The Agreed Framework

The North Koreans lied to us.

Imagine that! Last night the very self-possessed State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told the nation that the Agreed Framework had been abrogated by the North, that they had continued an offensive weapons program to develop nuclear weapons. He stunning revelation came in the midst of a North Korean Charm offensive, perhaps designed to deflect the latest revelation. They have admitted kidnapping Japanese citizens to help train their spy corps. They have established a capitalist enclave on their eastern border with China. Now they admit they violated the nuclear agreement of 1994. I don�t know where we go from here.

The Agreed Framework is how I found myself in the Hermit Kingdom in 1995, surrounded by the Stepford Koreans. We got there via Air Koreo, the North�s excuse for an international airline, out of Beijing. I knew we were in for it when I saw the bald tires on the Ilyushin airplane and the paint on the aluminum with the brushstrokes still showing. The Flight Attendants had pert starched uniforms in pastel and they spoke English. Even the North Koreans obey the international aviation convention. The tray tables were made of lacquered wood and the plane smelled like a museum. We gradually made our way into the air, the front wheels tentatively smelling the atmosphere and eventually, grudgingly, the main mounts followed. We wheeled around and headed to the northeast, toward the North Korean Air Defense Identification Zone.

We were served the worst airline food I have ever experienced. Anywhere, and that includes Haiti.

The Congressman who led the delegation was a hearty and friendly man. This was not his first trip Up North. He had been a trailblazer in opening relations with the North the previous year, recovering a U.S. helicopter polit and the remains of his co-pilot. They were shot down after straying over the heavily-defended border in the fog. On the last trip he had been sequestered in a country villa, far outside the capital of Pyongyang. This trip he had insisted on staying in the capital, and the North wanted him there badly enough to cooperate. I had brokered the deal through Ambassador Kim, who headed the North�s delegation to the United Nations.

The VIP reception area at the Pyongyang airfield had three or four separate suites. We entered into one for processing and two other groups had their own. One was a man and woman of African descent. They both had assertive afros and the air of a revolution past. It could have been Stokely Carmichael or H. Rap Brown and Angela Davis. We saw them at different points around the capital over the next few days, our itineraries carefully segregated by our hosts. We saw the Stadium and the Tower and the heroic Stalinist bomb-shelter subway and the birthplace of The Great Leader. We saw the opera celebrating the feats of the Great Leader in the war against the Japanese invaders, and we got a big round of applause when we entered. I have no idea who they said we were. I expect we were announced as American believers in the Great Leader. We had the same four Mercedes cars with the hood-ornaments changed from the company logo to the North Korean Star- part of the self-reliance thing. The escort from the last delegation asked me to check if the door lock on the passenger�s side of the tan sedan was still broken.

It was. We saw the couple whisking by on the vast public avenues. There was no other traffic, except the ancient buses shuttling between lines of patient pedestrians. Many sat silently by the road with Koreans looking at the engine compartments. At the intersections more women in pastel uniforms and white gloves waved us along. We always made good time.

Our ostensible purpose was to discuss the search for the remains of American troops left behind by the sweep of the Korean War. The armies of both sides had been south to the Tsushima Straits and north to the Yalu. Seoul had fallen four times and was blown to pieces. Pyongyang had fallen twice, and nothing here had been left more than a couple feet tall. The Northerners were very proud of what they had accomplished on their own, through the rugged ideology of the Chuche Idea, the doctrine of self-sufficiency. The Great Leader Kim Il Sung was the prophet, though he was dead. The Presidency looked like it would pass to his son, The Dear Leader, Kim Chong Il.

We had our State Department expert with us, Richard, who spoke Korean like a dream, and kept us in our lane in the road. He expected to come here if we ever opened an Embassy, and it was his job to make sure the Congressman did not promise anything he couldn�t deliver, and to ensure that the nuance of the Agreed Framework was followed in every regard. Nuance was important to the diplomats, and they had painstakingly hammered out an agreement by which the North would: Abandon its weapons program and permit International inspection under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In exchange, Japan and the U.S. would provide two Westinghouse light-water reactors to provide desperately needed power.

The fuel rods North had already acquired would rest quietly under water, glowing.

The young Kim was the best bet to take over the family business as President For Life. He liked western videos and fast living, or so the story went, and was a devotee of James Bond films which led to his somewhat eclectic foreign policy. He could have been a model for the evil bad guy in the Austin Powers films, a villain out of time, except that his hair was longer. We would not meet him on this trip, though we had marvelous discussions in mighty public rooms where we were led by pretty girls in traditional dress. Times being what they were, the Koreans would sometimes forget to turn on the lights. It was clear that if westerners weren�t present the meetings would be held in the dark.

We made some progress with the Vice Chief of Staff of the People�s Army. He was a crusty old general named Kwon Jung Yong, his green tunic festooned with medals for killing Americans told us that they didn�t really care about their missing. They might be persuaded to look for ours, if the price was right. I had my picture taken with him. He was a nice enough fellow, for someone who would have cheerfully killed me where I stood. He smoked filter-less cigarettes and his jet-black hair swept straight back.

Later, we were on the tenth floor of an apartment building. The air was thick with smoke and we met the  Secretary of the Central Committee of the North Korean Worker�s Party. I seemed to remember that was the same position Stalin held in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I imagined he was the head of the junta that would install the young Kim when the time was right, and would either conform or not conform to the Agreed Framework. He was a great guy with a twinkle of in his eye and an excellent command of English. My limited Korean was of great amusement to him, and seated to his right at lunch I had a wonderful time bantering with him about the defensive nature of his multiple rocket launchers north of the DMZ and the purely defensive nature of our aircraft carrier battle groups. He had some very bright people with him, a little detached, perhaps, but our official translator Kim Chol had sleek black hair and a well-tailored suit and he spoke his English with a Oxford accent.

He looked like a young man going places.

This morning, seven years later, we have a sniper still on the loose in Our Fair City. Two more bombs have been detonated in the Philippines and hundreds more are dead. Ships and aircraft are on the move, and another delegation is headed for China to broker some sort of agreement about the North Koreans. Richard Boucher says we are united in demanding the North abandon its weapons program- again.

It is good to know there is at least one constant in this shifting world.

Copyright 2002 Vic Socotra

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