The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [186]
Apparently completely unfamiliar with the issue, Kim turned to Deputy Foreign Minister and chief DPRK negotiator Kang Sok Ju, who was among the few aides present, and asked what this request was about. Kang jumped to his feet and stood at attention, as all aides did when addressing the Great Leader. Then, as had been the case with Selig Harrison and the freeze proposal eight days earlier (about which Carter had not been informed), Kang patiently explained the issue. Kim seemed wary of giving something important away, but he asked his aide's opinion. Kang responded that keeping the inspectors on duty would be the right thing to do. Following this discussion, all in Korean, Kim turned to Carter and announced that North Korea would reverse the previous order and leave the inspectors in place.
This exchange, one of the few times when outsiders witnessed policy actually being made in North Korea, suggested that Kim Il Sung remained capable of making on-the-spot decisions of great importance without debate or fear of contradiction. It also suggested that he was willing to solicit and take the advice of aides in whom he had confidence-in this case, Kang. Kim's eldest son and anointed successor, Kim Jong Ii, was nowhere in evidence in Carter's meetings, although Carter had asked to see him. The younger Kim rarely appeared in meetings with foreign visitors.
When Kim Il Sung agreed to the temporary freeze and to keep the international inspectors and monitoring equipment in place, a relieved Carter told him he would recommend that the U.S. government "support" North Korea's acquisition of light-water reactors (although he made it clear the United States could not finance or supply them directly) and that the long-awaited third round of U.S.-DPRK negotiations be quickly reconvened. Carter said he could speak with assurance that no American nuclear weapons were in South Korea or tactical nuclear weapons in the waters surrounding the peninsula. He and Kim agreed that the Korean peninsula should continue to be free of nuclear weapons from any source.
Believing that he had made an important breakthrough, Carter met later in the day with Kang to confirm the details. Kang warned against proceeding with the UN sanctions (which Carter had opposed from the beginning), telling him that "all the people in this country and our military are gearing up now to respond to those sanctions. If the sanctions pass, all the work you have done here will go down the drain." From the comments of Kang and his immediate superior, Foreign Minister Kim Yong Nam, Carter concluded that North Korea actually would have gone to war on a preemptive basis if sanctions had been imposed while the United States was engaging in a major military buildup in the area.
Cable News Network correspondent Mike Chinoy and a CNN film crew, who had been permitted to broadcast a rare series of reports from the North at the time of Kim Il Sung's eighty-second birthday two months earlier, had been allowed to return to cover the Carter visit. The only American journalists on hand, they were a channel for worldwide attention. Carter decided to give CNN an interview to announce the results of his meeting with Kim and to halt the rush toward armed conflict. But first it was necessary to inform the White House.
It was the morning of June 16 in Washington, a half-day behind Korea. President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Secretary of State Christopher, Secretary of Defense Perry, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Shalikashvili, CIA director James Woolsey, UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, and other senior foreign policy and defense officials were gathered in the Cabinet Room in the second hour of a climactic decision-making meeting about the Korean nuclear issue. At the outset, Clinton gave final approval to proceed with the drive for the sanctions against North Korea in the UN Security Council, where the American sanctions plan had