The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [200]
Carlin was soon proven right. At the negotiating table on October 6, Kang proposed coolly that North Korea not be required to accept special inspections (he used a euphemism to avoid these words) until 70 to 80 percent of the components of the promised light-water reactors had been shipped. Suddenly "never" had been transformed into a discussion of the price. Carlin wrote an e-mail to his immediate superior at the State Department: "At 11:50 this morning we won the war. I can pinpoint the time because when Kang said what he said, I knew the game was over, and I looked at my watch." At that point it was left to Gallucci to nail down the terms and persuade Washington to permit special inspections to be postponed until the delivery of key nuclear components of the promised light-water reactors-probably five years or more away. The postponement became one of the agreement's most controversial features. Gallucci and the U.S. administration defended it as the best they could do.
South Korea had agreed to play the central role and pick up the lion's share of the costs of providing the light-water reactors, but Seoul was absent from the bargaining table at Geneva. Although its diplomats were briefed daily, its absence from direct participation in the U.S.-DPRK negotiations and resulting accords was a bitter pill for South Koreans, who saw themselves as relegated to a marginal role while their sponsor sat down with their peninsular foe. Conversely, a direct relationship with Washington was among the most important incentives for Pyongyang, which had been marginalized in the earlier South Korean breakthroughs with Moscow and Beijing.
The anxiety in Seoul emerged dramatically in mid-October, when President Kim Young Sam, in an interview with The New York Times, objected to the agreement nearing completion in Geneva on grounds that "North Korea faces the danger of imminent political and economic collapse" and that "any compromise [at this point] with North Korea will only help prolong its survival." He also declared that the United States, with far less experience than Seoul in negotiations with Pyongyang, was being deceived in Geneva. These comments contradicted the public positions of support for the negotiations that had been taken by Kim's government.
Kim's outburst was shocking to Gallucci and to officials in Washington, who feared their ally might torpedo the negotiations at the eleventh hour. Secretary of State Christopher, who was traveling in London, telephoned South Korean foreign minister Han Sung Joo at 2 A.M., London time, after receiving a phone call about Kim's interview from an unhappy President Clinton.
In the Blue House the following afternoon, Ambassador Laney bearded the South Korean president. "We wouldn't betray you at the DMZ; we wouldn't do it in Geneva," Laney declared. Speaking of the alliance's shared purposes about North Korea, he appealed to Kim to maintain unity when they were finally about to succeed in curbing Pyongyang's nuclear program. In response, Kim said flatly that he could not approve the Geneva accord because of promises he had made to the Korean people. He vehemently objected to postponing the "special inspections" to clear up North Korea's murky nuclear past, and to the absence of a North-South aspect of the proposed agreement. Laney countered that early "special inspections" could not be negotiated because Pyongyang would immediately lose all its nuclear leverage, and that Gallucci was actively seeking a commitment to North-South dialogue as part of the accord. Laney appealed to Kim as a statesman to rise above popular expectations.
President Kim was not convinced. In conversation with Foreign Minister Han the following morning, Kim initially resolved to denounce the U.S.-DPRK deal. Such a denunciation would have negated the Geneva negotiations, created a crisis between Seoul and Washington, and