The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [182]
The North Korean concession was further developed by Selig Harrison of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who arrived in Pyongyang the day after Kang's statement. Harrison, The Washington Post correspondent for Northeast Asia in the early 1970s, had been one of the first American correspondents to interview Kim Il Sung. As a scholar since the mid-1970s, Harrison had kept a close eye on Korean developments, revisiting the North in 1987 and 1992 and making many visits to the South. Harrison was known in Washington policy circles for having an unusually positive view of Pyongyang's willingness to compromise in return for American relationships and concessions, which he believed its leaders badly wanted. Washington conservatives and many officials scoffed, but since Harrison had had a longer acquaintance with policy makers in Pyongyang than almost anyone else, it was difficult to dismiss him.
In his new trip, Harrison concentrated on finding a way to give operational significance to Pyongyang's willingness to abandon its reprocessing plant. In meetings with Kang and others, he argued that North Korea should freeze further development of the reprocessing plant and all the rest of its nuclear program when binding commitments were received for delivery and financing of the LWRs.
On June 9, when Harrison broached the freeze idea in a meeting with Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader seemed not to have heard of it from his aides. In a show of confidence in Kang that would be repeated with Carter, Kim turned to his chief negotiator for an explanation and discussed the possibilities with him for about five minutes in Korean. Then he turned to Harrison and said, "This is a good idea. We can definitely accept it if the United States really makes a firm commitment that we can trust."
Kim then repeated his denial that North Korea had nuclear weapons or any intention of producing them. "It gives me a headache when people demand to see something we don't have," said Kim. "It's like dogs barking at the moon. What would be the point of making one or two nuclear weapons when you have ten thousand plus delivery systems that we don't have. We would be a laughingstock. We want nuclear power for electricity, and we have shown this by our offer to convert to light-water reactors." Harrison left Pyongyang on June 11 believing that a freeze on the North Korean program in return for light-water-reactor commitments could produce the breakthrough that was desperately needed.
On June 13, however, when Carter arrived in Seoul en route to the North, Harrison's optimism was shared by very few in the South Korean capital. The ROK government, while counseling calm, had announced the largest civil defense exercise in many years to mobilize its citizens in case of war. Reacting to the growing atmosphere of crisis, the Seoul stock market dropped by 25 percent in two days and jittery South Koreans were jamming stores to stockpile rice, dried noodles, and candles. Carter found most members of the ROK gov ernment hostile to his mission. Before his arrival, ROK president Kim Young Sam had pronounced the mission to be "ill timed" and said it could help the North pursue "stalling tactics" on the nuclear issue.
The sense of inexorable drift toward military conflict that had been felt within the high ranks of the U.S. government since the