7 Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong Il 7

the United States deteriorated greatly in 2002, after Pres.

George W. Bush characterized Kim’s regime as part of an

“axis of evil” (along with Iran and Iraq). It was suspected

that North Korea was enriching uranium at one of the

nuclear facilities whose activities were supposedly frozen

by the terms of the Agreed Framework, and in December

2002 Kim expelled International Atomic Energy Agency

inspectors from the site. The following year Kim

announced that North Korea was pulling out of the

Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and planning on devel-

oping nuclear weapons. The move was widely seen as a

negotiating tactic to secure economic aid and a nonag-

gression pact from the United States. In 2005 North Korea

claimed it was capable of building a nuclear weapon, and

in October 2006 the country announced that it had con-

ducted an underground test of such a weapon. Talks were

suspended for several years, but another deal was struck in

late 2007. The ability to verify North Korea’s compliance

remained an international issue.

The December 2007 election of Lee Myung-bak as

South Korean president began another deterioration in

inter-Korean relations as Lee took a harder line with his

North Korean counterpart. In 2008 North Korea

announced that it planned to close the land border and all

nonmilitary telephone links with South Korea.

Richard M. Nixon

(b. Jan. 9, 1913, Yorba Linda, Calif., U.S.—d. April 22, 1994, New

York, N.Y.)

R

ichard M. Nixon was the 37th president of the United

States, serving from 1969 to 1974. Faced with almost

certain impeachment and removal from office, he is the

only president to have resigned from office.