The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [154]
Pyongyang's expectations about the nature and capabilities of the inspections probably had been shaped by the limited experiences of a North Korean who had worked as an IAEA inspector before the Gulf War and who in 1992 emerged as director of the safeguards liaison office of Pyongyang's Ministry of Atomic Energy. "It's hard to believe he had seen anything like this," said Heinonen, speaking of the greatly enhanced scientific prowess that provided detailed test results from tiny samples of radioactive material. Said Willi Theis, who initially was chief of the IAEA inspection team in North Korea: "North Korea grossly underestimated the agency's measurement capability.... They never expected us to be able to perform isotopic analyses. They could not understand this or explain the [test result] differences. The more they learned, the more they provided manufactured responses. We had to approach them harder and harder as they realized we were going to discover their wrongdoings."
FROM ACCOMMODATION TO CRISIS
In the last half of 1992 and the early months of 1993, the euphoria that had resulted from opening North Korea's nuclear program to international inspection gave way to suspicion, antagonism, and, eventually, crisis. The rewards Pyongyang had expected from agreeing to nuclear inspections had not developed; instead, the presence of the inspectors provided the focal point for accusations of cheating and new international pressures. Contributing to the setback was a worsening political climate between the North and the South, brought about in part by preparations for ROK presidential elections in December 1992. The United States, which was distracted and largely immobilized by its own November presidential balloting, did nothing to forestall the approaching storm.
Since the signing of the unprecedented series of accords between North and South the previous December, negotiations over their implementation had been going slowly. In the North-South Joint Nuclear Control Commission meetings which were charged with preparing the bilateral nuclear inspections called for under the accords, Pyongyang resisted Seoul's demands for short-notice "inspections with teeth" by South Koreans in addition to the ongoing IAEA inspections. This deadlock became more worrisome as the discrepancies accumulated, and conflict grew, between North Korea and the international inspectors, proving new ammunition for those who had believed all along that North Korea would never reveal crucial elements of its nuclear weapons activity.
With a record of foreign policy accomplishments behind him, President Roh Tae Woo was relatively relaxed, telling the New York Times in September that he believed North Korea's "determination to develop nuclear weapons has become weaker." Roh still hoped for a meeting with Kim Il Sung, although the previous spring he had been forced to reject an unexpected and secret invitation to travel to Pyongyang for the Great Leader's 80th birthday. To meet his counterpart on this occasion would make him seem to be a celebrant at Kim's party. Nevertheless, Roh secretly sent his intelligence chief to Pyongyang to wish Kim happy birthday and express continuing interest in a meeting.
Kim Young Sam, the former opposition leader who had joined the ruling party in 1990 and who became its presidential candidate in May 1992, was more apprehensive about the