually escalating sanctions that North Korea claims would
be an act of war.
When Carter first informed Washington of his desire to
accept the North Korean invitation, officials were divided
about whether to try to talk him out of it.
Gallucci said Carter would be questioned by U.S. officials
this weekend, after leaving North Korea, and that Washington
would then attempt to confirm his account of North Korea's
position through routine diplomatic channels next week as a
prelude to possible high-level talks.
Only if North Korea meets a series of U.S. conditions will
the talks go forward, and the U.S. sanctions effort be
suspended, Gallucci said.
As diplomatic strains have grown with North Korea, the
United States so far has taken relatively limited military
measures aimed essentially at improving defensive
capabilities. These include delivery to South Korea this
spring of six Patriot anti-missile batteries, and an increase
in intelligence personnel and equipment in--and over--Korea.
A number of other significant improvements in the firepower
and mobility of U.S. forces have occurred in recent months as
part of a new war plan adopted several years ago before
tensions began to rise. These have included dispatch of
Apache attack helicopters, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and
counter-battery radar.
But, in contrast to the buildup that marked the faceoff
between the Bush administration and Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein in 1990, the Clinton administration has taken pains
to keep its latest reinforcement efforts as low-key as
possible. Four years ago, the United States was hoping to
scare Saddam into pulling his forces out of Kuwait rather
than risk war. This time, U.S. officials are afraid of
scaring a paranoid North Korean leadership into invading the
South.
``We have to be careful that we don't propel ourselves into
a war we're trying to prevent,'' Adm. Charles R. Larson,
commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told a
naval conference in Newport, R.I., this week.
____
[From the Washington Post, June 20, 1994]
Carter Trip May Offer ``Opening:'' White House Wary of Ex-President's
View-- North Korea ``Crisis Is Over''
(By R. Jeffrey Smith and Ruth Marcus)
The Clinton administration yesterday offered an upbeat
appraisal of the controversial visit by former president
Jimmy Carter to North Korea, saying it may have produced ``an
opening'' in stalled efforts to resolve a dispute over that
country's nuclear program.
Assistant Secretary of State Robert L. Gallucci, the senior
U.S. envoy on North Korean nuclear matters, offered this
assessment after a two-hour briefing by Carter for senior
officials at the White House. During the briefing, Carter
also spoke by telephone for 30 minutes with President
Clinton, who was at Camp David.
Gallucci, at a news briefing, repeated the administration's
position that Washington needs to verify the specifics of
North Korea's reported offer to Carter to freeze its nuclear
program in exchange for new high-level talks with the United
States.
Gallucci also declined to endorse Carter's statement
outside the White House after his briefing that ``the crisis
is over.'' But Gallucci's assessment, while guarded, was more
optimistic than the tentative stance that he and other
administration officials adopted before hearing from Carter
face-to-face.
``It may be well that President Carter has brought back
something upon which we can build and defuse the situation,''
Gallucci said, explaining that his conclusion was based on
hearing new deals of the visit. ``The characterization I'm
comfortable with is that there may be an opening here.''
Gallucci took pains to make clear that ``certainly, we're
very appreciative of President Carter's good efforts'' to
resolve the standoff over inspections by key nuclear
facilities, apparently seeking to smooth over criticism by
some officials of Carter's statements about U.S. policy in
North Korea earlier in the week. ``I think we are all on the
same sheet of music,'' Gallucci said.
As Gallucci was briefing at the White House, however,
Carter was telling reporters in a suite at a nearby hotel
that he felt the administration's policy on Korea had been
misguided and that he undertook the four-day visit to rescue
Washington from a precipitous slide toward a devastating new
war on the Korean peninsula.
Carter told reporters that in his view, the administration
was wrong to put forward a proposal last week for gradually
escalating U.N. sanctions to punish past North Korean
intransigence on international inspections of its nuclear
facilities. He said sanctions would be ``a direct cause of
potential war'' and would not block North Korea's access to
desired foreign trade or nuclear technology.
Carter said he has been unable to reconcile his views of
the dispute with that of ``so-called experts'' in the
administration who assert North Korea will bend under the
threat of sanctions to allow the required inspections. ``The
experts who briefed me before I left have never been to North
Korea,'' he noted caustically.
In commenting on his brief visit, which came after a series
of invitations from North Korea, Carter offered a strikingly
uncritical assessment of the country and its autocratic
leaders.
``People were very friendly and open,'' he said, and had
refrained from leveling any criticism at South Korea,
something that he said had appeared ``quite interesting.'' He
called the capital of Pyongyang, which U.S. intelligence
officials have said experiences periodic blackouts from
energy shortages, a bustling city with shops that looked like
``Wal-Mart in Americus, Georgia,'' and that the neon lights
at night reminded him of Times Square.
``I don't feel as if I have been duped,'' he said,
explaining that ``the proof is in the pudding'' because North
Korea must now make good on a promise to him by President Kim
Il Sung that its nuclear program will be frozen during new
high-level negotiations with Washington.
This means, Carter said, that the country will not eject
the last two international inspectors from a key nuclear
complex and will not produce new plutonium. But he said he
was not sure if it also meant the country would agree to not
refueling a reactor suited to plutonium production, a
condition set out by Washington for new talks that Carter
said in an ``oversight'' he had neglected to mention.
Carter first met alone yesterday with national security
adviser Anthony Lake, who was a senior official in Carter's
State Department. The meeting then expanded to include
Gallucci, Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord, deputy
national security adviser Samuel R. ``Sandy'' Berger and
national security council staffer Daniel B. Poneman.
Gallucci said his optimistic appraisal of the results of
Carter's visit was based on what Carter had depicted as North
Korea's apparent interest in ``genuinely decommissioning and
putting aside'' nuclear reactor technology suited to the
production of plutonium, a key ingredient of nuclear arms.
Gallucci also cited Carter's assertion of North Korea's
general interest in ``improving relations and meeting
international standards'' in the nuclear field, as well as
its possible willingness to settle U.S. questions about its
past plutonium production ``in the context of an overall
settlement'' of all major disputes with Washington.
``There's much that could be there, and . . . we need to
determine whether it is there,'' Gallucci said.
But House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Lee Hamilton
(D-Ind.), speaking later on CNN's ``Late Edition,'' expressed
more skepticism than Carter about the results of the trip. He
said he disagreed with Carter's assessment that the Korean
crisis was resolved, explaining that ``the fundamentals
really have not changed. . . . North Korea is still not
living up to its commitments. . . . There is no real
concession on their part at this point.''
Former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger,
appearing on the same program, was biting in his criticism of
Carter. ``I really wish he'd stayed home,'' Eagleburger said.
He said he was ``horrified'' to hear Carter ``taking the word
of this murderer who runs North Korea,'' and that North Korea
still had not complied with international inspection demands.
Carter said he was taken aback by the criticism of his
visit, but that Clinton had told him during the telephone
call that ``he was very grateful that I had gone and he
thought it was a very fine accomplishment.''
Carter confirmed that the State Department had dissuaded
him from traveling to North Korea on two prior occasions, but
said Clinton had signaled his approval for the trip in a
message relayed from Europe by Vice President Gore on June 6.
By Carter's description, his decision to proceed came after
a three-hour briefing by Gallucci in Atlanta convinced him
that sanctions could lead to war. ``I was distressed to
realize we were approaching the possibility of a major
confrontation . . . and that there was no avenue of
communication that I could ascertain that might lead to a
resolution,'' Carter said.
After a series of additional briefings in Washington,
including a chat with Lake, Carter flew to Seoul on June 12
with his wife Rosalynn and two aides from his policy center
in Atlanta. Carter said he found South Korean officials there
``concerned about my visit'' but that the U.S. military
commander in Korea, Gen. Gary Luck, gave a ``very positive
reaction.''
Carter emphasized he was never authorized to convey any
message to North Korea from the administration, and had not
been recruited to play a ``good cop'' to the ``bad cop''
image of Washington's sanctions drive.
But he indicated he clearly viewed himself as a mediator in
the dispute who could broker a solution that would stave off
war. On Wednesday, when the trip appeared to be going badly,
he dispatched an aide and former U.S. diplomat, Marion
Creekmore, to the border with South Korea carrying a letter
for transmission to Clinton pleading for a U.S. compromise
that could lead to new negotiations.
The letter was never sent because on Wednesday and
Thursday, Carter said, Kim accepted his proposal that the
North Korean nuclear program be frozen as a condition of new
high-level talks and also said he was willing to move toward
eventual denuclearization of the entire peninsula under a
stalled 1991 accord with South Korea.
Carter also disclosed that Kim had suggested that North and
South Korea make substantial troop reductions along their
border and engineer a pullback of weaponry under some form of
inspections. He also said that at the urging of Kim's wife,
Kim had accepted Carter's proposal of joint U.S. North Korean
searches for remains of U.S. servicemen buried by U.S. troops
during the Korean conflict.
``I don't think that they are an outlaw nation,'' Carter
said. ``Obviously they've done some things in the past that
we condemn. They have their own justification for them and I
won't go into that . . . But this is something that's not for
me to judge.''
Carter apologized for the confusion caused by his televised
claim from North Korea on Friday that Washington had
``stopped the sanctions activity in the United Nations'' in
response to an apparent North Korean concession on the
inspection issue. Administration officials had said the
remark conflicted with what Lake had told Carter in a
telephone conversation earlier that day.
But Carter, who had spoken with Lake around 5 a.m. local
time in Korea, told reporters he did not recall hearing that
pledge. ``I regret that misunderstanding,'' he said. ``It was
my fault'' because his televised claim that sanctions work
had been suspended did not make clear he was expressing his
personal view, rather than administration policy.
____
[From the Washington Post, June 20, 1994
Mr. Carter's Trip
That was an astonishing trip that Jimmy Carter made to
North Korea. He went in on his status as a former American
president but conducted himself as an above-the-fray mediator
trying to keep two heedless parties from going over the brink
to war. Or perhaps only one heedless party: the United
States. Mr. Carter seems to take at face value much of the
stated position of North Korea and its ``Great Leader,''
dictator, aggressor and terrorist Kim II Sung, whom he found
a rather reasonable and pleasant fellow.
At one point he appeared to be committing the U.S.
government to a no-sanctions policy. The resulting uproar
produced assertions that he was not speaking for the United
States at all. But he kept on repeating his view that
sanctions are wrong: wrong not because they would inflict
economic pain--the Koreans could bear up fine, Mr. Carter
believes--but because they embody an insult to Kim II Sung so
offensive that they would provoke him to war, and wrong
because North Korea has done nothing proven in its nuclear
development to warrant being stimatized as an outlaw nation.
So much for anyone else's concern that North Korea is a
chronic cheater on its anti-proliferation vows.
Still, the Clinton administration was smart to keep its
cool. The shrewd Kim II Sung may have been using Jimmy Carter
as a cover for making policy adjustments he did not care to
make directly to Bill Clinton. An offer of a nuclear freeze,
another teasing reference to inspection, resumption of U.S.-
North Korean talks, a proposal of a first North Korean summit
with South Korea: these items are chips in play on an
extended bargaining table. But as offered by Kim II Sung,
they serve a strategy of seeking advantage from the United
States--a guarantee against attack, a return to international
society, a recognition of North Korea's place and pride--
without surrendering the nuclear option.
The United States needs something very different: to make
sure North Korea gets off the nuclear road. On this crucial
requirement, Mr. Carter has drawn no rabbit out of the hat.
The crisis is not, as he says, over. We are still no closer
to knowing whether North Korea means to comply with
international nonproliferation pledges or to play for time.
This is what President Clinton must keep foremost in mind as
he continues a negotiation that has been complicated but
perhaps also loosened by Jimmy Carter's intervention.
____
[From the Washington Post, June 21, 1994]
U.S. Debates Shift on North Korea: Carter's Visit Derails Sanctions
Drive
(By R. Jeffrey Smith and Ann Devroy)
The Clinton administration scrambled yesterday to find a
fresh strategy for dealing with North Korea after former
president Jimmy Carter's visit there derailed a U.S. drive
for economic sanctions to punish that country for its
suspected nuclear weapons program.
After being criticized last week by Carter for trying to be
too tough on North Korea, and by prominent conservatives for
acting too weakly toward the hard-line communist states,
senior U.S. officials met at the White House with nearly a
dozen independent experts to hear advice about what the
policy should be.
But the meeting produced no clear road map, as ``there were
divisions'' among the participants that were not resolved, an
administration official said.
The administration also put on hold its plans to contact
the North Korean regime immediately in the aftermath of
Carter's briefing of the White House over the weekend on the
results of his four-day visit.
Although the administration had said last week it would
seek to confirm the results of the visit through diplomatic
channels, ``we have not made a decision yet about the best
way to do that,'' a senior official said. He said the contact
with North Korea is still likely to be initiated this week.
Officials said President Clinton and national security
adviser Anthony Lake were among those who attended the
unannounced White House seminar, which featured as guest
lecturers a gaggle of former diplomats under presidents
George Bush and Ronald Reagan as well as several academic
experts and recent visitors to North Korea besides Carter.
Most of those picked for the group had been critical of
what the administration has done so far to try to stop North
Korea's nuclear program. ``It's basically all the guys who
have been trashing us in op-ed pieces,'' including both
liberals and conservatives, said one official.
An official described the session as an effort to ``get a
sense of whether there is a consensus on how to proceed. We
are simply getting their perspective on what they think is
the situation and what our course should be.'' Another
official said Lake also wanted to explain to the group the
rationale behind the administration's actions so far.
Several officials said the administration's decision to
seek outside advice underscored the confusion provoked by the
results of Carter's visit, which produced a North Korean
promise to Carter that the country would freeze its plans to
accumulate more plutonium--a key ingredient of nuclear arms.
As relayed by Carter, North Korea's promise was conditioned
on Washington's acceptance of immediate high-level, bilateral
negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. Such talks
would effectively sideline the recent U.S. proposal for mild
economic and other sanctions to punish North Korea for its
past intransigence on nuclear matters.
The administration had maintained for weeks that these
talks would not occur if North Korea withdrew spent nuclear
fuel from its 25-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear
complex. The demand reflected Washington's desire for
international inspectors to get a look at the fuel to assess
the country's past production of plutonium, as well as U.S.
concern that the fuel could be used to produce enough
plutonium for four or five nuclear weapons.
But North Korea withdrew the fuel without inspectors
present, prompting Washington to press for sanctions and
Carter to depart for the North Korean capital to head off
what he feared was a likely war. Both before and after his
visit, he publicly condemned Washington for its aloof style
of dealing with North Korea, and criticized the U.S. push for
sanctions.
Officials said Carter's criticisms had provoked internal
discussion of whether the administration should seek to
confirm the results of his visit by opening a new high-level
channel of contacts with North Korea, use an existing lower-
level channel, or simply write a letter.
An official indicated the administration's confusion
reflected in part some uncertainly about whether North
Korea's pledges to Carter are sincere. He said the consensus
at the White House broke down like this: ``There is maybe a
15 percent chance the whole world caught a break because the
North Koreans could make concessions to someone not in the
government--Carter--that they could not make with us. There
is a 35 percent chance that it was pure stalling [while North
Korea prepares to make more bombs] and maybe a 50 percent
chance that it is really an opening [though not a
breakthrough] that we can exploit now to achieve the results
we all want.''
Another factor in the administration's desire for fresh
advice was the controversy created by some of Carter's
statements about his trip. While Carter may get credit for
finding a way for both Washington and Pyongyang to step back
from confrontation, several diplomatic analysts questioned
his description of the North Korean capital as bustling and
neon-lit, combined with his refusal to criticize a regime
accused of terrorism and human rights abuses.
``If Carter is right, everything we have been told about
North Korea for 40 years is wrong,'' one former U.S. official
said.
Carter ``was very effectively used by Kim Il Sung to
dissipate the pressure for sanctions and split the
coalition'' that Washington has been trying to build, said a
former high-ranking diplomat who served in Democratic and
Republican administrations.
Attending the seminar from the administration were Lake,
deputy national security adviser Samuel R. ``Sandy'' Berger,
Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Secretary of Defense
William J. Perry and other senior officials. The outside
experts included former ambassador to China James Lilly,
former ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg, and former
undersecretary of state Arnold Kantor.
Others attending were Sandy Specter and Selig Harrison from
the Carnegie Endowment, Alan Romberg from the U.S. Institute
for Peace, and Asia scholar Michael Oxenberg.
In other fallout yesterday from Carter's visit, South Korea
asked North Korea for a meeting on June 28 to discuss plans
for a first-ever summit meeting between their presidents,
aimed at reducing nuclear tensions on the peninsula, Reuter
reported. Carter brought back from Pyongyang a message from
North Korean President Kim Il Sung proposing a meeting with
his southern counterpart, Kim Young Sam.
____________________