www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB87 -> www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB87/
Links to Selected Online Resources on the North Korean Nuclear Progra m North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified US Record National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No.
Jump to documents North Korea's nuclear weapons program has moved back to the front pages with the unprecedented acknowledgement by North Korea during talks this week in Beijing that the North has developed nuclear weapons. News of this revelation came as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Aff airs James A Kelly was preparing to leave Beijing for consultations in Seoul, and leaves the future of the talks uncertain and the threat of a potential escalation in tensions on the peninsula high. This is but t he latest step in a simmering crisis that began with the admission by N orth Korea, after being confronted with hard evidence by Assistant Secr etary Kelly in October 2002, that it has been pursuing in secret a nucl ear weapons program in violation of the Agreed Framework of 1994 and it s adherence to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Pyongyang's subsequen t actions in asserting the right to possess nuclear weapons, breaking t he seals on its nuclear reactor put there by the International Atomic E nergy Agency, withdrawing from the NPT and the expulsion of IAEA inspec tors from the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, have kept the crisis simmeri ng, and laid the basis for reported splits within the Bush administrati on over the best strategy for dealing with Pyongyang. Seemingly replayi ng debates marking the lead-up to the war with Iraq, newspaper analyses portray the State Department under Secretary of State Colin Powell pre ssing for diplomacy and efforts to reassure the North Koreans that the US was not seeking regime change, while Secretary of Defense Donald R umsfeld has reportedly called for joining with Beijing to push for remo val of the North Korean regime.
Incipient brinksmanship combined with uncertaint ies about what the North has done, much less intends to do, has so far marked the DPRK's actions, as seen in reports that Pyongyang had encoun tered problems in restarting its nuclear reprocessing facility, and the confusion over the correct English translation of a statement on the N orth Korean official website, which the North Koreans originally transl ated to announce the successful reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods , only to be revised a day later to say the country was "successfully g oing forward to reprocess work."
The documen ts described below are a selection of both declassified and publicly re leased intelligence assessments, policy statements and reports on the N orth Korean nuclear program. Other documents provide a fascinating wind ow on the policies pursued by the Reagan and first Bush administrations in addressing this issue, and the way in which both diplomatic and ide ological crosscurrents have complicated or hampered US efforts. The US Intelligence Reports The declassified intelligence documents show the evolution of intelligen ce concern about the North Korean nuclear program.
By the mid-1980s, CIA analysis d iscussed not only the components of the nuclear program, but the potent ial that North Korea would, indeed, seek to develop nuclear weapons. Ho wever, the CIA did note the energy-production rationale for the program and the lack of evidence that the North was actually planning to joint the nuclear club.
By the very late 1980s, however, the r apid expansion of the North Korean program was the subject of several a nalyses. These intelligence assessments should be viewed along with tho se available on a number of the websites cited below which provide test imony by various Directors of Central Intelligence on the North Korean nuclear threat. These analyses must also be read with an understanding of the uncertainties and ambiguities that surround any effort to assess the capabilities and intentions of such a secretive regime as North Ko rea's.
excerpt from an in terview with Charles W Freeman, a long-time State Department China han d who was deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Beijing during the Reagan years, centers on Freeman's recollections about a still-bor n step toward opening direct talks with North Korea that might have eme rged from a surprising Chinese offer during the first Reagan administra tion to broker such discussions. This initiative was effectively killed , according to Freeman, by the determined opposition of Paul Wolfowitz, who was then Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific A ffairs. Freeman speculates that Wolfowitz's hostility to the initiative was rooted in part in the latter's ideological suspicion of any Chines e initiative and his concerns over adverse reactions from the Republica n right-wing to such talks (see pp. Wolfowitz' s reputed role as the intellectual driving-force behind the hard-line p ositions taken by the Defense Department on Iraq, North Korea and other members of the "Axis of Evil" suggests that long-standing debates cont inue to be waged in the current administration. Two documents provide insight into how the first Bush administration fac ed the North Korean nuclear issue, suggesting that more collegiality ma rked relations between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon at that time than now.
briefing paper for Under Secretary of State Reginald Barthol omew's trip to Beijing in the summer of 1991 outlines the concerns of t he State Department over the growing evidence that Pyongyang was contin uing to pursue a nuclear weapons capability in violation of its NPT com mitments. As with the current Bush administration, the senior Bush's St ate Department sought Beijing's cooperation in pressing North Korea to live up to its commitments and avoid taking steps that could destabiliz e the Korean peninsula and the entire East Asia region.
November 18, 1991 cable from Secretary of State James Baker to S ecretary of Defense (and now Vice President) Richard Cheney provides a fascinating inside view of US diplomacy on North Korea, especially wh en one is aware of the larger framework of US diplomacy that shaped B aker's comments, as well as the role played by policy-makers in the cur rent Bush II administration. As Baker was returning from his Asian trip and Cheney was preparing to head to Korea for security consultations w ith Seoul, a number of diplomatic initiatives aimed at addressing the s ecurity situation on the Korean peninsula were in play.
US policy was com ing to give priority to denuclearization as a prerequisite to reconcili ation, and in line with this goal, had put heavy pressure on South Kore an President Roh Tae Woo, personally applied by then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (and current Deputy Secretary of Defense) Paul Wolfo witz during the summer of 1991, to accept a joint ban with the North on nuclear reprocessing. Then, the decision by the Bush administration in October 1991 to withdraw its nuclear weapons from South Korea as part of a worldwide drawdown of US tactical nuclear deployments was a key step towards denuclearizing the peninsula. For his part, President Roh wanted to take the lead in negotiations with the North, and was opposed to any US direct contacts with Pyongyang, which Baker in this cable seemed open to considering, if only to clarify the US position. Seoul had been ver y unhappy with the free-lance diplomacy of the LDP's political dealmake r Shin Kanemaru, who had visited North Korea in September 1991 and disc ussed with Kim Il Sung normalization of ties between their two countrie s, an act the very possibility of which could upset Roh's complex diplo matic pas-de-deux with the North. As th e result of Seoul's pressure on the Japanese government, Kanemaru was b rought back on the reservation and Tokyo's position was brought into li ne with that of South Korea and the US (see Paragraph 7) If Seoul was concerned to keep Japan out of the diplomatic mix, Baker and the US seemed to feel that Beijing had a more positive role to play, if done d iscretely (see Paragraph 8) This estimation (or over-estimation in the views of some) of Beijing's leverage on Pyongyang is echoed in current administration views on how to handle the...
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