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Van Cleave further stated that the North Korean responses to his remarks
were wholly evasive and unsatisfactory. If the NPT is so unfair and unequal,
why then did North Korea sign it in the first place? Clearly, he suggested, it
did so for political purposes contrary to those of the treaty. It was attempt-
ing both to evade the NPT and to use it as a bargaining tool. In this case even
inspection of DPRK facilities might not be helpful, for it would not tell the
world what North Korea’s true intentions were regarding nuclear weapons.
At this point it was becoming clear that the conference had been a fail-
ure. We had gone to Pyongyang with no great expectations of success but
had hoped that we might have found some flexibility on at least one of the
issues. This had not been the case, and we would be returning to Washing-
ton empty handed. Still, I felt that the direct contact with the North Kore-
ans had been important in demonstrating a legitimate American intent to
solve some of the serious problems that still existed on the Korean penin-
sula even long after the conclusion of the Korean War. It also gave me a feel-
ing that, although we were unsuccessful at the time, there might be more
success in future talks.
One reason for this cautious optimism was a feeling that most of the
North Koreans we were in contact with genuinely desired better relations
with the United States. With the Cold War at an end, with both the Soviet
Union and China having established relations with the ROK, the DPRK
would have been foolish not to explore contacts with Washington. Yet,
hampered by their inexperience in dealing with Americans and their lack
of contact with the outside world, North Korean leaders were terribly inex-
pert at how to accomplish this. My strong impression was that even the more
senior North Korean officials were highly compartmentalized in their knowl-
edge; they tended to be well informed only in their own small area of spe-
cialization. They also at times seemed to be victims of their own propaganda,
misinformation, and ideology. Neither their political system nor their edu-
cation allowed them to develop the type of flexibility or independent think-
ing essential to compromise, and without compromise, it was difficult to
make any real progress on such issues of mutual importance.
If nothing else as the conference ended, we now knew that North Ko-
rean strategy had not changed. It was still oriented toward separating the
United States and ROK and using the nuclear issue as their major bargain-
ing chip. It has now been more than a decade since this trip and the confer-
ence, and I have seen only a few indications in North Korean behavior since
that lead me to believe that there has been any change in either their strat-
egy or their ultimate objective.