The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [187]
The JCS chairman had explained the first option of modestly augmented forces and was well into his discussion of the Pentagon's preferred choice, the second option involving the dispatch of warplanes, another aircraft-carrier battle group, and more than 10,000 additional troops. Suddenly a White House aide entered the room with the news that Carter was on the telephone line from Pyongyang.
Gallucci, who was designated to take the call in an adjoining room, heard the enthusiastic former president say that Kim Il Sung had agreed to freeze the nuclear program and to allow the IAEA inspectors to remain. Carter said he believed the third round of U.S.- DPRK negotiations should be convened in the light of this breakthrough, and he was asking for White House permission to say so. Then he told Gallucci, who was startled but made no comment, that he planned to describe the progress he had made in a live interview shortly with CNN. Gallucci told Carter he would report his news to a meeting on these issues taking place as they spoke, and he promised a response later.
Gallucci's report was a bombshell in the Cabinet Room. Except for leaving the inspectors in place, the substance of Carter's accomplishments sounded to some like nothing new. But there was anger in the room about Carter's imminent CNN interview, which seemed likely to upstage and embarrass the administration just as it was reaching major new decisions on a problem it had been living with for more than a year. One participant viewed Carter's actions as "near traitorous." Another feared it was a stalling action by the North Koreans, just as the United States was about to "pull the trigger" on sanctions and the troop buildup. Whatever their private thoughts, Clinton and Gore decreed that it was essential to shape a substantive response, not indulge in mere Carter-bashing.
As Clinton left for another event, the others crowded in front of a television set where they stood or sat, some on the floor, as Carter spoke by satellite from halfway around the world in Pyongyang to CNN White House correspondent Wolf Blitzer, who was on the White House lawn a few steps away, and CNN diplomatic correspondent Ralph Begleiter, who was in a Washington office a few blocks away. Carter repeated Kim Il Sung's statements and declared them to be "a very important and very positive step toward the alleviation of this crisis." While saying that next steps would be up to the Clinton administration, Carter publicly proclaimed his preference: "What is needed now is a very simple decision just to let the already constituted delegations from North Korea and the United States have their third meeting, which has been postponed. That's all that's needed now, and that's all the North Koreans are addressing."
Suddenly a diplomatic-military crisis took on new political dimensions, as it was played out in public on live television in full view of Clinton's friends and foes at home as well as officials around the world. To the consternation of the White House team, the press saw administration officials as bystanders while a private citizen, former president Carter, appeared in control of U.S. policy.
After the officials filed back into the Cabinet Room, National Security Council aide Stanley Roth, a veteran of Asia policy making on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon, suggested the course of action that was ultimately accepted: that the administration design its own detailed requirements for a freeze on the North Korean nuclear program and send them back to Pyongyang through Carter. In effect, the United States would