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By Root 1720 0

participating in the games, twenty-four had no diplomatic relations with South Korea. Nevertheless, global television via satellite leaped across nearly all political boundaries. The nations of the world broadcast an average of ten to twelve hours of the Olympics per day to a huge audience, ranging from the modern cities of Europe, Asia, and. North America to tiny villages in remote parts of the third world. Ironically, the one political boundary that proved to be impervious was on the Korean peninsula. The games were ignored in North Korea, where most television and radio sets could receive only highly propagandistic channels and stations operated by the government. The Olympics were not broadcast in North Korea, and its athletes did not participate.

WASHINGTON LAUNCHES A MODEST INITIATIVE

On July 5, 1988, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Shin Dong Won traveled from the Foreign Ministry, just across a broad boulevard in downtown Seoul, to the American Embassy on the opposite side. Calling on Ambassador James Lilley, Shin brought a copy of the special six-point declaration on North Korea that President Roh planned to make public two days later, which had been developed within the Blue House independently of the United States. Since South Korea lacked direct communication with the Soviet and Chinese governments, however, Washington loomed large as a transmission belt and potential influence on Moscow and Beijing. Shin asked for U.S. support and requested that the United States pass advance copies to the two big communist powers.

Lilley pointed out to his visitor that the planned ROK declaration "implies changes in U.S. policy toward North Korea," which previously had required that Pyongyang take specific steps to improve relations with the South before any improvement in American-North Korean relations could be made. The South Koreans fully understood that their shift would have consequences for U.S. policy, but they were cautious about what this would mean in practice. When I had asked Roh in the July 1 interview if South Korea would now stop objecting to North Korean applications for visas to visit the United States, he replied, "The change of government policy cannot be too drastic. There is a risk involved in changing everything too quickly." Nonetheless, he added, the basic policy would be to ask the United States and others "to help us draw [North Koreans] out to the international community."

U.S. diplomats passed advance copies of Roh's announcement to the Soviets and Chinese as requested, and they publicly praised the South Korean initiative as "positive and constructive." (In private, the State Department was more effusive, calling the move in an internal document "a major-indeed historic-reversal of traditional ROKG [ROK government] policy.") At the same time, however, Washington announced that no immediate U.S. action toward North Korea was required, though it would keep the issue under review. The United States passed word to Pyongyang that it would consider taking some positive steps if North Korea did not attempt to disrupt the Olympic games and if the North-South dialogue were to be resumed.

The principal leverage for Washington and the main issue under review was the touchy question of direct talks between the United States and North Korea. Kim Il Sung's regime had been appealing for such discussions with its archenemy since 1974, in hopes of persuading the Americans to withdraw from the divided peninsula. Washington consistently refused even to talk without South Korean participation.

For many years the standing orders to American diplomats permitted them to speak to North Korean officials only about "nonsub- stantive" matters when meeting them in social situations, and even then to terminate discussions as quickly as common courtesy allowed. Twice before, in September 1983 and March 1987, the State Department had issued new orders permitting substantive discussions with North Koreans in neutral settings. Nothing much came of this except for a few "getting to know you" chats at foreign embassies