American Foreign Policy: Trials and Tribulations

An Interview with Donald Gregg for Frontline on PBS

Donald Gregg was the U.S. Ambassador to S. Korea during the Clinton Administration and described the 1994 Taepodong missile test by North Korea as “the most dangerous time” in U.S./N.Korea relations.
Back during the Carter administration, we had a more ‘open’ relationship with N.Korea and the diplomatic effort was to bring N.Korea into the international community of well-meaning states. Even then, though, President (for life) Kim Jong Il was duplicitious. President Carter’s Ambassador said to Il, “We’re worried about your nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, obviously it could be used to manufacture weapons as well as power”. Il’s spokesman essentially said, “We’ll shut it down if you’ll build two light-water reactors and give us enough oil to compensate for the power we’ll use to do this”. This was the framework for the agreement the U.S. and N.Korea, or DPRK entered into in the 70’s. The next point of contention came in 1998 when DPRK again tested a ballistic missile, this time firing it across the bow of neighboring nation Japan. This really shook Japan up, since Il condemned anything seen as pro-American. Kim Jong Il dispatched an ambassador to the United States, Jo Myong Rok and his statement, “We two countries do not harbor hostile relations toward each other. We will work toward the improvement of relations", seemed like a useful statement.
When asked why we have failed to learn our lesson talking to them seriously and cooperating where possible, Gregg states,” I think two reasons. I think that Pres. Bush as he acquired a worldview as he ran for office, came into office with very hostile feeling toward four or five world leaders: Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, Yassir Arafat, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. He also had a very strong antipathy toward Clinton for some of the things Clinton had done while he was president, and for the fact that Clinton defeated his father in ’92. Colin Powell’s first statement on N. Korea was ‘we’re going to take up where the Clinton Administration left off’, but that statement did not stand. When Kim Dae Jung, DPRK's Ambassador to the U.N. pressed for an early meeting with newly sitting President Bush in Washington, Bush delayed the meeting, and a statement to the effect of “ I don’t trust Kim Jong Il, we’re going to have a policy review before we do anything”really put off the DPRK leadership. So there was just a real cutoff of the progress that had been made.”
This assertion is disturbing in several ways: That he didn’t like Clinton because he had defeated his father is silly, and I never bought into that one. That he had a pre-office negative opinions of those 5 leaders is far from outrageous. That we did not follow up on Powell/Gregg’s early work is most surely a mistake, but not to review policy when coming into office would be a mistake too. Gregg asserts that time passed and it ‘put off’ the DPRK, though, I cannot perceive this as our problem. Then Gregg says that since that agreement, Kim Jong Il thought we had “moved the goalpost”. I find that interesting to say the least.

Next post: Bush’s Doctrine and capitulation in the modern world of politics and diplomacy.