Gullible's travels.

The Clinton Administration has only itself to blame for the fiasco of Jimmy Carter's "mediation" in Pyongyang. Just days before, when Administration seemed fed up with North Korea and determined on economic sanctions, things appeared to be falling into line. Russia let it be known it no longer considered itself bound to come to North Korea's defense under the Soviet-North Korean Friendship Treaty, and Chinese media in Hong Kong took a sterner line with Pyongyang. But instead of putting an end to Kim Il Sung's slippery evasions, the Administration came up with a feeble plan for "gradually escalating" economic sanctions, giving Kim at each stage an opportunity to "cooperate."

Of course, what this did was guarantee Kim new opportunities to obfuscate. Having learned very well the lesson taught by his North Vietnamese brothers - that the way to win is to manipulate the hopes and fears of Western public opinion - Kim has come up with a battery of phony diplomatic ploys. First, Carnegie Endowment scholar Selig Harrison came out of Pyongyang with a vague promise of "freezing" the North Korean nuclear program (which the Administration used to claim it had achieved all along) in exchange for diplomatic concessions. Then came Jimmy Carter's grand bargain with Kim Il Sung to let international inspectors back in again, in exchange for a North-South Korean Summit or other high-level talks and a dropping of sanctions.

Mr. Carter's performance was egregious even by his usual standards of gullibility. He thrust himself forward as a mediator because he thought the Clinton Administration too tough. He claimed to Kim Il Sung - wrongly - that President Clinton had already halted the sanctions effort. He declared himself absolutely satisfied of Kim's sincerity, passionate interest in nuclear disarmament, and eagerness for better relations with everybody.

The new "peace plans" are deceptive and meaningless, and the Administration knows it. Kim is selling the same damaged goods over and over again. The Administration's strategy, such as it was, is now derailed.

Before the Carter mission brought "peace for our time," Washington was abuzz with talk of U.S. military action. Senator John McCain, Brent Scowcroft, Wall Street Journal editor Karen Elliott House, and even Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan were suggesting that the U.S. launch a preventive airstrike to cripple North Korea's nuclear facilities. When the vacuity of the Carter mission becomes clearer to all, the question may resurface.

The issue is well joined. Pat Buchanan, from the Right, warns that a new Korean war would be devastating, with Seoul in easy range of the North's ten thousand guns and rocket launchers. To deal with a nuclear North Korea, he recommends that we encourage South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan to go nuclear themselves if China and Russia don't step in to solve the problem.

His arguments for military caution deserve respect. The risks and costs of initiating military action are considerable, and South Korea's vulnerability is heightened by the Administration's unconscionable laxity in failing to reinforce the U.S. military presence there. Nevertheless, Mr. Buchanan seems much too sanguine about the nightmare that living with a nuclear Kim Il Sung would be. Kim's blackmail would only escalate, the appeasement reflex in the West only become more powerful. The breakdown of international restraints on nuclear proliferation would, sooner rather than later, benefit enemies ike Iran, Iraq, and Libya and make the next century an era of great perils for the United States and its allies in East Asia and the Middle East. And Mr. Buchanan's solutions are problems in themselves. Is is really in the United States' interest to have a nuclear-armed Japan?

What to do now? The Administration should declare forthrightly that Kim Il Sung's record of duplicity is now complete: no new "testing periods" or diplomatic probes are required; it is time for a full-scale economic blockade of North Korea unless it complies immediately with a stringent inspection that results in the removal of all its weapons-grade plutonium. In parallel, the U.S. should seriously consider military options - both on their merits and also as a way to help galvanize international support for economic sanctions. The prospect of unilateral American military action will do wonders for our diplomatic efforts to secure cooperation on the non-military measures. The U.S. should also accelerate its reinforcement of South Korea.

Finally - as a longer-term response to a proliferation danger for which we are clearly ill-prepared - the U.S. should launch a crash program to develop and deploy defenses against strategic and tactical ballistic missiles. If it fails to do so, the Administration's negligence will be paid for, in some future crisis, in American lives.