The peacemaker.

For Robert Gallucci, assistant of secretary of state for politico-military affairs, the spring of 1994 had an eerie and disturbing resemblance to historian Barbara Tuchman's account of "the guns of August," when, in the summer of 1914, World War I began in cross-purposes, misunderstanding, and inadvertence. As he and other policy makers moved inexorably toward a confrontation with North Korea, Gallucci was conscious that "this had an escalatory quality, that could deteriorate not only into a war but into a big war." Secretary of Defense William Perry, looking back on the events, concluded that the course he was on "had a real risk of war associated with it" Commanders in the field were even more convinced. Lieutenant General Howell Estes, the senior U.S. Air Force officer in Korea, recalled later that although neither he nor other commanders said so out loud, not even in private conversations with one another, "inside we all thought we were going to war."

The Defueling Crisis

The issue that precipitated this showdown was the unloading of the irradiated fuel rods from the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, North Korea's only indigenous reactor in operation. Such rods, each a yard long and about two inches wide, could be chemically treated in the plant in the final stages of construction at Yongbyon to separate plutonium for atomic weapons from the rest of the highly radioactive material.

Unloading the reactor in 1994 was of great importance for two reasons, one having to do with the past and the other with the future. Regarding the past, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts believed that systematic sampling and careful segregation of rods from particular parts of the reactor's core under its supervision would disclose how long the fuel had been burned and at what intensity. Satellite surveillance had indicated that in 1989 the reactor had been shut down for 110 days, during which time about half of its fuel rods could have been replaced and made available for fabrication of plutonium. By monitoring the reactor's unloading, the IAEA could thus compile a verifiable record of its operating history, confirming how many fuel rods had been previously removed, and therefore identifying the outer limit of the plutonium that might have been produced.

Such a disclosure would be a major step toward eliminating the ambiguity about the DPRK's (North Korea's) past acquisition of nuclear weapons material. From Pyongyang's viewpoint, however, this was a nowin proposition: If it was established that Pyongyang had not diverted nuclear fuel clandestinely to manufacture plutonium in the past, its nuclear threat would diminish and with it the country's bargaining power; but if the supervised unloading established that Pyongyang had lied and produced more plutonium than it had admitted, it would lose face and the hunt would be on for the missing nuclear material.

The future of the 8,000 fuel rods that would now be unloaded from the reactor was of even greater importance. Secretary of Defense Perry estimated that this entire load of rods could be converted into enough plutonium for four or five nuclear weapons. While the United States was not prepared to go to war to clarify the past, it was determined to do so, if necessary, to prevent North Korea from converting these and future irradiated fuel rods into plutonium for nuclear weapons.

On April 19, Pyongyang notified the IAEA of its' intention to defuel the reactor "at an early date," and it invited agency inspectors to witness the unloading operations -- but without specifying what procedures would be followed or what the inspectors would be able to see and do. There followed weeks of sparring over the procedures, with Pyongyang offering to permit inspectors to observe and take some measurements but not to segregate or sample the fuel rods in a way that would make it possible to determine their past history. The IAEA refused to send any inspectors unless its procedures for sampling fuel rods were fully accepted. Washington backed the IAEA, though some officials believed the agency was being too rigid.

Removal of the spent fuel rods began on May 8 without international observation or approval. On June 2, when more than 60 percent of the fuel rods had been removed, IAEA Director General Hans Blix sent a strong letter to the UN Security Council that was an implicit call for international action. Blix's letter was the opening gun in the long-discussed drive for UN sanctions against the recalcitrant, often-maddening DPRK.

North Korea issued a formal statement on June 5 announcing that "sanctions mean war, and there is no mercy in war." Undeterred, Washington proceeded with diplomatic consultations aimed at a sanctions vote in the Security Council and, in parallel, with plans for a stepped-up U.S. military presence in and around Korea, preparing for the possibility of war.

The Deepening Conflict

The devastating possibilities of the deepening conflict were alarming to many of those most familiar with North Korea. Even administration officials conceded that sanctions were unlikely to force Pyongyang to reverse course: The isolated country was relatively invulnerable to outside pressures, since it had so little international commerce and few important international connections of any sort. Moreover, its fierce pride and often-repeated threats suggested that it might actually fight rather than capitulate.

In early June, as Clinton opted for sanctions, former President Jimmy Carter reentered the Korea saga to play a historic role. Carter had received invitations from Kim Il Sung in 1991, 1992, and 1993 to visit Pyongyang, but each time he had been asked by the State Department not to go, on grounds that his trip would complicate the Korean problem rather than help to resolve it.

As the sanctions drive got under way, Carter expressed his growing anxiety in a telephone call to Clinton. Briefed on June 5 by Gallucci, who was sent to Plains, Ga., for that purpose, Carter learned to his dismay that there was no American plan for direct contact with Kim Il Sung. He immediately dispatched a letter to Clinton telling him that he had decided to go to Pyongyang in view of the dangers at hand. Clinton, on the advice of Vice President Gore, interposed no objection to the trip as long as Carter clearly stated that he was acting as a private citizen rather than as an official U.S. envoy.

Even as these developments were taking place, North Korea was also beginning to sketch out areas of conciliation and compromise. On June 3, Pyongyang broadcast an unusual statement in the name of its chief negotiator. Kang Sok Ju announced that North Korea was prepared to dismantle its reprocessing plant ("radio-chemical laboratory") for manufacturing plutonium in connection with the replacement of its existing facilities by a light-water reactor project. This went one step beyond a written statement by Kim Il Sung to The Washington Times on his April 15 birthday, when he said the reprocessing plant "may not be needed" if the light-water reactors were supplied. In the swiftly moving tide toward collision, neither statement received much international attention.

In the meantime Carter, accompanied by his wife Rosalynn and a small party of aides and security guards, had crossed the DMZ on June 15 on his way to see Kim Il Sung. Carter found walking across the dividing line at Panmunjom, then being handed over by U.S. and South Korean military to North Korean military "a bizarre and disturbing experience, evidence of an incredible lack of communication and understanding." He was well aware of the risk to his reputation, believing that "the chances of success were probably minimal because so much momentum had built up on both sides of the sanctions issue."

In his initial meeting in Pyongyang, Carter found Foreign Minister Kim Yong Nam so uncompromising and negative that the former president awoke at 3 a.m. believing it likely that North Korea would go to war rather than yield to international sanctions.

The next morning, Carter met with Kim Il Sung. For Kim, the meeting with the most prominent American ever to visit the DPRK was the culminating moment of his two-decades-long effort to make direct contact with American ruling circles. The Great Leader greeted his visitor with a booming welcome, a hearty handshake, and big smile, which was returned by Carter's characteristic toothy grin.

When the talks began, Carter explained that he had come as a private citizen rather than as a representative of the U.S. government, but that he had come with the knowledge and support of his government. The presence of Dick Christenson, the Korean-speaking deputy director of the State Department's Korea desk, was testimony to the semiofficial nature of the mission. Carter emphasized that the differences in the two governmental systems should not be an obstacle to friendship between the two nations, a point he repeated several times. If the current nuclear issues could be resolved, he said, then high-level negotiations on normalizing relations could move ahead.

Kim, responding on the high plane of generality and mutual recognition that is particularly important in Asia, said that the essential problem between the two nations was lack of trust and that therefore "creating trust is the main task" Kim expressed frustration that, although he had often announced that the DPRK couldn't make and didn't need nuclear weapons, he was not believed. The DPRK's requirement was for nuclear energy, he declared: If the United States helped to supply light-water reactors, North Korea would dismantle its gas-graphite reactors and return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

As part of a solution to the nuclear issue, Kim also requested U.S. guarantees against nuclear attacks on the DPRK. He expressed irritation that South Korea might interfere with whatever solution could be worked out, saying that whenever the prospect of making progress between Pyongyang and Washington came close, Seoul found a way to block it.

Carter, following talking points that he had cleared with Gallucci by telephone before traveling to Pyongyang, asked two things of Kim: that he temporarily freeze his nuclear program until the completion of the planned third round of U.S.-DPRK nuclear negotiations, and that the two remaining IAEA inspectors still at Yongbyon, who were scheduled to be expelled from the country on the next flight to Beijing, be permitted to remain. Even though the expulsions might seem a matter of course since North Korea had announced its withdrawal from IAEA, they were certain to be taken as a sign that Pyongyang was going full speed ahead with a nuclear weapons program.

Apparently completely unfamiliar with the issue of the inspectors' expulsion, Kim turned to Deputy Foreign Minister and chief DPRK negotiator Kang Sok Ju, who was among the few aides present, and asked what this request was about. Kang jumped to his feet and stood at attention, as all aides did when addressing the Great Leader. Then, Kang patiently explained the issue. Kim seemed wary of giving something important away, but he asked his aide's opinion. Kang responded that keeping the inspectors on duty would be the right thing to do. Following this discussion, all in Korean, Kim turned to Carter and announced that North Korea would reverse the previous order and leave the inspectors in place.

When Kim Il Sung agreed to the temporary freeze and to keep the inspectors and monitoring equipment in place, a relieved Carter told Kim he would recommend that the U.S. government "support" North Korea's acquisition of light-water reactors (although he made it clear the United States could not finance or supply them directly) and that U.S.-DPRK negotiations be quickly reconvened. (Carter said he could speak with assurance that no American nuclear weapons were in South Korea or tactical nuclear weapons in the waters surrounding the peninsula. He and Kim agreed that the Korean peninsula should continue to be free of nuclear weapons from any source.)

It was the morning of June 16 in Washington, a half-day behind Korea. President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Secretary of State Christopher, Secretary of Defense Perry, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Shalikashvili, CIA Director James Woolsey, UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, and other senior foreign policy and defense officials were gathered in the Cabinet Room in the second hour of a climactic decision-making meeting about the Korean nuclear issue. At the outset, Clinton gave final approval to proceed with the drive for the sanctions against North Korea in the UN Security Council, where the American sanctions plan had been circulating in draft form for several days. That decided, General Shalikashvili began outlining the U.S. military buildup in and around Korea, which Perry and the Joint Chiefs had recommended in tandem with the sanctions decision. The problem was nobody knew how North Korea would react to such extensive reinforcements at a time of high tension on the peninsula. "I always got this feeling that the North Koreans studied the desert [Operation Desert Storm against Iraq] more than we did almost," said a general with access to all the available intelligence. "And they learned one thing: You don't let the United States build up its forces and then let them go to war against you.... So I always felt that the North Koreans were never going to let us do a large buildup. They would see their window of opportunity closing, and they would come." Adding to this officer's apprehension was a chilling fact not well known outside the U.S. command:At Panmunjom in May, a North Korean colonel told a U.S. officer, "We're not going to let you do a buildup." He did not say, nor did anyone know, how much of a buildup of American forces might trigger a North Korean preemptive strike.

Before Shalikashvili had finished his briefing, however, a White House aide entered the room with the news that Carter was on the telephone line from Pyongyang. Gallucci, who was designated to take the call in an adjoining room, heard the enthusiastic former president say that Kim Il Sung had agreed to freeze the nuclear program and to allow the IAEA inspectors to remain. Carter said he believed the third round of U.S.-DPRK negotiations should be convened in the light of this breakthrough, and he was asking for White House permission to say so. Then he told Gallucci, who was startled but made no comment, that he planned to describe the progress he had made in a live interview shortly with CNN, which had been permitted to bring its cameras to Pyongyang to cover the Carter mission. Gallucci told Carter he would report his news to a meeting on these issues taking place as they spoke, and he promised a response later.

Gallucci's report was a bombshell in the Cabinet Room. Except for leaving the inspectors in place, the substance of Carter's accomplishments sounded to some like nothing new. But there was anger in the room about Carter's imminent CNN interview, which seemed likely to upstage and embarrass the administration just as it was reaching major new decisions on a problem it had been living with for more than a year. One participant viewed Carter's actions as "near traitorous." Another feared it was a stalling action by the North Koreans, just as the United States was about to "pull the trigger" on sanctions and the troop buildup. Whatever their private thoughts, Clinton and Gore decreed that it was essential to shape a substantive response, not indulge in mere Carter-bashing.

As Clinton left for another event, the others crowded in front of a television set where they stood or sat, some on the floor, as Carter spoke by satellite from halfway around the world in Pyongyang to CNN White House correspondent Wolf Blitzer, who was on the White House lawn a few steps away, and CNN diplomatic correspondent Ralph Begleiter, who was in a Washington studio a few blocks away. Carter repeated Kim Il Sung's statements and declared them to be "a very important and very positive step toward the alleviation of this crisis." While saying that next steps would be up to the Clinton administration, Carter publicly proclaimed his preference: "What is needed now is a very simple decision just to let the already constituted delegations from North Korea and the United States have their third meeting, which has been postponed. That's all that's needed now, and that's all the North Koreans are addressing."

Suddenly a diplomatic-military crisis took on new political dimensions, as it was played out in public on live television in full view of Clinton's friends and foes at home as well as officials around the world. To the consternation of the White House team, the press saw administration officials as bystanders while a private citizen, former president Carter, appeared in control of U.S. policy.

After the officials filed back into the Cabinet Room, National Security Council aide Stanley Roth, a veteran of Asia policy-making on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon, suggested the course of action that was ultimately accepted: that the administration design its own detailed requirements for a freeze on the North Korean nuclear program and send them back to Pyongyang through Carter. In effect, the United States would say, "We agree and accept if you accept our version of the freeze." As was noted in the meeting, the tactic was similar to a celebrated U.S. ploy at the height of the 1962 U.S.-Soviet Cuban missile crisis, when the Kennedy administration had interpreted communications from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in its own way to fashion an acceptable settlement.

Gallucci and two other aides left the room and drafted U.S. requirements for a North Korean freeze that was to be in effect while talks continued. In their version, North Korea would have to agree specifically not to place new fuel rods in the 5-megawatt reactor and not to reprocess the irradiated fuel rods that had been removed. By the time it ended, the marathon White House meeting had stretched on for more than five hours.

Lake then spoke to Carter in Pyongyang, where it was approaching dawn on June 17, and outlined the conditions, which went beyond what North Korea had offered and well beyond the legal restraints of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Carter objected vociferously to upping the ante, noting that these new conditions had not been mentioned before his trip and that he had not presented them to Kim Il Sung or others in Pyongyang. It seemed far from certain, perhaps even unlikely, that the North Koreans would accept them. In fact, however, perhaps because of their own urgent desire to end the dangerous confrontation, the North Koreans quickly accepted.

To celebrate the easing of the crisis, Kim Il Sung invited Carter and his party to a celebration on the Taedong River aboard the presidential yacht. During the boat ride, the exhausted Carter mistakenly told Kim while CNN cameras were rolling that the American drive for economic and political sanctions at the UN Security Council had been halted due to their discussions the previous day. This action had not yet been taken. Carter's comment, which was played on American television, seemed to suggest once more that the White House had lost control of its Korea policies. This gaffe turned out to be the most controversial facet of Carter's trip in the U.S. press and dominated much of the immediate commentary.

The boat ride was also the occasion for the most important breakthrough of the mission from the South Korean standpoint. Sitting across a small table in the main cabin of the yacht, Carter brought up the unresolved state of North-South relations and the possibility of a North-South summit meeting, which South Korean President Kim Young Sam had asked him to propose to his North Korean counterpart. Kim Il Sung recounted for Carter his version of the various attempts at agreement between the two halves of the divided country, and he expressed his frustration that little had been accomplished. In a remarkable statement coming from him, Kim said that the fault for the lack of progress lay on both sides, and that responsibility for the mistakes had to be shared. Kim said he had noted his southern counterpart's statements, in his inaugural address the previous year, about the primacy of national kinship and his offer of a summit meeting "at any time and in any place." He went on to say that he was ready to meet Kim Young Sam and that their meeting should be held without preconditions or extended preliminary talks. He invited Carter to pass along this message to the South Korean president.

How and why Kim Il 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. 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 rapprochement between the leaders of the North and South.

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 report to Clinton. Later the administration relented, and Carter paid a visit to the White House en route to Atlanta, although Clinton remained at Camp David during the meeting with his Democratic predecessor and spoke to him only by telephone.

It will be years, perhaps many years, before it will be possible to know with certainty how close the Korean peninsula came to a devastating new outbreak of war in the spring of 1994. It is instructive that those in the U.S. and South Korean governments who were closest to the decisions are among those who, in retrospect, rate the chances for hostilities to have been the highest. It is clear, however, that the United States responded to North Korea's nuclear challenge with a combination of force and diplomacy which, although often improvised and lacking coherence, was equal to the seriousness of the issue.