The administration seizes a chance to defuse the nuclear crisis
by Stephen Budiansky, Steven Butler, Matthew Cooper, Louise Lief, Tim Zimmermann
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A beaming Jimmy Carter came away from Pyongyang with good news last week. There had been "misunderstandings" in the past. But now North Korean leader Kim Il Sung had personally assured the former president during his "private" visit that North Korea was prepared to enter into "good-faith talks" on nuclear inspections. As this was the sixth time since 1985 that North Korea had made the same promise, however, Carter's breakthrough was greeted with an understandable skepticism within the State Department and the South Korean government.
Either way, the United States and its Asian allies now face two not very satisfying choices. They can pursue another round of negotiations in the hope of "freezing" North Korea's nuclear weapons program -- in effect accepting as a fait accompli the one or two bombs it may already have. Or they can press ahead with sanctions as punishment for those past nuclear transgressions -- even though the only effect that sanctions are likely to have on Kim is to give him an excuse to expel international nuclear inspectors and crank up his bomb factories.
Thin reeds. Although U.S. officials scrambled to disavow Carter's announcement that the United States had suspended its drive for sanctions in the U.N., they appeared eager to grasp at the straws Carter was bringing home. "If ... North Korea is genuinely and verifiably prepared to freeze its nuclear program while talks go on," President Clinton said, "we would be willing to resume high- level talks." But not, he added, "if there is nothing new here."
But it was clear the administration was moving swiftly to arrange new talks even absent new concessions. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gallucci, who heads the senior U.S. policy group on North Korea, appeared surprised when he learned -- during a televised briefing -- that his boss, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, had already announced the United States would be communicating with North Korea through diplomatic channels in New York by the weekend.
Administration officials quietly acknowledged that this was a shift in position. Kim made no offer to resolve the issue that had precipitated the entire confrontation: North Korea's repeated efforts to conceal evidence of past diversion of plutonium from its 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which apparently occurred in 1989. He offered only to drop his latest threat to expel inspectors who are now monitoring the reactor for any further diversions of plutonium from fuel rods that were removed in May and June, and to retain surveillance equipment in the nuclear plant.
"To say we can't go back into negotiations unless they permit the [testing] is to say that there will never be a resumption of negotiations," an administration official explained, referring to tests that could have established exactly how much plutonium was removed back in 1989. U.S. officials insist that they can wring permission out of the North Koreans to carry out tests once negotiations resume -- but experts say that at this point it is virtually impossible to determine how much plutonium was diverted.
If, as is more likely, negotiations fail to roll back North Korea's nuclear gains, there is still something to be said for at least preserving the status quo. "We're spending a lot of time and diplomatic energy to support the desire to do nuclear archaeology, when what we really want to do is eyeball the fuel and keep it from going to reprocessing plants," argues Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington advocacy group. The 8,000 fuel rods removed in May and June contain enough plutonium to produce a half- dozen weapons, and once the reactor is restarted, another crop of plutonium would be on the way.
The alternative of sanctions has meanwhile been going nowhere fast. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, miffed at Washington's failure to consult with Moscow before circulating a draft sanctions resolution, announced he would not support the proposal. And China, seizing on the supposed "concessions" offered by North Korea, said there was no need to discuss sanctions now.
Even if support could be mustered, the measures the United States is proposing are unlikely to have much effect on a country as isolated and as unconcerned about public opinion as North Korea. A strictly regimented society long inured to harsh conditions, North Korea is largely immune to the sort of international economic pressure that helped bring down the white-minority government of South Africa. Even its much vaunted arms trade, a key target of the proposed U.S. sanctions resolution, amounts to a piddling $50 million a year. A recent defector from the North, Kim Dae Ho, said he had had trouble finding food for his family despite his privileged position as manager of a uranium-processing factory. "People don't blame Kim Il Sung or [his son and heir apparent] Kim Jong Il for the hardship," he says. "They accept it as a necessary part of preparing for war."
Ambivalence. South Koreans, while largely skeptical of Kim's latest promises, are also ambivalent toward pressing a confrontation. A huge civil-defense drill planned last week in Seoul had called for thousands of reservists to be mustered, Army helicopters to swoop down over the city and armored personnel carriers to race through the streets staging mock rescues of wounded and trapped civilians. But the exercise appeared to have alarmed ordinary South Koreans far more than it succeeded in demonstrating resolve to the North and was scaled back. Suburban housewives in Socho-dong, a prosperous high-rise complex, besieged supermarkets, stripping the shelves bare. Nongshim, the largest maker of instant noodles, reported a 20 percent rise in sales. Gas-mask vendors quickly sold out their stocks.
Meanwhile, President Clinton has been trying to size up Kim Il Sung, digesting information from Billy Graham and others who have visited the octogenarian Stalinist leader. "He's still putting it together," says one official. Clinton has told colleagues that he is determined not to personalize the standoff with Kim Il Sung as George Bush did with Saddam Hussein. Clinton feels that making it a personal fight will only make the North Koreans more intransigent.
The danger in entering into negotiations, however, is that Kim may just be up to his old tricks. It will be two months until the fuel rods cool down to the point where plutonium can be extracted. If Kim follows his well-established pattern, he may simply wait until that point, order the inspectors out once and for all, and press on, full speed ahead.
