[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.

                          ____________________