0:01

North Korea is a Premium, and

0:03

we're gonna continue to do it so we can

0:05

control them. We're gonna make sure we can control

0:07

them and make sure they cannot hurt us.

0:10

not gonna legitimize you. We're gonna continue

0:12

to push stronger and stronger sanctions

0:14

on you.

0:17

He who can destroy a thing. controls

0:21

of lightning. Welcome

0:45

to blowback. I'm Brendan James,

0:47

and I'm Noah Coleman. And this is

0:49

episode ten, the

0:51

host. Last

0:53

episode, we witnessed in July

0:55

of nineteen fifty three the signing

0:57

of the Armistice in Korea.

0:59

This

1:00

was a military agreement expected

1:02

to be temporary, expected to lead

1:05

to a real and lasting peace

1:07

treaty. That treaty

1:09

never came. In

1:11

this episode, we'll embark

1:13

on a speedrun of the year since

1:15

the War of nineteen fifty to fifty

1:17

three. We'll see the demise of figures

1:20

like Sigman Re and Joe McCarthy, the

1:22

rise of military frontas, and the extension

1:24

of the Kim line. We'll see the North

1:27

rebuild and develop a modern economy

1:29

and society. We'll see the South

1:31

struggle and

1:32

then come back strong. in fact

1:34

becoming a capitalist powerhouse while

1:37

remaining military dictatorship for

1:39

many decades. We'll see

1:41

spy missions, assassination plots,

1:44

mutenies, and the near breakout

1:46

of another wide scale war.

1:49

We'll see the introduction of nuclear

1:51

weapons to the Korean peninsula. and

1:53

they may not come from who you would expect.

1:56

We'll see a succession of US

1:58

and Korean leaders attempt

1:59

to alternatively build and

2:02

destroy chances for lasting

2:04

peace. And finally, in this

2:06

last episode of the season, we

2:08

will catch up to the more recent years.

2:11

the attempts at and sabotage of

2:13

reconciliation and the broader legacy

2:15

of the Korean war.

2:38

The Armistice Agreement in Korea

2:40

was finally reached on July twenty seventh

2:43

fifty three. As the US national

2:45

archives own website reads, quote, The

2:48

Korean Armistice agreement is somewhat

2:50

exceptional in that it is purely

2:52

a military document. No

2:54

nation is a signatory to the agreement

2:57

and, quote, This is true.

2:59

But as Juan is story in elsewhere writes,

3:01

the forces of the southern quote,

3:03

had refused to sign the Armistice.

3:06

and wanted a military solution to

3:09

the divided peninsula. In

3:11

the north, the Armistice was understood

3:14

as a political reality, a way

3:16

to stop the bloodshed, a concession

3:18

to the enemy, who had held on to the border

3:21

at the thirty eighth parallel. but

3:22

among Sigmundry, South Korean

3:25

right wingers, and a good chunk of the

3:27

American military brass. The

3:29

Armistice was a disaster. On

3:32

June ninth nineteen fifty three,

3:34

the Associated Press reported that a crowd

3:36

of five hundred thousand people in Seoul,

3:39

quote, demonstrated feverishly

3:41

today against an armistice. And

3:44

nine days later writes Grace Che

3:46

in the Journal of American East Asian relations,

3:48

quote, Under the cover of night,

3:50

on June eighteenth, Sigman re

3:53

released nearly twenty five

3:55

thousand non repatriate North

3:57

Korean POWs meaning

3:59

that is anti communist p

4:01

o w's in order to jam

4:03

up the Armistice process. And

4:05

then, less than two weeks before

4:07

the Armistice itself was signed by July.

4:10

A United Press headline ran, quote,

4:13

a bombs may be used if

4:15

truce efforts fail. Reporting

4:17

that using American atomic weapons,

4:19

quote, is a possibility if

4:22

they elect to continue the Korean war

4:24

instead of signing an Armistice. Plans

4:26

envisioning large scale use of

4:28

a bombs were prepared in the Pentagon,

4:31

but shelved prior to the current series

4:33

of truce talks. military sources

4:36

revealed today. So the Armistice

4:38

now that holds in Korea is a negotiated

4:40

ceasefire, but it is not a

4:42

peace treaty. This distinction

4:45

might seem hazy in twenty twenty

4:47

two. But in nineteen fifty

4:49

three, most people considered

4:51

the Armistice quite temporary.

4:58

There were a large number of provisions

5:00

and sub provisions in the agreement.

5:03

But there

5:03

were three major components that will be relevant

5:05

to our story. First,

5:07

was the establishment of

5:09

the Neutral Nations Supervisory

5:12

Committee, BNSCC,

5:14

an international body to monitor

5:16

things. that's still around today.

5:19

Second was the transformation of the area

5:21

along the thirty eighth parallel itself

5:23

into the demilitarized zone or

5:26

DMZ that we know today. And

5:28

within the DMZ is the

5:30

joint security area, infamously

5:32

the only place where North and South

5:34

Korean soldiers actually stand

5:36

in front of one another. The

5:38

whole zone, the DMZ, is

5:40

about four kilometers. or two and a

5:42

half miles wide. And from west

5:44

to east, it runs about two hundred

5:46

and fifty kilometers or a hundred and

5:48

sixty miles long. The Korean

5:51

Peninsula's narrow waist. And

5:53

third, there was article two

5:56

paragraph thirteen d of the Armistice

5:58

agreement which to

5:59

use the phrasing of University of British

6:02

Columbia historian Stephen Lee,

6:03

quote, stipulated that

6:06

no new weapons should be

6:08

introduced to the peninsula.

6:11

Yet in just a few years,

6:13

there would be nukes on that peninsula,

6:15

and they

6:16

would not come from the northern side

6:21

Last season, we talked about the Eisenhower

6:23

Administration's new look. The

6:25

strategy spearheaded by now

6:27

Secretary of State John Foster

6:29

Dulles. It was the strategy of

6:31

nuclear deterrence above all else,

6:34

or also known as massive

6:36

retaliation. And

6:38

this, the threat of nuclear annihilation,

6:41

would do the job that stationing thousands

6:43

of troops used to do. And

6:45

in Korea, it appeared to tell us

6:47

that it was Singman Re in the South,

6:49

not the communists in the North, who were

6:51

most likely to set things off should

6:54

conflict start back up again? In

6:56

fact, in November nineteen fifty

6:58

three, Richard Nixon, now vice

7:00

president, Visited South Korea

7:02

in a failed attempt to secure from

7:04

Re a written promise. Vice

7:07

president Nixon received a cordial welcome

7:09

from president Sigman Re. as he visited

7:11

Seoul on his round the world goodwill tour.

7:13

What Eisenhower wanted, Dulles

7:15

instructed Nixon, was

7:17

that re, quote, not

7:19

start the war up again on the

7:21

gamble that he can get us involved in

7:23

his effort to unite Korea

7:25

by four

7:28

In December nineteen fifty six,

7:30

writes Stephen Lee, quote, Eisenhower

7:32

agreed to a memo from the Pentagon

7:35

that recommended a cut in the

7:37

American army from nineteen

7:39

to seventeen divisions in Korea,

7:41

along with the modernization of those divisions,

7:44

to include atomic

7:46

weapons. This

7:48

would provide for the deployment of

7:50

nuclear missiles to Korea.

7:53

Some of these nuclear missiles, Lee

7:55

Notz, had been designed by the

7:57

Nazi rocket scientist, Werner

7:59

von Braun. after

8:00

he settled in America in Huntsville,

8:02

Alabama.

8:03

Noting that Chinese forces were withdrawing

8:06

from North Korea and that any communist buildup

8:08

was for defensive purposes. Lee

8:11

concludes that the decision to station

8:13

atomic weapons in South Korea was

8:15

thus escalatory, far beyond

8:17

the kinds of violations that the communists

8:19

had made, and seemingly even

8:21

beyond the bounds of existing national

8:23

security policy.

8:25

With all its allies, the US

8:28

followed a policy of neither confirming

8:30

nor denying its intention to

8:33

station atomic warheads. in

8:35

Korea. These American

8:37

nuclear warheads came before even the

8:39

deployment of the Jupiter missiles

8:41

at the western edge of the Soviet Union later

8:43

in the nineteen fifties. After

8:45

obliterating the north and ravaging the

8:48

south, the US would cast the

8:50

shadow of nuclear apocalypse

8:52

over Korea, for many years

8:54

to come.

9:02

Senator Joe McCarthy died of liver

9:04

failure at age forty eight

9:06

in May nineteen fifty seven.

9:08

Two and half years earlier, he had been

9:10

formally censured by the Senate. The

9:12

peak of the red scare on the surface

9:14

had come and gone. The

9:16

attention seeking Charlotte and McCarthy,

9:18

it was agreed, was a disgrace

9:21

figure in those final years. But

9:23

while McCarthy had died, McCarthyism

9:25

lived on.

9:27

Richard

9:27

Nixon and John Foster Dulles,

9:29

who had collaborated on the Alger His

9:32

case, They were now in power.

9:34

The Rosenberg's convicted for

9:36

espionage were dead, and

9:38

there was still the House on American

9:41

Activities Committee.

9:48

In North Korea, as we've seen,

9:50

the old class of landlords swept

9:52

away by social revolution. In the

9:54

south, the same class was

9:56

undone by a more tepid, but still

9:58

powerful redistribution of land that was

10:00

overseen by the Sigman Re government.

10:03

In their

10:03

place, rose the new class of South

10:05

Korean entrepreneurs. men

10:07

who built their fortunes off of the misery of

10:09

the war and its aftermath. One

10:11

of these men was Chongqing,

10:13

who began as the owner of a

10:15

small auto repair shop. But thanks

10:17

to his work trucking supplies to US bases,

10:20

he amassed a fortune that created the

10:22

Hyundai corporation and made

10:24

him a billionaire. Chongqing

10:26

was one of several. This

10:28

was

10:28

a good time for the Korean Monopolies,

10:31

the table. The war's

10:33

destruction cleared the way

10:35

for new capital, new inventory,

10:38

and new markets as foreign

10:40

cash poured into South Korea.

10:42

The wealth of these new entrepreneurs,

10:45

however, did not exactly trickle

10:47

down. For decades in South Korea,

10:49

quote, extreme privation

10:51

and degradation touched everyone

10:53

writes Bruce Cummings. Orphins

10:55

ran through the streets forming

10:57

little protective and predatory bands

10:59

of ten or fifteen. Beggers

11:01

with every affliction importune

11:04

anyone with a wallet often

11:06

traveling in bunches of maimed or

11:08

starved adults. holding children or

11:10

babies. My father

11:12

worked as a carpenter at the American

11:14

base on Jungkyo, a popular

11:16

southern writer wrote, and

11:18

mother ran a small shop at a nearby

11:20

intersection of a three fourth road.

11:23

Every day, I used to go to the garbage dump

11:25

a little distance off from my house.

11:27

Often my foot was cut by a used

11:29

razor blade on the sharp teeth of a

11:31

broken saw or a jagged

11:33

lid of a can, but the cuts were

11:35

worth it. because the whole

11:37

family could feast on pig soup at

11:39

dinner if

11:40

I happen to find a piece of meat

11:42

among the garbage. Compare this

11:44

to the life of your average South Korean

11:46

politician? Who

11:47

would? For Bruce Cummings, quote,

11:50

rise in the morning and have breakfast

11:52

while his driver warmed up his slick

11:54

water surplus cheap, dusted

11:56

off the metal canopy on top,

11:58

and

11:58

straightened out the white

11:59

linens on the seats. Soon,

12:01

they would motor down to the local tea room

12:04

for some serious gossiping. Off

12:06

they would go in a cloud of dust,

12:08

various and sundry servants

12:10

bowing low. And of

12:11

course, the occupying Americans,

12:14

be they military officers,

12:16

consultants, or advisors, all

12:18

of them held far greater personal wealth

12:21

than any of your average South

12:23

Koreans.

12:24

Armed Forces of Korea made tribute to the

12:25

Republic's president, Singman Re on his

12:28

eighty first birthday

12:29

Oh, join and honoring president Singman

12:31

Re, a proud spectacle for Korea's

12:33

elder statesman. As South

12:35

Korea's new classes, both owners

12:37

and workers, set on a long

12:39

road to building what someday

12:41

would be a robust outpost of state

12:43

led capitalism. Sigman

12:45

Re staggered through the nineteen

12:47

fifties on borrowed time. Rie had

12:49

always been good at playing the Americans to

12:51

get what he wanted. Perhaps

12:53

because he was their only real option

12:55

in South Korean politics,

12:57

But Reed didn't spend the rest of the

13:00

nineteen fifties after the war,

13:02

making any new friends.

13:04

His

13:04

old buddy, John Foster

13:06

Dulles called Re a, quote unquote,

13:08

oriental bargainer. As

13:10

pal Richard Nixon, labeled him a

13:12

gambler, a communist, or

13:14

some of both. But here's what his former

13:16

comrades didn't appreciate. Re

13:19

corrupt as the next guy was still a

13:21

nationalist at heart. He,

13:23

unlike his American colleagues,

13:25

was not content for South Korea

13:28

to be just another import suck,

13:30

another

13:30

underdeveloped sponge for Japanese

13:32

goods. Rhi wanted to turn his own

13:34

country into a modern

13:36

industrial powerhouse. He looked

13:38

at the north and saw his communist countrymen

13:41

achieving just that. with good old

13:43

fashioned, Stalinist, break neck

13:45

industrialization. And

13:47

so, Sigman Re did his

13:49

duty

13:49

and sucked billions out of the American

13:52

Teat. Somebody

13:53

had to do it. Throughout the

13:55

nineteen fifties, American

13:57

aid made up almost the entire

13:59

South Korean budget.

14:05

Reeves

14:05

moves to set up South Korea's

14:07

economic success, however, did not

14:09

change the fact that he presided over

14:11

a police state, operating

14:13

with next to no political legitimacy.

14:16

The CIA recorded that

14:18

after the war. Re had only

14:20

grown founder of such

14:22

tactics as, quote, stringent censorship,

14:25

police terrorism, and deploying

14:27

extra governmental agencies

14:29

such as youth gangs and armed

14:31

patriotic societies, to

14:33

terrorize and destroy non

14:35

communist opposition groups and parties.

14:38

Reexecuted political opponents

14:40

at will. after rigged

14:42

trials, of course, and he ran a personal

14:44

ring of corruption and treated the

14:46

prime minister like a personal

14:48

assistant. The agency even

14:50

thought that Re had crossed into

14:52

senility or insanity. As

14:54

the years went on, he attempted to

14:56

squeeze only more power out of

14:58

institutions like the National Security

15:00

Law, which had by then been used to

15:02

imprison hundreds of thousands of

15:04

people on political crimes. But

15:06

in nineteen sixty, the corruption,

15:09

the ballots stuffing, the

15:11

political murders, and in particular,

15:13

the discovery of a body of a

15:15

middle school boy who had been tortured

15:17

by the government goons. This

15:19

all kicked up a popular revolt.

15:22

Seoul, Capital of Southern Korea,

15:24

riots on the scale of revolution.

15:26

More was to follow, but it already

15:28

looked like the end of the road for president

15:30

Sigman Re. Led particularly by students

15:32

and the young. The

15:33

state police had no problem mowing

15:36

down people by the hundreds,

15:37

which only swelled the ranks of the

15:40

demonstrators. In early writing,

15:42

police killed a hundred and thirty people,

15:44

wounded close hundred thousand. That

15:46

only incents the population. By

15:48

now, there thousand wrist battle with the

15:50

police. Not even a tyrant I agree

15:52

could go on ruling in face of this.

15:54

By April nineteen sixty, tens

15:56

of thousands poured through Seoul's

15:59

streets.

15:59

Crowds swarmed the vice president's house

16:02

and literally tore it down.

16:04

The American overlords themselves

16:07

fed up with Re told him to resign.

16:09

At this time, the police wear once again

16:11

too much for the people, but later when half

16:13

a million made a matter of vote,

16:15

president Reid said he'd resign. And

16:17

he did. On

16:18

April twenty ninth nineteen

16:20

sixty, Sigman re boarded a plane

16:22

to Hawaii with his wife,

16:24

Francesca.

16:30

In

16:30

the wake of Re's demise, South

16:33

Korea enjoyed a flash of

16:35

hope. The new national

16:37

assembly writes Bruce Cummings, quote,

16:39

became a forum for diverse views.

16:41

The press was free and sophisticated schemes

16:43

for building the economy came from economic

16:46

planners. The more

16:47

open the system got, the more

16:49

bickering dominated the national assembly,

16:51

and the more

16:51

independent thinkers began to

16:54

call for a new approach toward reunification

16:56

with the north.

16:57

Few days passed without street demonstrations,

17:00

And sometimes, the students came into the

17:03

National Assembly to browbeat cowering

17:06

politicians. Then

17:06

began the ordeal that sent

17:09

shivers of the spines of

17:11

Seoul's ruling groups,

17:13

a move to the left. The

17:15

North

17:15

too had been dipping its feet

17:17

in ideas of reunification.

17:19

in

17:20

August, Kim Il sung had tabled a

17:22

proposal for a confederal system

17:24

with representatives of both regimes.

17:26

and

17:27

students began marching in the streets of

17:29

Seoul or planning to meet counterparts

17:31

from North Korea at Pen Moon

17:34

Jam. Organizations

17:34

advocating a North South

17:36

merger started to pop up among the

17:38

very groups that had toppled Sigman

17:41

Re. South Korea, though

17:44

poor, though

17:44

unstable, and though still indebted

17:46

to America, was staggering toward

17:48

a peaceful coexistence. perhaps

17:51

even reunification with the

17:54

north. And

17:54

this simply could

17:56

not

17:56

be allowed to happen. In

17:59

first

18:01

pictures from Seoul

18:04

following the Free John Military coup that

18:06

overthrew the South Korean government,

18:08

troops guard public buildings in the

18:10

early hours of martial law proclaimed

18:12

by the army hunter that took over the country.

18:14

On May sixteenth nineteen

18:17

sixty one. Our

18:17

okay Army General, Pac Chung

18:20

He, led a group of officers in a

18:22

coup that snuffed out the runaway

18:24

democracy in South

18:26

Korea. The

18:26

new Hoonta, which made pock dictator

18:28

shut down the national assembly

18:30

and outlawed any political

18:33

opposition to the new regime. It

18:35

announced

18:35

a program of national renewal,

18:37

a

18:37

patriotic renaissance, anti

18:39

communism, and

18:41

a strong self

18:43

reliant South Korean economy

18:45

to battle against communism and poverty

18:47

and to end the corruption with which

18:49

he charges the administration vision of the

18:51

Polish premier John M. Cheng. The

18:53

United States held back and

18:55

let theunta have its way.

18:57

New

18:58

president, Park Chung Hee, was born

19:01

a peasant and actually was once

19:03

targeted as a leftist by Sanguine

19:05

Re's regime. He had for years worked

19:07

in military intelligence. Upon

19:09

leafing through their files for info on

19:11

the new dictator puck,

19:13

the CIA actually worried he may have been a crypto

19:16

communist. They need not have

19:18

worried. Under puck

19:19

and his colonels, would be

19:21

a new anti communist law to

19:23

supplement Re's old national security

19:26

law. And the regime

19:26

would label all socialist countries

19:29

in the world. enemy states.

19:32

Under a

19:33

law enforcing, quote, political

19:36

purification, the regime arrested

19:38

thousands of politicians thousands

19:40

more civil servants, and yet

19:42

thousands more civilians labeled

19:45

Culligan. Much

19:46

like Japan years before,

19:48

South Korea had become a state where

19:51

military and business leaders called the

19:53

shots. But compared to the decadent

19:55

and kleptocratic re government, It

19:57

was not entirely unpopular

19:59

for a time,

19:59

Middle east East.

20:01

Duhunta allowed some political freedom for

20:03

the small class of Korean bourgeoisie.

20:06

creating the appearance of a bustling national legislature.

20:09

It even maneuvered through several

20:11

intense student uprisings. Again,

20:13

South Korea's treaty of normalization with Japan

20:15

in the mid nineteen sixties.

20:17

Once the tear gas had cleared, quote,

20:20

the period from nineteen sixty five to

20:22

nineteen seventy one, writes

20:24

Bruce, was one of rapid economic

20:26

growth and comparative political stability.

20:29

Despite the ominous growth of the

20:31

K CIA, the Korean Central

20:33

Intelligence Agency. This

20:34

period was, quote, one

20:37

of relative freedom and

20:39

prosperity. It was, by the

20:41

way, the Korean CIA

20:43

that gave a certain reverence Sun Young

20:45

Moon, his big break, helping

20:47

him create the unification

20:50

church. This right

20:50

wing Christian cult would

20:52

soon balloon into a global network of political

20:55

and cultural power, with

20:57

deep ties to leaders in

20:59

the south, in

21:00

Japan, across Europe

21:04

and

21:04

in the US of

21:06

a. The

21:09

Hunta counted on America's support as a

21:11

bulwark against communism in Asia. Fox

21:14

government even contributed to the

21:16

American war in Vietnam. Over

21:18

the years, sending around three

21:20

hundred and twenty thousand South Korean

21:22

troops, the

21:23

most sent by any country,

21:25

aside from the US itself.

21:27

South Korea

21:29

holds its first political

21:31

election since the military juncture took over

21:33

the government two years ago. If the

21:35

turnout was enthusiastic, the government

21:37

was not. It took plotting by the

21:39

United States who they supports the country to

21:41

have it call. WINTER BY A

21:44

SURPRISINGLY NARROW MARCH

21:47

WHO HEADED THE JUNTA AND TWO

21:49

MINOR CANDIDATES ARRENDED THEIR MOST

21:51

TO YOUNG he would have won. Despite

21:53

charges of fraud, this is a remarkably

21:55

clean election. One of the earliest shocks

21:57

of the turbulent year of nineteen

21:59

sixty eight. was the assassination

22:02

attempt of South Korean president

22:04

Puk on January twenty

22:06

first. A thirty one

22:07

man North Korean commando raid

22:09

on the Blue House South

22:11

Korea's presidential palace. It was a stab right

22:13

at the heart of the Hunta government. After

22:16

a standoff with US and South Korean

22:19

forces, all but two of the North

22:21

Korean assassins died. These

22:23

two men lived out very different

22:25

lives. One returned to the North and

22:27

rose to the rank of general. and

22:29

the other, named Kim Saojo, stayed in

22:31

the

22:31

south, eventually defecting and

22:34

becoming in the words of Bruce Cummings,

22:36

quote, an all purpose source for

22:38

exaggerated and flames propaganda about

22:40

the North, as well as a well known

22:43

alcoholic. He later

22:43

tried to redefect back to

22:46

north. Now, this failed

22:48

attempt

22:48

this raid on the Blue House. It

22:50

was not an isolated gamble at

22:52

taking out a hated enemy.

22:54

Instead, Steven

22:54

Li argues North Korea's

22:57

aggressive strategy in the nineteen sixties

22:59

culminated in the blue house raid.

23:02

This

23:02

strategy, quote, paralleled American

23:04

and South Korean military

23:06

aggression in Vietnam.

23:09

Roger, that

23:11

was that was some sort of rifle was

23:14

grenade. In

23:18

January nineteen sixty eight also saw

23:20

the execution of the Tet

23:22

Offensive. The North Vietnamese effort

23:24

to force the US into winding down

23:26

the war board. In

23:30

the front ranks of the Marines, a

23:31

man is suddenly wounded.

23:36

in the immediate aftermath of the

23:38

attack on the Blue House. The Johnson

23:41

administration threatened to withdraw US

23:43

troops from South Korea if the ROK

23:45

did the same in Vietnam knob.

23:47

On January twenty third nineteen sixty

23:49

eight, only two days after the

23:51

failed Blue House raid, the North

23:53

Korean government seized an American spy

23:56

ship, the USS Pueblo, on the North Korean

23:58

eastern coast, citing both

24:00

this intrusion and various Armistice violations.

24:23

The

24:23

crew and the ship were brought to the port city

24:25

of Wonsan. The South Koreans,

24:28

meanwhile, were angry at perceived

24:30

American inaction over the Blue

24:32

House raid. Quote, what would

24:34

the US do? The South Korean

24:36

Premium minister asked US ambassador

24:38

if Cuba raided Washington and attacked

24:40

the White House, and then South Korea

24:42

began separate talks with Cuba. President

24:46

Pokcheng he was, quote, drinking

24:48

heavily at this time. And the following

24:50

day, he urged the UN command

24:52

to blow up the North Korean

24:54

commando training sites, quote,

24:56

though intent on constraining puck

24:58

from responding provocatively to the

25:00

crisis, the Johnson administration

25:02

in response to the law of the USS Pueblo

25:04

took provocative military action of

25:06

its own. This was operation

25:10

combat Fox. with Stephen Lee

25:12

terms, the largest ever air force

25:14

exercise of its kind. A

25:16

show of force that featured three hundred

25:18

f four fighter jets three

25:20

nuclear aircraft carriers and

25:22

nuclear equipped b fifty

25:24

two bombers. There was

25:25

also this, according to a

25:28

Hungarian diplomat, The American

25:30

representative had conveyed an ultimatum to his

25:32

North Korean counterpart at the end

25:34

of January nineteen sixty

25:36

eight. which

25:36

threatened military intervention and

25:39

the use of atomic weapons if

25:41

the sailors of the pueblo

25:43

were not returned. Following some back

25:46

channel talks with the Soviets, who

25:48

had no interest in going to war for

25:50

Kim again, the US

25:52

pulled After the

25:53

US apologized to the North

25:55

Koreans and after Richard Nixon

25:57

was elected president. In

25:59

December nineteen sixty eight, the

26:01

sailors were returned home. And for

26:03

good measure, the US government later publicly

26:06

took back its apology.

26:12

Things

26:12

didn't end there. South Korea's

26:14

regime had devised its own plan

26:16

of revenge for the Blue House

26:19

raid, The same year as that raid, the

26:21

South Korean Air Force organized what

26:23

was supposed to be its own

26:25

elite hit squad. to

26:27

assassinate Kim Il sung. For years,

26:30

they trained on an island off of

26:32

Inchin, where seven

26:33

of the thirty one members of this crack

26:36

team died.

26:37

At least

26:38

one died of fatigue during training.

26:40

As for the others, according to

26:42

the Defense Ministry reports CNN,

26:44

two men were executed for

26:47

desertion. Another man was executed for

26:49

threatening a trainer. Three

26:50

others were executed or

26:53

died after an incident in which they

26:55

escaped the island and raped a local

26:58

woman.

26:58

Then after years of training

27:00

and mistreatment, in August

27:02

nineteen seventy one, the Woodby crack

27:05

team was told that they would not be

27:07

sent to Pyongyang after all.

27:09

And so, unit 684 as

27:11

they were known by now, mute meat.

27:14

You're

27:14

bloody

27:17

bastard. You're

27:18

not put on

27:19

me again. quote, at first, I thought

27:22

the North Korean special forces were

27:24

here to take over this island, said one of

27:26

the units trainers. Before he

27:28

realized what was happening, he was

27:30

shot in the neck. After killing

27:32

eighteen of their handlers, unit

27:34

684 traveled to mainland South

27:36

Korea, hijacked a bus to

27:38

the capital, and discovered by security ended

27:40

up in a standoff with soldiers and

27:42

police. All but four members of the

27:44

unit died. they were

27:46

either shot or as they were piling

27:48

into their bus, killed from detonating

27:50

their own hand grenades, and the

27:52

surviving members were executed.

27:54

The whole story was covered up for

27:57

decades.

28:01

despite being leveled by US bombs

28:04

from nineteen fifty to nineteen

28:06

fifty three. The DPRK

28:08

roared back to life with rapid development and better

28:10

living conditions for its people. It

28:12

was North Korea in those days that

28:14

was sending food aid to the south.

28:17

The popular institutions that made up the North Korean

28:19

social revolution were in the brutal

28:21

years of the war condensed and

28:24

systematized by the state. The

28:26

issue of the day in North Korea, not

28:28

only Cuba, following that country's confrontation

28:31

with the American superpower, The

28:33

issue was developing a strong and

28:36

modern economy and building

28:38

military strength sufficient to protect it

28:40

from any future bloodbath akin

28:42

to what the North experienced during the

28:44

Korean war. In

28:45

nineteen sixty five, Cambridge

28:47

economist, Joan Robinson, described the North

28:50

Korean economic recovery as a

28:51

miracle. Eleven years ago

28:54

in Pyongyang, there was not one stone

28:56

standing upon another. Now

28:59

a modern city of a million inhabitants

29:01

stands on two sides of the wide river

29:03

with broad tree lined streets of

29:05

five story public buildings, a

29:08

stadium, theaters, one

29:10

underground surviving from the war,

29:12

and a super deluxe hotel. The

29:14

industrial sector comprises a number

29:16

of up to date textile mills and a

29:18

textile machinery plant. The

29:20

wide sweep of the river and little tree clad

29:22

hills preserved as parks provide

29:24

agreeable vistas. There

29:25

are some patches of small gray and

29:27

white houses hastily built from rubble,

29:29

but

29:29

even there the lanes are clean.

29:31

and light and water are laid on,

29:34

a city without

29:37

slums. All of

29:38

while mixing post colonial Marxism

29:41

with the

29:41

rather more traditional Korean concepts

29:43

of self reliance and veneration of

29:45

the beloved and paternal leader.

29:47

By the nineteen

29:48

seventies, the DPRK had,

29:51

quote, invested billions to

29:53

bring its economy up to world

29:55

standards. Right? It's Bruce. Huge

29:57

amounts of foreign equipment, including

29:59

entire factories, had been

30:01

imported from Western Europe and

30:03

Japan. They had the finest Siemens medical

30:05

equipment at the top hospitals, fleets

30:07

of Mercedes and Volvo, an

30:09

entire patio's factory for urban

30:12

women, and very expensive monumental buildings

30:14

and theaters in the capital. But

30:16

the heat, air conditioning, and

30:19

electricity of these vast emporium's

30:21

computer monitored from elaborate central

30:23

control rooms. North

30:25

Korea's trading pattern had actually

30:27

diverged remarkably from the Soviet bringing

30:30

its trade with non communist

30:32

countries almost up to the level of

30:34

its socialist Blowback

30:36

trade. The

30:40

Swedish

30:40

envoy in North Korea, visiting

30:42

in nineteen seventy five, noted,

30:44

quote, the achievements of the regime in

30:47

rapid industrialization building

30:49

enormous complexes of housing from the ashes

30:51

of the Korean War, providing

30:53

free education and healthcare to everyone,

30:55

achieving standards of living in the

30:57

nineteen seventies that he thought were higher and

30:59

more equitably distributed than in the

31:01

south and certainly lacking in the

31:04

widespread poverty and homelessness visible

31:06

in South Korea at the time.

31:08

Of course, for a government suspicious of

31:11

western meddling and sensitive to its

31:13

portrayal outside of the peninsula, the

31:15

DPRK would always take care to control,

31:17

these visits from the outside.

31:19

The North Korean guides did not,

31:21

however, steer the envoy away from

31:23

their homegrown propaganda glorifying

31:26

North Korean progress and of course,

31:28

Kim Il sung himself. This

31:30

aspect was a bit much for the

31:32

visitors Nordic sensibilities.

31:35

Now,

31:38

one of

31:42

the possible reasons that unit six

31:44

eighty four hit on Kim was called off was that

31:46

by the early nineteen seventies, the

31:48

conflict in Korea had become less

31:52

President Nixon's Dittant policy.

31:54

In particular, his reproach molt with

31:56

China cooled everything down in Asia

31:58

for a little while. The

32:00

North and South after much haggling behind closed

32:03

doors also announced a mutual pledge to

32:05

work toward reconciliation and

32:07

even reunification. Nineteen

32:09

seventy six, however, was another dangerous

32:12

pinch point. That August,

32:14

a mixed South Korean

32:16

an American crew without North

32:19

Korean permission began

32:21

cutting down a tree in the joint

32:23

security area within the

32:25

DMZ. At first,

32:25

when told to stop, they did.

32:27

But twelve days

32:28

later, on August eighteenth, US

32:31

and South Korean workers again returned

32:33

to cut the tree. And

32:35

this time, they did not stop. A

32:37

fight broke out. Two

32:39

American

32:39

officers were killed, Steven Lee

32:42

writes, quote, with

32:44

clubs and the blunt side of the axis

32:46

that were carried into the area by the

32:48

soldiers to chop the trees. Lee

32:50

writes, quote, the tree trimming event

32:52

was not an innocuous act of

32:55

gardening, but a calculated provocation

32:57

repeated twice. It had

32:59

the effect of shaking things up.

33:01

The military alert level was raised

33:04

to Defcon three, the stage

33:06

below war. And nuclear

33:08

bombers were dispatched to coincide

33:10

with new tree cutting as

33:12

part of, quote, operation Bunyan.

33:15

Military plans were drawn up to

33:17

prepare for, quote, a rapid

33:19

extraction of forces followed

33:21

by a high level Washington

33:24

decision. Not familiar? The

33:26

scare mongering worked. One American

33:28

intel analyst listening to North

33:30

Korean communications later said

33:32

the operation, quote, blew

33:35

their fucking minds. We

33:37

scared the living shit

33:38

out of them. End

33:40

quote.

33:46

As

33:46

we discussed last season, the

33:48

nineteen seventies also coincided with

33:50

a rising tide of congressional

33:53

scrutiny of the activities of both

33:55

American clandestine services as

33:57

well as the spy agencies of

33:59

American friends and allies.

34:02

The

34:02

first ever issue of the socialist magazine

34:04

in these times published just

34:06

after Jimmy Carter's election in November nineteen

34:10

seventy six Featured a cover story with the politicians

34:12

get foreign aid from the Korean

34:14

CIA. A memo obtained

34:18

by US customs from a KCIA backed businessman,

34:20

quote, contained a list of ninety

34:22

members of congress who were apparently

34:24

marked for

34:26

contributions. And at a hearing on

34:28

the lack of human rights in South Korea, one

34:30

of the congressmen who got KCIA

34:33

payoffs had said, quote, I don't

34:35

think we need to spend too much time debating what the

34:37

government is doing in Korea. And among the

34:39

other beneficiaries

34:40

of K CIA

34:42

money, Richard Nixon,

34:44

via

34:44

an intermediary, of course.

34:46

The Reverend Sun Young Moon of

34:49

the World Unification Church had staged

34:51

several pro Nixon rallies which

34:53

had been paid for by the K

34:55

CIA according to the Washington

34:58

Post.

34:58

The nineteen seventies, in fact,

35:00

brought a much crueler period of military rule

35:02

in South Korea with a

35:04

KCIA that had become a

35:07

quote unquote rogue institution. The

35:10

regime was spooked by a growing labor movement, bubbling

35:13

discontent, popular opposition, and

35:15

a distinct American aloofness

35:17

about these problems.

35:20

even when South Korean troops were aiding the US and Vietnam.

35:22

Here's Bruce, quote, pokcheng he

35:24

had his scribes write a

35:28

new constitution removing all limits on his tenure in office and giving

35:30

him powers to appoint and

35:32

dismiss the cabinet and even the

35:34

prime minister.

35:36

emergency decrees flew out of the blue house like

35:38

bats at dusk in the early nineteen

35:41

seventies. One nineteen seventy three

35:43

decree declared all work stoppages

35:46

to be illegal, and the infamous order number nine

35:48

in nineteen seventy four made

35:50

any criticism of the regime

35:52

a violation of national security.

35:56

The Korean

35:57

CIA, the sorcerer's apprentice

35:59

to America's own, was described by the

36:01

New York Times in nineteen seventy

36:03

three, thusly, quote, agents

36:06

watch everything and everyone

36:08

everywhere. The agency once put a

36:10

telephone call through from Seoul to a noodle

36:12

restaurant in the

36:14

remote countryside, where a foreign visitor had wandered on a holiday without

36:16

telling anyone. And average

36:18

Koreans avoided getting in trouble by, quote,

36:20

not talking about anything at all

36:22

to anybody.

36:24

Running afoul of the secret police earned you a trip to the south mountain,

36:27

the agency's headquarters, and

36:29

the nexus of torture.

36:32

By this time, the

36:34

foundations for an upstart South Korean

36:36

economy had been laid. The

36:39

Hunter

36:39

set the scene back when it had come to power

36:41

in the sixties, arresting

36:44

imports substituting businessmen and,

36:46

quote, marching them through the streets cultural

36:48

revolution style with done scraps

36:50

and sandwich placards that said,

36:52

quote, I am a corrupt

36:54

swine and quote, I ate

36:56

the people. More

36:57

concretely, the regime cleaned

37:00

house arresting re era

37:02

cronies and Blowback marketeers. It

37:04

adopted economic

37:06

planning and a strong handle on the markets. It created

37:08

a virtual paradise for Korean firms

37:10

by issuing loans at, quote unquote,

37:14

negative interest for industries such as steel and

37:16

electronics. This state paid

37:18

the

37:18

Chibols to make themselves money.

37:22

and in so doing develop a modern economy.

37:24

None of this was

37:25

exactly unique to South Korea,

37:28

what

37:29

was special is that in

37:31

South Korea, it really, really worked. The

37:34

ideological sheen

37:34

put on all of this

37:37

was that of a national family.

37:40

Workers and owners, labor

37:42

and management, they would

37:44

cooperate in national solidarity

37:46

to produce a strong forward

37:48

looking South Korean economy.

37:50

But despite

37:51

economic progress in the nineteen

37:53

seventies and onward, This idea

37:56

of labor and management as one

37:58

happy family would be

37:59

one thing that was actually very

38:02

difficult to sell. We've seen

38:04

the sweetheart deal that South Korean big

38:06

business got under Pok.

38:08

Labor, however, had quite a

38:10

different time. Unions had since the days of Re been

38:12

states sanctioned and tightly controlled

38:14

if they existed at all. In the

38:16

nineteen sixties, the Federation of

38:18

different trade

38:20

unions steel, transportation, and chemicals were managed

38:22

by the KCIA. Unions

38:24

were allowed in politics

38:26

if they supported the Hunter.

38:29

As the economy grew, South Korea became

38:31

home to, quote, a vast war in

38:33

of sweatshops. And according to a

38:35

nineteen seventy investigation, by

38:37

quakers into the notorious peace market

38:40

sweatshop. Young girls fourteen

38:42

to sixteen years of age had

38:44

to work kneeling on the floor or

38:46

an average of fifteen hours a day from eight AM to

38:48

eleven PM. They were entitled to two

38:51

days off not per week but

38:54

per month. When there was a great deal of work to do, they were forced to work

38:56

throughout the night and to take amphetamines to

38:58

stay awake. Their daily wage was

39:00

the equivalent of the price of a cup of

39:02

coffee at a

39:04

tea room. Laborors who worked in the peace market area for more

39:06

than five years suffered without

39:08

exception from such afflictions

39:10

as anemia, poor

39:12

digestion, bronchitis,

39:14

diverculosis, eye problems, arthritis, neuralgia,

39:16

and irregular menstruation. Given

39:19

the dictatorship's limits on

39:22

union activity, Labor had to

39:24

fight its way into politics

39:26

in South Korea, but those fights

39:28

came year after year from

39:30

the late sixties into the seventies. electronics

39:32

corporation, then metal workers at

39:34

a shipbuilding site, then chemical workers

39:37

at a Pfizer plant, and

39:39

then workers at a General Motors factory

39:41

in nineteen seventy one. The

39:43

K CIA was

39:44

working overtime to enforce president

39:47

Fox vision. of one big happy

39:48

Korean family.

39:50

By the end of

39:51

the nineteen seventies, labor action was

39:53

put down violently anywhere that

39:55

it cropped up. earning

39:57

the regime a cut cutting from

39:59

the Carter

39:59

administration. Soon there

40:01

were huge protests in the South's

40:03

urban areas, including

40:06

Busan, led

40:06

by workers and students. This

40:08

and other challenges to the Pak

40:10

regime led to the dramatic

40:14

demise of puck

40:15

himself. On the

40:18

night of October

40:20

twenty sixth nineteen seventy nine,

40:23

a dinner at a KCIA safe

40:26

house, Pock argued with the head of the

40:28

KCIA about what to do,

40:30

about all

40:32

this unrest. You could do something, I

40:34

guess.

40:34

You could die,

40:37

Julien. The argument

40:39

came significantly more intense when the

40:41

intelligence chief pulled out his pistol and shot

40:43

Pok's bodyguard and then

40:46

pok himself.

40:47

And before blowing takeaway,

40:50

Korea's top spook reportedly shouted

40:52

how can we conduct our policies

40:54

with an insect like this? It

40:57

is still

40:57

unclear whether this was a

41:00

spontaneous murder or a

41:02

planned coup. If it was meant to

41:03

be the latter it

41:06

failed miserably, as the entire South Korean leadership dissolved into

41:08

panic until a new set of

41:10

military men took control and the

41:12

offending KCIA chief who

41:14

shot Bakkt.

41:16

was executed. So began

41:17

the next South Korean

41:20

administration in

41:21

the nineteen eighties. The

41:24

nineteen eighties

41:24

would be the decade that

41:26

South Korea, the Republic of Korea,

41:29

would finally break out of

41:31

the cycle of military regimes, and

41:33

begin its own long project

41:36

of democratization. It was

41:38

not a development that came

41:40

about cleanly. friend of the show

41:42

Tim Sharak was a journalist in East Asia in the nineteen eighties, reporting on increasing

41:44

tensions between students and

41:48

other demonstrators and the

41:50

oppressive military government. Still

41:52

bankrolled by the US. The

41:54

bloody path to democratic change

41:57

climax with the Guangzhou uprising of nineteen

42:00

eighty. In nineteen

42:01

eighty, you know, when

42:03

there was this coup by

42:06

Chengdu Juan, who's a special aid. He was the

42:08

intelligence chief or a function he or the

42:10

dictator who'd

42:12

been assassinated. Shanduwan

42:14

began to accumulate power

42:16

and carried out a sort of three

42:18

stage coup. When first took control

42:20

of the Korean military, then he

42:23

took control the Korean CIA. And then he declared martial

42:25

law and took over the whole government. And

42:27

the day after his

42:30

military coup, In the

42:32

southwestern city of Guangzhou,

42:34

people kept demonstrating against Chengdu

42:36

Wang, Chengdu Wang, and military

42:38

dictatorship. And they were stomped

42:41

and slaughtered in the streets for three days. There was

42:43

terrible attacks by these

42:46

special forces that

42:48

Sun had sent into the city. People were just

42:50

massacred in in those couple

42:52

of days. And on the

42:54

third day, the Army Korean army

42:57

force. There was surrounded by tens of

43:00

thousands of Guangzhou people,

43:02

and the Army just opened five.

43:05

And and that's what's known as

43:07

the massacre. The

43:09

simple fact that

43:12

the

43:12

United States had literal

43:14

control cut

43:16

over the

43:17

ROK's military meant that

43:19

anti Americanism was a key ingredient in

43:21

the growing discontent

43:24

the South Korean masses. Well, what I what I found was that

43:26

the US is basically giving them a green light

43:28

to use military force

43:30

against students who are basically, peacefully

43:33

demonstrate. Right? And so that

43:35

part of this my story where I

43:37

thought you got these documents

43:40

was very shocking to Koreans. And then,

43:42

also, I got the minutes

43:44

to a very high level,

43:46

the White House meeting in

43:49

the middle of the quonsage uprising. But one

43:51

day after that massacre took place, there was this

43:53

high level meeting led

43:56

by the Vice President

43:58

Busky at the time it was Jimmy

43:59

Carter was the president and Virginia's

44:02

team was Aaron Holbrook and all the

44:04

top officials. that CIA

44:06

had the the Harold

44:08

Brown, the the

44:09

secretary of defense. And they

44:12

decided at that point

44:14

they knew there

44:14

had been a military massacre. They knew that at

44:16

least the day before, at least

44:18

a hundred people had been shot

44:22

to death. in the main city square. They had that

44:24

information, and they knew that

44:26

Chengdu Wang, this general, was

44:28

behind it.

44:30

but they still decided that

44:32

they would support a military

44:34

takeover of this city

44:36

to put down the uprising. and

44:39

they cleared the way for Chunt to

44:42

do that. And they also

44:44

released certain troops under the

44:46

Joint Command to be used to go

44:48

into Quang. when the minutes

44:50

from that story came out in my

44:52

stories, it was,

44:54

you know well, I've never had a story

44:56

where the next day people strated at

44:58

the US embassy in Korea. I got to happen

45:01

and and, you know, I

45:03

later learned that

45:05

the my

45:05

stories and further stories I did

45:08

after that really changed

45:10

the viewpoint of a lot of Korean

45:12

leftist. You know, like they had sort

45:15

of In the past, they had more trust

45:17

of the US. After this, they

45:19

realized that, you know, the US had

45:21

no real interest in

45:24

democratization. It was there. It was US interest and always predominantly.

45:26

The summer of nineteen eighty

45:28

seven saw huge

45:30

demonstrations that

45:31

finally forced the dictatorship's hand,

45:33

and Shun's savvy successor

45:36

announced a plan for free elections.

45:39

On June twenty ninth, nineteen

45:41

eighty seven, president Rote

45:43

Wu, publicly initiated the

45:45

constitutional reform process that

45:48

would partially democratize

45:49

the country. Another

45:51

breakthrough came when the Republic of

45:53

Korea extended diplomatic ties for

45:55

the first time with the

45:57

People's Republic of China,

45:59

formally ending

45:59

hostilities. At the same time,

46:01

and despite

46:02

the

46:04

blood's sweat in tears of South Koreans thus this

46:06

was not a simple snap

46:08

to instant democracy. Politics

46:11

were changing, But some

46:13

things, like the rebranded CIA, now called the agency for

46:16

National Security

46:18

Planning. something's

46:20

state

46:22

put. North Korea,

46:25

meanwhile,

46:25

was still

46:28

accumulating prestige and the trappings of a

46:30

modern society. In the eighties,

46:32

there was, quote, a more relaxed

46:34

scene, says Bruce Cummings, the

46:36

population better and more

46:38

colorfully dressed people more relaxed around foreigners and many

46:40

new stores full

46:40

of imported consumer goods,

46:43

so called Paradise

46:44

stores, end

46:46

quote, On

46:47

the cultural side, this was the golden age of North Korean cinema. The

46:49

seventies and eighties saw not only a

46:51

boom of celebrated North

46:54

Korean films, especially

46:56

after the young Cinea asked Kim Jong il

46:58

had entered the world, but also

47:00

joint productions with Italian or

47:02

German film companies. which produced a

47:04

unique flavor of international

47:06

collaboration. There is filmmaker

47:08

in North Korean movie connoisseur and

47:11

a Burrowski the golden

47:11

nature of North Korean cinema in terms of

47:14

exposure to the wider

47:16

world and films that

47:18

won awards And, you

47:20

know, perhaps films that almost caught the

47:22

zeitgeist that were not seen as

47:24

dated were actually, you

47:27

know, widely applauded when they managed

47:29

to get outside North Korean play at movie

47:32

festivals, was

47:32

the seventies and eighties. No

47:35

question. Cummings who visited the

47:37

DPRK in the eighties continues. Honestity was

47:39

the rule. No one

47:40

accepted tips, whether

47:41

taxi drivers, waitresses,

47:44

or hairdressers. crime

47:46

was nonexistent. There was no squalor,

47:48

no begging, and extraordinary

47:50

public civility. A foreigner encountering

47:52

little kids on the street would

47:55

get a quick and pleasant jackknife bow. The

47:57

people were friendly, courteous, gentle with an air

47:59

of

47:59

unassuming dignity.

48:02

Those

48:03

are the words of another visitor, Englishman Andrew Holloway, who

48:05

worked as a kind of translator for the DPRK. He

48:07

wrote that the average

48:09

North Korean lived An

48:11

incredibly simple and hardworking life, but also

48:14

has a secure and happy existence.

48:16

And the comradeship between the highly

48:18

collectivized people

48:20

was moving. One American journalist simply compared the

48:22

society to one big

48:26

he puts.

48:27

It has survived

48:30

a century

48:31

of colonization, war,

48:34

and division.

48:35

come through a bloody

48:38

struggle against military dictatorship

48:41

and arrived

48:42

as a first class economic

48:45

power. That is South Korea's proud achievement,

48:47

but it remains economic

48:49

progress without contentment.

48:52

Even today's prosperity

48:54

is haunted by state violence and

48:56

passionate dissent. The democratization movement

48:58

in South Korea in the nineteen nineties.

49:01

coincided with the growth of a genuine

49:04

South Korean middle class,

49:06

democratization was shaped according

49:08

to anthropologist, Justin Song, by

49:11

civil society organizations, quote,

49:14

thus the democratized era provided

49:16

an opportunity to explore

49:18

such freedom both within and outside social

49:20

activism as both consumers and

49:22

entrepreneurs. Now unlike the

49:24

former Soviet

49:26

block, For whom the loss of War economically ruinous,

49:28

the nineteen nineties were a boom

49:30

time for East Asian markets.

49:33

That is until the nineteen ninety seven

49:36

financial crash. After decades of

49:38

investing in heavy industry, South

49:40

Korea was among the countries now

49:42

overburdened with too much quote,

49:44

hot money, foreign capital.

49:46

With demand slackening and more loans

49:48

going bad because the tables soaked up

49:51

investment South Korea, like Thailand and Hong

49:53

Kong, took a major economic hit.

49:56

After years of growth in state

49:58

development, mass layoffs came to

49:59

South Korea. and further,

50:02

neo liberal, social, and economic

50:04

reform. One point five

50:06

million South Korean workers lost

50:08

their jobs in nineteen ninety eight. and twelve

50:10

percent of the country lived in poverty, up from

50:13

eight point

50:13

five percent in

50:15

nineteen ninety six.

50:17

the day Today, many years of

50:19

IMF policy later, that

50:20

figure is around fifteen

50:22

percent. In

50:23

that same decade, South

50:25

Korea released the world's

50:27

longest serving political

50:29

prisoner.

50:30

His name was Kim Jong il,

50:32

and

50:32

he'd been in jail since October of

50:34

nineteen fifty. A Southerner who had supported

50:36

the DPRK, Kim

50:38

was picked up by American Intelligence

50:41

and handed over to the re regime back then. He

50:44

was declared a spy, which

50:46

despite his support for

50:48

the North, Kim

50:49

denied. He was tortured and threatened with

50:50

death and still refused to

50:52

confess

50:53

to any spying.

50:55

Then the southern

50:56

government executed his father and

50:58

his sister in an effort

51:00

to loosen Kim's tongue.

51:02

Still no confession. Kim spent the

51:05

next forty four

51:05

years in solitary

51:08

confinement, quote, forbidden to speak

51:09

to anyone to

51:11

meet relatives or to read

51:14

anything, beaten frequently and

51:16

surviving somehow

51:16

on a prison starvation

51:20

diet. He

51:20

remained incarcerated because he would not convert and

51:22

give up his political support of

51:26

North Korea. He

51:27

entered prison at twenty

51:29

nine and

51:30

came out at seventy three,

51:32

still

51:34

unrepentant. Kim Songmyeong may have been the longest serving

51:36

political prisoner, but many more like

51:38

him remain in South Korea's jails.

51:41

The National Security

51:42

Act, used to jail

51:44

still more, continues to exist

51:46

as of this recording in twenty

51:49

twenty two. such is

51:50

the unfinished business

51:53

of the war. If

51:57

South Korea

51:59

began to exit the wilderness in

52:02

the nineteen

52:04

nineties, then it was the North's turn

52:06

to enter. Some may have sensed an omen in nineteen ninety

52:08

four when the maximum leader

52:11

and founder of the country, Kim Il sung,

52:14

died. Their own experience

52:16

makes the Korean people

52:18

keenly feel that they are

52:20

blessed with the leadership of Kim Jong

52:22

il who takes over the

52:24

revolutionary course of president.

52:26

Kim Il soon. His son,

52:28

Kim Jong il, would not officially

52:30

assume the office of General Secretary

52:33

for several years, so long was the

52:35

morning period for the elder Kim. But in fact, even before

52:38

Kim's death, things had already

52:40

begun to

52:42

sour. After the collapse

52:44

of the Soviet Union in nineteen ninety

52:46

one, countries such as North Korea that

52:48

had belonged to the socialist trading network

52:51

or the socialist block, they saw their

52:53

economies spiral into chaos. This was bad enough

52:55

in Cuba as we saw last season.

52:57

And like Cuba, North

53:00

Korea was doubly smashed not only by the disappearance of

53:02

trade, but by further newer

53:05

harsher sanctions imposed by the

53:07

United States and

53:10

its But even on top of that, things were made even

53:12

worse by massive floods in the

53:14

north in the middle of the nineteen

53:16

nineties, followed by an equally

53:18

devastating drought. This series

53:20

of natural disasters produced a

53:22

famine in North Korea, which,

53:24

according to Scholar, Meredith Jong

53:26

un Wu, led to the deaths

53:28

of as many as half a million people in that country. A documentary

53:30

called L'Oreal Citizens of Pyongyang

53:32

and Seoul by David Yun

53:36

features an interview with, among others, a North Korean woman

53:38

who lived through this famine.

53:44

declining citizens

53:46

and seeing animals

53:47

She's

53:54

describing here how the

53:57

US led sanctions targeted key resources

53:59

in

53:59

North Korea. such as fuel,

54:02

like oil to power factories and

54:04

transportation, which would prevent the

54:06

north from many effective responses

54:08

to such a

54:09

catastrophe. Bruce writes,

54:10

quote, Washington likes to claim that

54:12

it is the biggest aid donor to the

54:14

North. But US aid has not been

54:16

nearly as substantial as it claims.

54:19

under the framework agreement, which we'll get to in

54:21

a bit. The US sent four hundred

54:24

million dollars in

54:26

energy assistance mainly heating oil from nineteen ninety five to two

54:28

thousand and three. This was not

54:30

aid, but

54:30

compensation for the shutdown of

54:33

the North's nuclear facilities.

54:35

end quote,

54:35

and furthermore, that oil that the United States

54:38

sent, it never amounted to more than

54:40

two percent of North Korea's

54:42

energy needs. quote, the

54:43

main American aid has come in the form of food assistance. The

54:45

biggest bundle came in the Clinton years with

54:47

nine hundred and sixty five thousand metric

54:50

tons of

54:52

food. The Bush

54:53

administration cut back to two hundred thousand tons in

54:55

two thousand two and drastically cut

54:57

it to forty thousand

55:00

through the first half claiming all the

55:02

while it

55:03

was not using food as a

55:05

weapon. Meanwhile, China, a

55:07

much poorer country at

55:10

the time, provided half a million to a million tons of food

55:12

annually from nineteen ninety

55:14

five onward. In this

55:16

nineteen nineties

55:17

atmosphere of crisis, The

55:20

government under Kim Jong il had moved resources previously

55:22

spent on social or cultural projects

55:25

over to military build

55:28

up. And as a kind of northern counterpart to the South's

55:30

political prison system, hundreds of

55:32

thousands of prisoners populated labor camps

55:34

in different parts of the country.

55:37

at the time of a population of around

55:39

twenty three million people. As many

55:41

as a hundred thousand people

55:43

were imprisoned, half of whom were so

55:45

called political cases. Bruce Cummings takes an example of

55:47

someone sent off to the mines, written in a

55:50

book called The Aquariums

55:52

of Pyongyang. King

55:54

Chohuan was held in the Yeduc labor camp for

55:57

ten years. And like most other prisoners,

55:59

he

55:59

went

55:59

there with

56:02

his family. A common practice in an odd aspect of the

56:04

DPRK's belief in the family as

56:06

the core unity

56:08

of society. mutual

56:10

family support is also the reason that many

56:12

survived the ordeal of prison.

56:14

The conditions were primitive and

56:16

beatings were frequent. but the inmates

56:18

were also able to improvise much of their

56:20

upkeep on their own. The

56:22

natural environs meant that small

56:24

animals could be surreptitiously caught

56:26

and cooked. and death from

56:28

starvation was rare. King's

56:29

uncle had worked in a brewery for

56:31

many years and

56:32

soon had his own rudimentary still

56:35

churning out liquor. Upon

56:36

the family's return from the camp, soon they

56:38

were accepted back into the community. The

56:41

family prospered mainly because of cash coming

56:43

in from relatives in

56:46

Japan. This story is an

56:47

interesting and believable one precisely because it does

56:49

not on the whole make for

56:51

the ghastly tale of

56:54

totalitarian repression that its original publishers

56:56

in France meant it to

56:58

be. Instead,

56:58

it suggested that a decades

57:00

in car duration with one's immediate

57:03

family was survivable and not

57:05

necessarily an obstacle to entering

57:07

the elite status of

57:09

residents in Pyongyang. and entrance to college. Meanwhile, we

57:11

in

57:11

America have a longstanding,

57:14

never ending gulag, full of black

57:16

men in

57:18

our prisons, incarcerating upward of twenty five

57:20

percent of all black

57:21

youth end quote. And the

57:23

North Koreans

57:24

have suffered because

57:26

the United States has done everything we possibly could to

57:28

destroy the economy of North Korea. We've done everything we

57:31

possibly could to boost the

57:34

economy. of South Korea, and then we condemn them because they

57:36

are backward and and because their people

57:38

are starving. That of course was the

57:42

voice. of former US president Jimmy Carter.

57:44

Much as we saw in Cuba last

57:46

season, out of pure desperation,

57:48

In this

57:50

period of crisis of the nineties, the northern government attempted to

57:53

open up its economy and

57:55

increase market activity. but

57:57

with next to no interest in the leader of

57:59

the post

57:59

Soviet global economy, the United

58:02

States. Loans,

58:03

the kind the South Koreans got

58:05

for better or for worse, from institutions

58:07

like the IMF would not make their way to

58:08

North Korea. The justification

58:10

for all

58:11

of this, of

58:14

course, is North Korea's

58:17

nuclear program.

58:20

Early in

58:22

the week, the tension reached a peak as

58:24

South Korea held air raid and civil defense drills. North

58:26

Korea withdrew its membership in the

58:29

International Atomic Energy Agency on

58:32

Monday and the US drew up a

58:34

draft United Nations sanctions resolution against North Korea.

58:36

The standoff between the US

58:39

and the DPRK over North Korea's nuclear

58:42

program has played out twice

58:44

now. First is tragedy,

58:46

and then is farce. It starts in

58:48

the early nineteen nineties after

58:50

the fall of the Soviet Union.

58:52

As we discussed in our first season on

58:54

Iraq, the vanishing of the

58:56

cold war and its attendant

58:58

villain of Soviet communism

59:00

required the creation of new

59:02

villains. Colon Powell, we remember, told

59:04

the press that after trouncing Saddam,

59:06

he was, quote, running out of villains,

59:08

running out of demons. I'm down

59:10

to Castro and Kim Il sung.

59:12

The concept

59:13

of the rogue or renegade state, usually a small

59:15

and weak post colonial country that

59:17

America had been meddling with for a while. It

59:19

was now in

59:22

rogue. Take this snippet from Leslie Gelb, then the head of

59:24

the Council on Foreign Relations. In

59:26

a nineteen ninety one New York

59:29

times editorial titled The Next

59:32

Renegade State. What country

59:34

with twenty three million people run

59:36

by a vicious dictator has missiles, a million men under

59:39

arms, and is likely to possess nuclear

59:41

weapons in a few years.

59:44

It's not a rock anymore. Not Syria, which has not

59:46

entered the nuclear race, nor any other

59:48

Mideast nation. The Renegade and

59:50

perhaps the most dangerous country

59:53

in the world today is North Korea. The

59:56

world community and

59:57

especially Japan has the

59:59

opportunity to

59:59

stop it from

1:00:02

becoming the next Iraq.

1:00:04

As we've

1:00:05

already mentioned, following the

1:00:07

Korean war, in nineteen fifty eight,

1:00:09

the United States placed nuclear

1:00:12

weapons on the Korean peninsula,

1:00:14

targeting the DPRK, the Soviet

1:00:16

Union, and China. And of course, these

1:00:18

were under a merit not South

1:00:20

Korean control. By the late

1:00:22

nineteen sixties, Pentagon war plans

1:00:24

made explicit, the early resorts

1:00:27

to nuclear weapons, in case of another Korean

1:00:29

flare up. By the nineteen seventies, there were

1:00:32

nearly seven hundred nukes

1:00:34

on hand. US

1:00:36

helicopters carrying nuclear weapons

1:00:38

actually flew near the

1:00:40

DMZ, providing many an occasion for a

1:00:42

Korean war style

1:00:44

border incursion. To all

1:00:45

of this, the North's response was not to develop its own nukes,

1:00:47

but to continue to

1:00:49

build underground facilities in case

1:00:51

of an attack. Then in the

1:00:53

seventies and eighties and against

1:00:55

US wishes, president Pokcheng

1:00:58

He puts South Korea on track to secretly develop its

1:01:00

own nuclear weapons and

1:01:02

corresponding missile technology. Quote,

1:01:04

South Korea also garnered a reputation

1:01:08

as a renigate arms supplier toward Pariah countries

1:01:10

such as South Africa and

1:01:12

Iran and Iraq during their

1:01:14

war. Right.

1:01:16

It's Bruce. Much of this reads as if it were written about North

1:01:18

Korea, not South Korea, and

1:01:20

puts Pyongyang's activity

1:01:22

in perspective. Much

1:01:24

of it was responsive to US

1:01:26

pressure and ROK initiatives. Then

1:01:30

finally,

1:01:30

in the eighties, the

1:01:32

North Koreans debuted a nuclear reactor at Yongbong,

1:01:34

about sixty miles north of

1:01:36

Pyongyang. Despite nuclear threats

1:01:40

from the United States and the ROK by this point, the

1:01:42

purpose of Yongbong was clear. The

1:01:44

North, in an effort to shake

1:01:47

off dependence on foreign oil, and

1:01:49

domestic coal was imitating the

1:01:52

south, Japan, and others in the

1:01:54

west in producing an alternative fuel

1:01:56

to sustain its considerable

1:01:58

energy levels. Considering

1:01:59

the

1:01:59

subsequent post Soviet crisis of

1:02:02

the nineteen nineties, this concern of

1:02:04

theirs in the eighties was not

1:02:06

off base. The distance between North Korea and the United

1:02:08

States seemed a chasm at this

1:02:10

point. It was entirely

1:02:12

up to North

1:02:13

Korea that disputes the situation. The

1:02:16

solution entirely depends on the

1:02:18

United States. The accusations that

1:02:20

proliferated in the nineteen nineties and venues

1:02:22

like The New York Times Acusations

1:02:24

that North Korea had been long working

1:02:26

toward a bomb, these ignore all

1:02:28

kinds of basic indicators about the

1:02:30

nature of the Yunnan facility, like

1:02:33

how often the fuel load was removed, which

1:02:35

was blatantly inconsistent with a

1:02:37

weapons facility. And even

1:02:39

more than this, sheer common sense would suggest that the

1:02:41

North, quite aware that US

1:02:44

surveillance could capture every inch of the

1:02:46

Nyongban facility new, and

1:02:49

in fact, desired for it to be public knowledge.

1:02:51

If they wanted to secretly develop

1:02:53

their own bomb at this

1:02:55

point, the DPRK would have taken

1:02:57

on the Israeli method and done

1:03:00

so underground. What's more?

1:03:02

The North Koreans in fact

1:03:04

invited the International Atomic

1:03:06

Energy Agency to come and visit the

1:03:08

facilities only to be denied

1:03:11

by the IAEA. They had

1:03:13

missed an application deadline. In fact, in a

1:03:15

post

1:03:15

Soviet world, Kim Il sung

1:03:17

had planned to normalize relations

1:03:20

with the US and the

1:03:22

South, and

1:03:24

marketized the economy at home. More hopeful

1:03:26

news. In late nineteen ninety

1:03:28

one, the h w Bush

1:03:32

administration withdrew all of those

1:03:34

nukes from South Korea. It

1:03:36

also suspended war games against

1:03:38

North Korea that were known as

1:03:40

Team Spirit. Why?

1:03:42

The

1:03:42

goal for age of smart bombs

1:03:45

implied a logic of removing these

1:03:47

hot potatoes from the mainland of

1:03:49

South Korea. especially since the US if it

1:03:51

wanted to, could still drive its nuclear

1:03:53

submarines right up to the coast of Korea

1:03:55

as one analyst put it.

1:03:58

Still,

1:03:58

the moment offered the

1:03:59

potential for some normalization.

1:04:02

Not only did North Korea host six

1:04:04

inspections in nineteen

1:04:06

ninety two, It showed the

1:04:08

even known existed. But

1:04:09

just as quickly,

1:04:12

things devolved. The h w

1:04:14

Bush administration opted for a

1:04:16

hard line, unimpressed with the North

1:04:18

Koreans opening gambit. As

1:04:20

we saw in seasons one and two,

1:04:23

US lead weapon inspectors are

1:04:25

often a backdoor for

1:04:27

CIA surveillance, which was once

1:04:29

again the North's reason for

1:04:31

resistance and was once again in

1:04:34

fact exactly what was going

1:04:36

on. And so came

1:04:38

the nuclear crisis The West

1:04:40

fears the

1:04:41

North is taking plutonium from its

1:04:43

nuclear power plant to make bombs.

1:04:45

North Korea denies it.

1:04:47

but has refused full access to international monitors

1:04:50

that could verify the claim.

1:04:52

And the IAEA says the

1:04:54

North has removed fuel rods from the

1:04:56

reactor affect actively destroying

1:04:58

evidence of any past plutonium

1:05:00

diversion. Average Americans were

1:05:02

made aware of an impending nuclear

1:05:05

North Korea in a flurry of headlines

1:05:07

and broadcasts because the DPRK

1:05:09

had announced it would leave

1:05:11

the nuclear nonproliferation

1:05:14

treaty. US politicians

1:05:15

and public intellectuals got to work advising

1:05:17

a strike on Pyongyang if it did

1:05:19

not allow immediate inspections.

1:05:22

In a distinctly two thousand three esque tone, it was

1:05:24

suggested that North Korea may in fact now

1:05:26

be just about ripe for regime change,

1:05:29

but let's rewind

1:05:31

the tape. It was

1:05:33

in fact two months earlier in January nineteen ninety three

1:05:35

that president Bill Clinton announced the

1:05:38

US would the

1:05:40

mammoth war games against North Korea

1:05:42

known as Team Spirit, which

1:05:44

simulated nuclear tipped attacks

1:05:46

on the

1:05:48

DPRK. The very next month, strategic command

1:05:50

announced it would be, quote, retargeting nuclear

1:05:52

weapons meant for the old Soviet

1:05:54

Union on North Korea. In

1:05:57

an old friend of the show, James

1:05:59

Woolsey, the CIA Director who accused

1:06:01

Saddam of doing nine eleven the day

1:06:03

after the attacks. Wolsey christened the DPRK, the

1:06:05

greatest threat to America to the

1:06:08

world. As Bruce Cummings

1:06:10

points out, It's a general

1:06:12

principle of the non proliferation

1:06:14

treaty that a member cannot threaten

1:06:16

another member with nukes.

1:06:18

These war

1:06:18

games, specifically targeting the DPRK,

1:06:21

convincingly violated that. What's

1:06:23

more?

1:06:24

The North's announcement to withdraw from

1:06:26

the NBT was shrewdly timed.

1:06:28

as the treaty was up for negotiation

1:06:31

in less than two years. With

1:06:33

major countries such as Japan

1:06:35

and India, unhappy with it. Even

1:06:36

still, the North was so set on improving relations

1:06:39

with the United States that once

1:06:41

these war games ended,

1:06:44

the

1:06:44

DPRK put its exit from the treaty on pause, holding

1:06:47

out for a diplomatic

1:06:50

breakthrough. Instead, instead

1:06:52

It

1:06:52

got a sixteen month saga that brought things closer to war than

1:06:55

they had been in decades. In

1:06:57

recent weeks, we have been consulting with

1:06:59

our allies and friends

1:07:02

on the imposition of

1:07:03

sanctions against North Korea because of its

1:07:05

refusal to permit full inspections of

1:07:07

its nuclear

1:07:08

program. By nineteen

1:07:10

ninety four, it had been a year of back and forth, including the

1:07:13

US threat of sanctions and

1:07:15

the circulated, quote, taken

1:07:17

out of context. in which the US

1:07:19

press accused North Korea of saying, quote, Seoul will be a sea

1:07:22

of fire. And China had

1:07:24

begun

1:07:24

to quietly mediate.

1:07:26

in hopes of bringing North Korea and the US to an agreement. More

1:07:29

visibly, Jimmy Carter perhaps now

1:07:31

alarmed at how openly the US was

1:07:33

preparing for war

1:07:36

flew to North Korea himself and met with Kim Il

1:07:38

sung. Former president Jimmy Carter appeared to

1:07:40

get North Korea as well as the

1:07:44

international community to step back from the

1:07:46

brink of war

1:07:46

this week. The two agreed on

1:07:48

a framework. North Korea would freeze

1:07:51

its facility at Yongbong, which it

1:07:53

had actually already done and in return

1:07:55

receive a project to build light water reactors for energy

1:07:57

and cooperative treatment

1:07:59

from

1:07:59

the US. This, at

1:08:02

long last, would become the

1:08:04

basis of successful talks between the

1:08:06

two countries.

1:08:07

That produced the nineteen

1:08:09

ninety four framework agreement. Into the gulf stepped

1:08:12

Jimmy Carter. He walked

1:08:14

across the

1:08:16

demille surprised zone on Wednesday

1:08:18

to become one of the highest ranking Americans ever to visit North Korea. His discussion

1:08:20

centered on North

1:08:23

Korea's nuclear program.

1:08:25

Array of sunshine arrived in the late

1:08:27

nineteen nineties. In fact,

1:08:29

it was called the

1:08:32

Sunshine Policy. In

1:08:35

nineteen

1:08:35

ninety eight, longtime South Korean opposition

1:08:37

figure, Kim De Jong, the

1:08:39

K CIA had once gone so

1:08:41

far as to run him over

1:08:43

with a truck. Kim De Jong

1:08:45

assumed the presidency of South Korea. This was a true break with

1:08:47

the past. In

1:08:51

another unprecedented move, Kim De Jong

1:08:54

un announced what would be known as the Sunshine Policy. He credited the for

1:08:56

pursuing better

1:08:57

relations with the US

1:09:00

and Japan and

1:09:02

pledged that his administration would in turn pursue the long term and long overdue reunification

1:09:05

of the two

1:09:08

Korean states. He

1:09:10

backed this up by, quote, approving large

1:09:13

shipments of food aid to the

1:09:15

north, lifting limits on business deals

1:09:17

between the north and southern firms and

1:09:19

calling for an end to the American economic embargo against

1:09:21

the North during a visit

1:09:23

to Washington in

1:09:26

June nineteen ninety eight. This

1:09:28

combined with the North FaceTime, not

1:09:30

testing any missiles for six years, was nothing short of monumental.

1:09:32

nothing short of monumental a

1:09:35

few months later, almost as if on cue.

1:09:37

American press reports alleged that the North

1:09:39

had been caught,

1:09:43

building nuclear weapons. But the next year,

1:09:45

quote, the North surprised everyone and opened up the site to unprecedented US

1:09:48

military inspection. There

1:09:51

was no evidence any nuclear activity had taken place

1:09:53

there. In another broad side

1:09:55

against the North, a scandal played

1:09:57

out when in August of nineteen

1:09:59

ninety eight, The

1:10:01

DPRK launched a rocket into space to commemorate the

1:10:03

state's fiftieth anniversary. US intelligence knew

1:10:06

that it was a commemorative

1:10:09

play and that in fact, the

1:10:11

rocket satellite failed to reach orbit. But it

1:10:14

became the latest obsession of the North Korea

1:10:16

Hawks. including

1:10:18

one Don Rumsfeld, who in nineteen ninety eight, shared a task force on missile defense.

1:10:25

What's more

1:10:25

as the nineteen nineties closed and despite the framework agreement

1:10:27

that was soon to die a quick death

1:10:30

under George w Bush.

1:10:33

threats

1:10:33

against North Korea by America had not in

1:10:35

fact stopped. In nineteen ninety five, quote, the

1:10:37

North lifted

1:10:38

its trade and investment barriers

1:10:43

but the United States did nothing about the embargo it slapped on

1:10:45

the North during the Korean war.

1:10:47

That same year,

1:10:48

presidential

1:10:50

hopeful, Colin Powell, said that if the DPRK stepped out of line,

1:10:52

the US would turn the

1:10:54

country into, quote, a charcoal

1:10:58

briquette. A threat

1:10:59

he later repeated. And more concretely

1:11:01

coming reports, in October

1:11:04

nineteen ninety eight, Marine

1:11:06

Lieutenant General Raymond P. Ayers spoke

1:11:08

publicly on a not for attribution

1:11:10

basis about plans for rolling back North Korea, installing

1:11:13

a South Korean

1:11:16

occupation regime and

1:11:18

possibly beginning the whole thing preemptively

1:11:20

if they had, quote, unambiguous signs that

1:11:22

North Korea was preparing to attack. He

1:11:25

said the entire resources of the US marines would be sent into the battle.

1:11:27

They would abolish North

1:11:30

Korea as a state

1:11:33

and

1:11:33

reorganize it under South Korean control.

1:11:35

We'll kill them all.

1:11:37

End

1:11:39

quote. But still,

1:11:41

still Athal

1:11:42

was in progress. The state

1:11:44

department sent a team to North Korea,

1:11:46

which was treated well and came back

1:11:48

to the US with a policy

1:11:50

of engagement. In June of two thousand, came a summit between Kim Jong il and Kim De Jong

1:11:54

in Pyongyang. And then,

1:11:57

In October, came madeline Albright's

1:11:59

visit to Pyongyang.

1:12:01

These goals will benefit all

1:12:03

Koreans and all Americans. We

1:12:05

must move in steady strides

1:12:08

and wake the bitterness

1:12:09

of the past and persist in

1:12:10

the search for common ground. Kim Jong il portrayed

1:12:12

like his father as an

1:12:14

irrational psychotic in the US press

1:12:18

He had even gone on the record saying that he

1:12:20

did not oppose continued American troop

1:12:22

presence on the Korean peninsula. In

1:12:25

fact, In the waning days of the Clinton

1:12:28

administration, American advisers were

1:12:30

confident that Kim Jong

1:12:32

il would not only submit on

1:12:34

nukes, but also on control of his

1:12:36

missiles in general if the US

1:12:38

agreed now to summit in Pyongyang.

1:12:41

The president's bags apparently had been

1:12:43

packed. But in November, the end

1:12:45

of an election is

1:12:48

the beginning. of

1:12:51

a new day together, we can make

1:12:53

this a positive

1:12:54

day of hope and opportunity

1:12:56

for all of us who

1:12:58

are blessed to be Americans. Thank

1:13:01

you very much, and God

1:13:04

bless America.

1:13:05

The

1:13:08

summit in Pyongyang as you may have

1:13:10

already guessed would not happen. As I

1:13:12

began, I

1:13:15

thank president Clinton for his service to our

1:13:17

nation. Even before George w

1:13:19

Bush assumed office His

1:13:22

transition team made it clear to

1:13:24

the outgoing Clinton people that

1:13:27

they disapproved of the

1:13:29

nineteen ninety four framework agreement

1:13:31

and the Pyongyang summit, and that they

1:13:33

would

1:13:33

undo whatever came of either of them.

1:13:35

President Clinton, who

1:13:36

would have been the first American

1:13:39

leader to travel to North Korea while

1:13:41

in office struck the summit from his calendar.

1:13:43

Following Bush's election victory as

1:13:44

the Sunshine Policy was

1:13:46

spreading good vibes on the peninsula,

1:13:50

South Korean president Kim De Jong

1:13:52

spoke to president Bush on

1:13:54

the phone. Bush

1:13:55

disgusted with Kim's talk

1:13:58

of peace put his hand over the mouthpiece and said

1:14:00

to his aides, quote, who is

1:14:02

this guy? I can't believe how naive

1:14:05

he is. In March two thousand and

1:14:07

one, the script was flipped. Kim De Jong was the first foreign leader to visit the

1:14:12

White House And Bush lectured him

1:14:14

that the DPRK was in fact a public enemy. And the South Korean president

1:14:17

shuttled home

1:14:20

cursing Bush to his own

1:14:22

advisors. Even before September eleventh two thousand and

1:14:23

one, and certainly after it,

1:14:25

the Bush administration was

1:14:28

dead set on

1:14:30

scrapping the plans for Korea normalization

1:14:32

that had almost come to fruition.

1:14:34

This was best encapsulated by

1:14:37

North Korea's inclusion. in Bush's axis

1:14:39

of evil, in the president's state

1:14:41

of

1:14:41

the union address in January

1:14:44

two thousand and two. States

1:14:46

like these and their terrorist allies constitute an access of evil

1:14:48

by seeking weapons

1:14:51

of mass destruction. The

1:14:54

underlying logic to American policy in

1:14:56

these years could be summed up by

1:14:58

a quote that Seymour Hirschgot from

1:15:01

a US intelligence official who attended Bush

1:15:03

administration meetings. Quote, Bush and

1:15:05

Cheney want that guy's head,

1:15:08

Kim Jong il's, on

1:15:10

a platter. Don't be distracted by all this talk

1:15:12

about negotiations. There will be negotiations,

1:15:14

but they have a plan, and

1:15:16

they are going to get this guy

1:15:19

after Iraq. is their version of Hitler. Fearing

1:15:21

an attack from America,

1:15:23

the North

1:15:26

Koreans sprung into action with fresh talks

1:15:28

with the south, making progress

1:15:30

on connecting railways between the

1:15:33

two countries and establishing new

1:15:35

trade agreements. The DPRK also worked

1:15:36

hard to improve relations with other governments

1:15:38

in Asia, as well as Western

1:15:42

and Eastern Europe. All that

1:15:43

preceded the delicate, a relatively successful September

1:15:46

two thousand two summit between

1:15:48

Kim Jong il

1:15:50

and Japan's prime minister. These regimes pose a grave

1:15:52

and growing danger. They could

1:15:54

provide these arms to terrorists. giving

1:15:58

them the mange to match their hatred. The

1:16:00

next several years of Bush

1:16:03

administration policy were incoherent confused,

1:16:05

but always aggressive.

1:16:06

There were lurking toward and then away from negotiations.

1:16:09

exaggerated

1:16:12

and doctored intel, and of course, a press

1:16:15

campaign to paint the DPRK as ultimately

1:16:17

too irrational and bloodthirsty

1:16:19

to even exist. in

1:16:22

the twenty first century. All

1:16:24

of this detonated a second

1:16:26

nuclear crisis. Some of these

1:16:29

regimes have been pretty quiet

1:16:31

since September the eleventh, but we know their

1:16:33

true nature. In two thousand and two,

1:16:35

the Bush administration accused

1:16:38

the North of violating the framework agreement. The

1:16:40

one Bush had already declared dead

1:16:43

on arrival by citing evidence that

1:16:46

North Korea was producing uranium. This

1:16:48

was not actually a violation

1:16:50

of the agreement, which governed

1:16:53

plutonium. and the Bush people's forecast

1:16:55

of a not administration without

1:17:00

proof had decided that

1:17:02

the DPRK had a secret program, rights scholar James Mattere. That summer, the

1:17:04

president finally decided

1:17:07

at his Texas ranch that

1:17:10

it was time to overthrow the regime

1:17:12

waving his finger in the air and shouting, I loathe Kim

1:17:14

Jong il. In summer two thousand three, with mediation from the

1:17:16

Republic

1:17:19

of China along came the so called

1:17:22

six party talks. The United

1:17:24

States, North

1:17:27

Korea, China, and then Russia, South Korea, and Japan. To varying

1:17:29

degrees each of these parties, except

1:17:31

the US, were pro

1:17:34

engagement with the DPRK, and

1:17:37

deeply worried about a US strike on the

1:17:39

country. Every serious proposal from the

1:17:41

United States required North

1:17:43

Korea to surrender what

1:17:47

it considered its one deterrent, its nuclear potential,

1:17:49

and give the United States

1:17:51

unfettered access to every nook

1:17:53

and cranny of the country. quote, if

1:17:55

the DPRK accepted the US proposal,

1:17:57

writes Macrae, its survival would

1:17:59

depend on the fulfillment

1:18:02

of promises coming from a

1:18:04

government dedicated to its

1:18:06

destruction. End quote. But despite all of this, a thaw continued

1:18:09

between North Korea,

1:18:12

South Korea, and

1:18:14

Japan. At times to

1:18:15

shake things loose, the Bush

1:18:17

administration resorted to an

1:18:20

old chestnut.

1:18:23

Early in two thousand five, Mitre writes, quote, Washington presented

1:18:25

evidence to Beijing that Libya

1:18:28

had received nuclear

1:18:30

material from North Korea. The Washington

1:18:33

Post reported, however, that the Bush administration had

1:18:35

misrepresented intelligence on the supposed

1:18:39

transfer as it had done to support claims of WMDs

1:18:42

in Iraq. End quote.

1:18:44

Through these

1:18:45

years, the United States almost daring Pyongyang

1:18:48

to bail on talks would

1:18:50

freeze the country's assets, agitate

1:18:52

for sanctions,

1:18:54

and in fact, opened the second push term, labeling

1:18:56

North Korea, not as a

1:18:58

negotiating partner, but a, quote, outpost

1:19:02

of tyranny end quote. It's in

1:19:04

the world's interest of this happen. It's also

1:19:06

in our interest that we continue to

1:19:09

work together to solve the problem I

1:19:11

see I see a peninsula one day that is

1:19:13

united at peace. By two thousand and

1:19:15

eight, the North Koreans had

1:19:17

retreated back to a

1:19:19

hyper defensive position. And

1:19:21

in fact, they announced that they had begun testing missiles

1:19:23

again and would continue to work toward their

1:19:27

own nuclear guarantee. North

1:19:29

Korea was now certain writes, Mattray, that even if it ended its nuclear weapons program,

1:19:31

the Bush administration would still

1:19:34

work to destroy its communist

1:19:36

government. just

1:19:39

as it would have invaded Iraq regardless of the

1:19:41

existence of WMDs. Under Secretary

1:19:43

of State John Bolton confirmed this

1:19:45

intent in a two thousand and

1:19:48

two interview. He took a

1:19:50

book titled The End of North Korea off the shelf and slapped it on the table. That,

1:19:53

he said, is

1:19:56

our policy. First, I

1:19:58

want to thank the the

1:19:59

president and the people of this

1:20:02

wonderful country for sending more than three

1:20:04

thousand troops to

1:20:06

Iraq. They helped that democracy flourish. If

1:20:07

the approach of the bush years was to push for

1:20:09

talks and repeatedly blow

1:20:12

them up, The

1:20:14

approach under the Obama administration was

1:20:17

to bypass diplomacy altogether.

1:20:19

This was branded strategic

1:20:21

patience. North Korea's nuclear and

1:20:24

ballistic missile programs pose a grave

1:20:26

threat to the peace and security of

1:20:28

the world, and I strongly condemn their reckless

1:20:30

actions. Publicly, the administration hand waved the Korean issue, such

1:20:32

as in two thousand and

1:20:34

fifteen, when president Obama, quote, predicted

1:20:39

that a state like North Korea would collapse

1:20:41

over time, saying that the

1:20:43

internet would inevitably penetrate

1:20:45

North Korea, Highlighting this policy of

1:20:48

inaction, the death of Kim Jong

1:20:50

il in two thousand eleven did

1:20:52

not even prompt an official statement

1:20:54

from the White House. Meanwhile, behind the the

1:20:56

administration, instead of proposing

1:20:58

talks, pursued covert action

1:21:01

against North Korea. ordering Pentagon officials to,

1:21:04

quote, step up their cyber and

1:21:06

electronic strikes against North Korea's missile

1:21:08

program in hopes of sabotaging

1:21:10

test launches in their opening seconds.

1:21:13

Soon, a large number of the

1:21:15

North's military rockets began to explode, veer off course, disintegrate in mid air, and

1:21:17

plunge into the sea. The New

1:21:19

York Times reported. Obama

1:21:23

also deployed new missile defense

1:21:26

systems to South Korea.

1:21:28

In fact,

1:21:29

the only proposal

1:21:32

for talks in this era came from

1:21:34

the new government of Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong il's son and successor.

1:21:36

join your son and successor The

1:21:40

Obama administration not only rejected them, but made

1:21:42

sure to clarify that it was never their idea in the first place. Quote,

1:21:46

to be clear, It was the North Koreans who proposed

1:21:48

discussing a peace treaty, said

1:21:50

a state department spokesperson. The

1:21:54

Obama administration's stated reason for rejecting talks was the

1:21:57

same given by the Bush

1:21:59

administration. The

1:21:59

DPRK

1:22:01

would not offer up

1:22:03

its entire nuclear program from day one. Even though

1:22:05

as the New York Times reported,

1:22:07

quote, North Korea

1:22:09

offered to suspend its nuclear tests

1:22:11

if the United States Korea canceled their annual

1:22:14

joint military exercises rejected

1:22:18

by the Americans again The

1:22:20

North tested a missile shortly

1:22:23

after on January sixth two thousand and fifteen. Obama himself

1:22:24

and fifteen

1:22:26

also carried on the tradition

1:22:28

of casually reminding North Koreans

1:22:30

that the United States could

1:22:33

at any time

1:22:35

reduce them to as Colin Powell

1:22:38

had put it a charcoal briquette. We could obviously

1:22:43

the destroy

1:22:44

North Korea

1:22:48

with our armos.

1:22:52

Before

1:22:59

Donald j Trump, ever

1:23:01

grasped the hand of Kim Jong

1:23:03

Un. process of reconciliation was again play between North

1:23:07

and South Korea.

1:23:09

In two thousand seventeen, South Korea elected a new president, Moon Jae In,

1:23:11

who revived the Sunshine Policy in

1:23:15

a big way. The

1:23:18

two nations athletes marched

1:23:20

together at the Seoul Olympics in

1:23:22

February two thousand eighteen. K

1:23:25

pop stars played Pyongyang. And then after an invitation from Kim Jong

1:23:27

Un to visit the north, the two leaders met for the

1:23:29

first time in April two

1:23:32

thousand eighteen in

1:23:35

the joint security area. We are

1:23:38

awaiting a historic

1:23:40

meeting between

1:23:43

North Korean leader came Jong un and

1:23:45

South Korean president Moon Jae in. The leaders of these

1:23:47

two nations have not met

1:23:50

in more than a decade.

1:23:53

Their summit comes just one week

1:23:55

after Kim announced that North

1:23:57

Korea would suspend its nuclear and missile testing. They

1:23:59

signed the Pen Moon

1:23:59

Jam declaration.

1:24:03

pledging to

1:24:03

wind down military standoff, sending the

1:24:05

South Korean president's approval ratings

1:24:08

up. This new period

1:24:10

of warming relations culminated months

1:24:12

later when Moon delivered a

1:24:14

speech in Pyongyang to a standing ovation in a stadium of

1:24:16

up to one hundred and

1:24:19

fifty thousand North Koreans.

1:24:37

The

1:24:40

year after that, the South Korean

1:24:42

president would actually catch flack for

1:24:45

shipping oil to

1:24:48

North Korea. Donald

1:24:50

Trump,

1:24:50

on the other hand, began his presidency bashing North Korea the same

1:24:52

way most Americans

1:24:55

were used to.

1:24:58

But with his own unique spin

1:25:00

on it, of course. And we

1:25:02

can't have mad men out

1:25:03

there shooting rockets all

1:25:06

over the place. But if it is

1:25:08

forced to defend itself for its

1:25:10

allies, we will have no choice

1:25:14

but to totally destroy North Korea. And by the way,

1:25:16

Rocketman should have been handled

1:25:18

a long time ago. Rocketman

1:25:25

is

1:25:25

on a suicide mission for

1:25:27

himself and for his regime. But to surprise

1:25:28

of all, perhaps spying

1:25:30

an

1:25:30

opportunity with the talks between

1:25:35

North and South. It was Donald Trump who

1:25:37

proved to yield the biggest diplomatic

1:25:39

breakthroughs with North Korea in decades.

1:25:41

There's Kim Jong Un right there

1:25:43

live on your screen right

1:25:45

now. Walking

1:25:46

into position, obviously, he is alone, unintended, coming in. Here comes

1:25:48

the president of

1:25:51

the United States. and here

1:25:53

are the two

1:25:55

gentlemen. Let's watch the moment. And like that,

1:25:57

history

1:25:59

has been

1:25:59

made. Trump's summits with Kim Jong

1:26:02

Un, first in Singapore, then in

1:26:04

Hanoi, were heavily

1:26:07

scrutinized and often criticized sized

1:26:09

by American politicians and the press. What

1:26:11

has he done to

1:26:15

hi earn that

1:26:16

sort of international acceptance and that treatment treatment

1:26:18

as a legitimate leader, as the dictator of the

1:26:20

most

1:26:22

totalitarian regime owner. He has done nothing. Nuclear may Well,

1:26:24

yes, he w developed. But he's not a match

1:26:26

yet made him a pariah. What brought him

1:26:29

into? He was not having these

1:26:31

meetings before Donald Trump calling. Yeah.

1:26:33

You start developing nuclear weapons and usually get isolated. In this case, what hap what happened

1:26:35

to turn that around was we got a

1:26:38

new president. They didn't change

1:26:40

anything.

1:26:41

Some in the

1:26:43

Democratic Party, particularly those who were

1:26:45

planning on or already running

1:26:47

for president, savaged the diplomatic

1:26:49

push by the Trump administration. almost

1:26:51

in the exact same language that hardline Republicans had

1:26:54

once denounced Obama's refreshment

1:26:56

with Cuba. The Biden

1:26:58

campaign called Trump's diplomacy, quote,

1:27:01

coddling dictators at the

1:27:03

expense of American national security and interests. US senator

1:27:06

Elizabeth Warren tweeted, quote,

1:27:10

Our president shouldn't be squandering

1:27:12

American influence on photo ops

1:27:14

and exchanging love letters with

1:27:16

a ruthless dictator. In fact, the

1:27:18

unbelievers were not limited to the democrats. Here's what we have from the state department officials believe national

1:27:24

security adviser on Bolton wanted

1:27:26

to deliberately blow up those talks with North Korea. This was all, of course, ahead

1:27:29

of this

1:27:32

June twelve Perhaps one reason these

1:27:34

talks would not go the distance may have been that some of the DPRK's harshest

1:27:36

critics were

1:27:39

running key branches of US foreign policy

1:27:42

under Trump. Notably, secretary of state

1:27:43

Mike Pompeo, who had long run his mouth

1:27:45

on North Korea as an ugly

1:27:47

and evil kingdom. and

1:27:50

for whom the North Koreans had very

1:27:52

little taste whatsoever. And of

1:27:54

course, John Bolton, whose self

1:27:56

declared goal had always been an

1:27:58

end to North Korea. He was later fired, but

1:27:59

long after the damage had been

1:28:02

done. Putting the sources Bolton's concern

1:28:05

was that the talks would not go

1:28:07

in the right direction for the United States. So we're

1:28:09

learning this was all on purpose.

1:28:11

Michelle Kucinski is joining me

1:28:14

now. Michelle, this is significant.

1:28:16

And so perhaps it was not

1:28:18

a surprise that after another Trump Kim summit in Hanoi Vietnam in

1:28:24

twenty nineteen, there

1:28:24

was a familiar refrain. Quote, at

1:28:26

the Hanoi summit, Trump rejected North Korea's offer

1:28:28

to dismantle its prominent

1:28:31

Yongbyon nuclear facility in change

1:28:34

for the lifting of sanctions imposed on

1:28:36

North Korea since twenty sixteen.

1:28:38

As reported by America's own state

1:28:40

media, Voice of America, Trump

1:28:42

had cut the talks short

1:28:44

and walked out.

1:28:45

The North Koreans resumed a

1:28:47

nuclear testing. Trump, perhaps thinking

1:28:49

he could keep putting symbolism

1:28:52

over substance asked Kim for a photo

1:28:54

op at the DMZ that summer. Though further talks were discussed,

1:28:56

real progress never

1:28:59

resumed after the an rejection

1:29:01

at Hanoi. By July twenty twenty, not long before Trump was voted out

1:29:03

of office, the North Koreans

1:29:06

were reportedly down on any

1:29:08

more Trump

1:29:10

Kim meetings, unless the Americans

1:29:13

changed their approach. From Tucson Hunt,

1:29:15

in the New York Times,

1:29:17

in March twenty twenty. North Korea said

1:29:19

on Monday that it had lost all appetite for dialogue with the United States. Because of

1:29:22

secretary of state Mike

1:29:24

Pompeo's continuous

1:29:27

pressure on the country to give up

1:29:29

its nuclear weapons program. The world does

1:29:31

not know well why the

1:29:33

DPRK US relations remain a miss.

1:29:35

despite the special personal relations between the top leaders of

1:29:37

the two countries, said North Korea's foreign

1:29:40

ministry in

1:29:43

its statement. secretary of state Pompeo gave

1:29:45

a clear answer

1:29:48

they had.

1:29:52

North Korea is a problem. And we're gonna continue to

1:29:54

do it so we can control them. We're gonna make sure we

1:29:56

can control them and make

1:29:58

sure they cannot hurt us. And

1:30:01

so if you wanna do something about it,

1:30:03

step up and help. If not, it's gonna continue. What has he done? He's legitimized North Korea. He's

1:30:05

talked about his good buddy

1:30:07

who's a thug. a

1:30:11

thug, and he talks about how we're better off. And

1:30:13

they are have much more capable missiles.

1:30:15

As of this recording in

1:30:18

twenty twenty two, the Biden

1:30:19

administration has not made any significant

1:30:22

moves regarding Korea. The

1:30:24

administration's, quote, unquote,

1:30:26

highly anticipated policy review Reports

1:30:29

ABC News produced a new path that is, get this.

1:30:31

Somewhere in between the approach of

1:30:35

Obama, follow-up with you vice president Biden.

1:30:37

You've said you wouldn't meet with Kim Jong

1:30:39

un without preconditions. Are there any

1:30:41

conditions under which you would

1:30:43

meet with him?

1:30:45

on the condition that he would agree

1:30:47

that he would be drawing down his nuclear capacity

1:30:49

to get the the Korean peninsula should be nuclear

1:30:52

free zone. quote,

1:30:54

if the Trump administration was everything for everything and Obama was nothing for nothing,

1:30:56

this is something in

1:30:58

the middle, a Biden official.

1:31:01

told

1:31:03

the Washington Post. Alright. Let's move

1:31:05

on to American

1:31:07

stamps.

1:31:07

they tried to meet with

1:31:09

him. He wouldn't do it.

1:31:11

He didn't like OBAMA. HE

1:31:13

DIDN'T LIKE HIM. HE WOULDN'T DO IT. HE WOULDN'T DO IT. HE WOULDN'T

1:31:15

DO IT AND THAT'S OKAY.

1:31:18

YOU KNOW WHAT? NORTH KOREA

1:31:21

We're not in an war. We have a good

1:31:23

relationship. You know, people love us at having a good relationship with leaders of other countries. a

1:31:26

lot of countries. We have a

1:31:28

lot questions to

1:31:30

get to Not a great time.

1:31:32

We had a good relationship with Hitler before he, in

1:31:34

fact, invaded Europe, the rest of Europe. Come on.

1:31:36

the rest of europe come on

1:31:38

Christine on,

1:31:39

you're a peace activist,

1:31:41

specifically on Korea. What

1:31:44

do you think things

1:31:46

look like right

1:31:47

now. You know, for people that have

1:31:50

never been to South

1:31:51

Korea or North Korea, and

1:31:53

even like the k pop and the BTS

1:31:55

and in many ways just invisibleizes.

1:31:59

the

1:32:01

kind of like undercurrent that is in

1:32:03

the water on the queen peninsula. And you

1:32:05

see it most starkly

1:32:07

in North Korea, since

1:32:09

basically all trade has been cut up, since the country has

1:32:11

not had health or medical capacity

1:32:14

to deal with a pandemic.

1:32:18

And so it's a it's it's it's

1:32:21

a struggle for for life in

1:32:23

North Korea because

1:32:25

of our policy

1:32:27

against that country, our orientation against that country.

1:32:29

And then I look at South

1:32:31

Korea where we have

1:32:34

the world's largest military

1:32:36

base. in South

1:32:38

Korea, in PyeongTek at Camp Humphreys. This is like five central parks.

1:32:40

You know? It has

1:32:43