It was 1995. It was not the first time I had been to the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea. But last time was a quick scoot to the north side of the conference table in the Treaty Village at Panmunjon. A North Korean guard in one of those flying-saucer caps peered in the window from his country to ensure I didn’t touch the anything.

This time I was flying in a small delegation into Pyongyang via Air Koreo from Beijing. To be a nation, they say, you need an airline and a beer. The North had both, though in limited quantity. The tires on the Ilyushin airplane were bald and there were brushstrokes in the paint. The tray tables were lacquered wood. It only grudgingly made its way into the air.

The Congressman had been invited to come. On his last trip he had been sequestered in a country villa. This time he insisted on staying downtown. The North wanted him there badly enough to cooperate. We had the Presidential Guest Palace where Jimmy Carter stayed, the deal brokered through the UN Ambassador in New York, the only North Koreans we knew about in the U.S.

Our ostensible reason for the visit was the search for MIA’s left behind by the sweep of the Korean War. Armies had been south to the Tsushima Straits and north to the Yalu River. Both capitals had fallen and nothing over knee-height was left. The Northerners rebuilt grandly, proud of their accomplishments through The Great Leader’s rugged doctrine of self-sufficiency, which he called the Chuche Idea.

That included atomic weapons, which is what they wanted to talk about. The Agreed Framework is what we called the status quo, their promise not to enrich uranium and build bombs. We did not meet the Dear Leader, but we had discussions in mighty public rooms, led by pretty girls in traditional dress. Times being what they were, they would sometimes forget to turn on the lights. If Westerners weren’t present, the meetings would have been held in the dark.

We met the Vice Chief of Staff of the People’s Army, a crusty old general named Kwon. His green tunic was covered with medals for killing Americans. He smoked and told us that they didn’t really care about their missing. They might be persuaded to look for ours, though, if the price was right. I had my picture taken with him. He was a nice enough fellow, considering he would have cheerfully killed me where I stood.

Later, we met the Secretary of the Central Committee of the North Korean Worker’s Party. I imagined he was the one who would advise the Dear Leader to either conform or not conform to the Agreed Framework, build the bombs or not. His English was good and my limited Korean was of great amusement to him. Our official translator had a well-tailored suit and his English was Oxford accented, as if he had learned it from the BBC.

He looked like a young man going places. Privately, I wasn’t as confident about the Agreed Framework.

Copyright 2004 Vic Socotra

I cut the “Agreed Framework” pretty hard. There is so much to talk about in the North, the itinerary for foreign state guests remarkably similar. I could have done the commentary for Madeline Albrights visit.

The heroic subway, murals of great scenes in the revolution, only six linear stops and dug so deep that it can serve as a shelter for the entire population. The Tower of the Chuche Idea thrusting up like the Washington Monument, heroic arches to victory, and the 104-story pyramid hotel that no one talks about, since it was built badly and the elevators shafts are not true and do not work. So it stands dark and empty, an elephant in the middle of town.

Losing our State Department minder’s air ticket home, since he was staying in Seoul for consultation when we came out, via Beijing again. My fault, really, though I think he should have thought about his return, considering I had all the travel documents. The American Black revolutionary couple we saw on mirror-image itineraries, being whisked in identical Merciedes cars with the hood ornement changed to the North Korean Star to make it appear the cars had been built there. Chuche Idea, after all.

I didn’t know which to include and which to drop on the floor.

The starched pastel uniforms of the young women who were the Flight Attentants and the Traffic Monitors. The gruffness of General Kwon, the affafble approahability of the General Secretary, the clouds of tobacco smoke, and the goose-stepping of the troops.

Soldiers in dress uniforms- everyone in uniforms- trousers rolled up in the rice paddies. The patient lines of people waiting by broken-down buses at the side of the vast heroic boulevards. An older women throwing herself on the pavement at the memorial to the Great Leader, a North Korean Bob Barker on a megaphone extolling his endless praise.

Visiting the birthplace of the Great Leader himself, the tour guide filled with awe and reverence. The Stepford Children dancing the dance of the Great Anti-Japanese war, like small robots. The meals in our private dining room. The personal kindness of our security detail, who awarded us the little Great Leader lapel buttons of fine porcelin.

I wound up liking them, to a degree, and they wound up trusting Bill to take their story back to America. There was a lot going on during this trip. Three days, two nights in the land of silence. The sound of treads clanking on stone in the night, one neon sign the only light in the sleeping capital.

A fine Cuban cigar with the Congressman, and him leaning over and saying he might have to dispatch me to Panmunjong, to go out that way in the North Korean night, to get additional instructions that were not monitored by our hosts.

So I suppose there might be another vignette or two someplace about the North.

Cheers!

Vic