The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [189]
How and why Kim II Sung decided to proceed to a summit with the South Korean president in the last days of his life is a matter of great speculation, because he had only come that close to a meeting once before, when he had issued the invitation for Roh Tae Woo to attend his seventieth birthday observance in 1992. One theory holds that Kim sensed he did not have long to live and was seeking to arrange a smoother path for his son and successor. Another theory suggests he realized that it was necessary to improve relations with the South in order to improve fundamentally his relations with the United States. Still another theory is that the decision was a spur-ofthe-moment response to Carter's proposal. There were persistent reports that some in the North Korean leadership, possibly including Kim Jong II, were unenthusiastic or even opposed to a Kim Il SungKim Young Sam meeting. Whatever lay behind Kim Il Sung's decision, it is clear that he never backed away from it but proceeded to plan energetically for the summit.
Shortly after Carter left North Korea through Panmunjom, he called on Kim Young Sam at the Blue House. The South Korean president was initially cool to Carter and his mission, believing that once again the fate of the peninsula had been under negotiation at a very high level without his participation. When Carter conveyed Kim Il Sung's summit offer, however, the South Korean president became visibly excited. Within the hour, Kim Young Sam announced his acceptance of an early and unconditional summit meeting, thereby turning Carter's mission into a personal initiative to achieve what his predecessors had tried and failed to do. In a sudden and entirely unexpected reversal of fortune, the immense tension and great danger in the Korean peninsula gave way to the greatest hope in years for a historic rapprochement between the leaders of the North and South.
Although delighted at the prospect of a summit meeting, the South Korean president privately rejected Carter's account of his counterpart's state of health, which Carter described as "vigorous" and "alert." The South Korean president's own father, whom he spoke to by telephone every morning, was just a year or two older than Kim Il Sung. From television pictures recorded by his intelligence agency, Kim Young Sam believed that his counterpart in the North wasn't all that well. "Carter is a smart man," Kim Young Sam told aides as the former U.S. president left his office, "but he doesn't know much about old people."
Carter called it "a miracle" that his meetings with Kim Il Sung had transformed a confrontation at the brink of war into new and promising sets of U.S.-DPRK and North-South negotiations. "I personally believe the crisis is over," he announced after briefing officials at the White House, and within a few days it was clear that this was so. The sanctions activity and plans for extensive reinforcement of U.S. troops were dropped. After obtaining written confirmation from Pyongyang of its acceptance of the U.S.-devised freeze on its nuclear program, Washington announced readiness to proceed to the third round of U.S.-DPRK negotiations, which were scheduled to begin on July 8 in Geneva.
Despite the positive results of his unorthodox initiative, Carter initially was the object of more criticism than praise. American politicians, public figures, and the press, emphasizing the contradictions between Carter's efforts and Clinton administration policies, were critical of his intervention. The former president was startled to be privately informed, as he came back across the DMZ, that the White House did not want him to return home through Washington or to even make a telephone