The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [232]
In all likelihood the timing of the test had little or nothing to do with these U.S. domestic developments, but was keyed to two significant DPRK milestones in early September: the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the North Korean state and the formal elevation of Kim Jong Il to the top post in the North Korean government. Pyongyang had last tested a ballistic missile, the two-stage Nodong, in 1993. On a previous occasion in October 1996, North Korea was observed to be making physical preparations for a new test launch, but dismantled the preparations after U.S. protests that such a firing would seriously harm bilateral relations and the international environment. In August 1998, however, apparently for domestic reasons, it went ahead.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the damage to the existing U.S. policy inflicted by the twin blows of August 1998. Members of Congress who had reluctantly gone along with the U.S. commitments under the 1994 Agreed Framework were incensed by the developments and prepared to cut off the funds. "I think we ought to stop talking to [North Koreans], stop appeasing them," said the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Bob Livingston. "I see this as a pretty good excuse just to get out of this [1994 agreement]." A senior Clinton administration official with responsibilities in Asia told me, "the [secret] underground facility pulled the plug on the policy, and the missiles hurt even more." U. S. policy toward North Korea, he said, "is in deep shit." Should the United States abandon its commitments under the Agreed Framework, it was clear, North Korea would be free to resume its production of plutonium at Yongbyon, and it was saying it would do so. This activity had brought the two nations to the brink of a military crisis in 1994 and would almost certainly do so again.
Soon after the story broke regarding the secret underground facility, the United States demanded the opportunity to inspect it, in order to determine whether it was indeed a clandestine nuclear facility. After initial confusion about the site in question, North Korean diplomats were remarkably relaxed about this topic, expressing willingness to negotiate a site visit if the Americans would pay "a handsome lump-sum," later proposed to be $300 million, for the privilege. Negotiations that included this issue, in fact, were beginning in New York when the Taep'o-dong was launched, immensely complicating the U.S. political problem. North Koreans knew something the Americans were uncertain about: that the underground cavern in question, at a place called Kumchang-ni, was not a nuclear facility and was unsuitable for such a purpose. They also increasingly understood it was essential for American officials to obtain access, and therefore Pyongyang could drive a hard bargain.
The underground nuclear weapons issue was the creation of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, a center of extreme skepticism, if not hostility, toward U.S. rapprochement with Pyongyang. American spy satellites had long been monitoring a variety of North Korean military excavations, which were commonplace in a country under continual fear of air attack. In the case of the dig at Kumchang-ni, into a hard-rock mountain in a heavily militarized area northwest of Pyongyang near the Chinese border, excavation had begun a decade earlier, but had only attracted serious attention after U.S. intelligence suggested the area was linked to the Ministry