As accolades pour in from home and abroad, one of Jimmy Carter’s greatest achievements after he left the White House has gone largely unnoticed: The former president headed off a devastating second Korean War. This largely unheralded feat marks the true measure of his commitment to peace.
In early 1993, North Korea announced that it was going to leave a global treaty intended to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Alarm bells were set off, especially since international inspectors had accused North Korea of lying about how much nuclear material it had produced. Since U.S. intelligence agencies believed Pyongyang had enough for at least one weapon, it was imperative to keep the North in the treaty.
U.S. and North Korean diplomats tried to resolve the issue for almost a year. Then in April 1994, Pyongyang informed President Bill Clinton’s negotiator, Robert L. Gallucci, that it had decided to unload fuel rods from its reactor. The unloading would also destroy information that could clear up the mystery of how much plutonium the North had produced in the past. More importantly, the rods could be used to produce plutonium for a bomb.
James Laney, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, later told an academic seminar, “We were moving like some Greek Tragedy to some sort of inexorable collision.” He flew to Atlanta and urged Jimmy Carter, an old friend, to get involved. Carter was no stranger to Korea, nuclear weapons, or personal diplomacy; Kim Il Sung had been inviting the former president for years to visit Pyongyang, but he always declined.
Carter called Clinton to express his concern. Clinton, in turn, dispatched Gallucci to Plains, Georgia to brief the former president. Returning to Washington with two large bags of peanuts, the American point man reported that Carter was determined to go to North Korea. Clinton approved the former president’s request despite the fears of his aides that a strong-willed Carter would freelance.
By the time Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter’s plane touched down in Seoul on June 12, 1994, war seemed inevitable. A plan had been formulated in the Pentagon to destroy North Korea’s nuclear plants before they could begin producing nuclear material for bombs and to reinforce U.S. forces in anticipation of an armed conflict. The State Department was finalizing new devastating international sanctions. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul began planning the evacuation of thousands of Americans.
General Gary Luck, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, assured Clinton that he could reach the Yalu River in six months but warned it would cost 1 million casualties and a trillion dollars. Luck’s staff kept a close watch on his black Labrador retriever, “Bud,” assuming he would be evacuated if war was imminent.
Late in the morning of June 15, Carter, his wife, and their aides walked across the DMZ and hopped into a Mercedes to drive to Pyongyang. Carter’s first meeting, with an intransigent foreign minister, was distressing. After a late-night walk in the guest house garden to confer with his wife, Carter prepared a message for Clinton: Begin talks right away or Pyongyang might move to a wartime footing. But Carter also decided not to send the message until he talked to Kim Il Sung the next day.
The two men met the next morning at Kim’s sprawling palace. Their rapport was instant. Bowed by age, Kim was all smiles. Carter flashed his familiar grin. Puffing on a cigarette, the Great Leader agreed to avoid an immediate clash by allowing inspectors to stay and verify that the thousands fuel rods unloaded from the North’s reactor would not be moved to another plant to produce plutonium.
Kim also proposed a solution to the nuclear confrontation. North Korea would dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for two new reactors to produce electricity for his economy. Kim’s heart was still set on a summit, but the Great Leader’s proposal eventually became the centerpiece of the only denuclearization agreement reached between North Korea and the United States.
Just as Carter was finishing up his talks, Clinton and his advisors met in the West Wing. As Secretary of Defense William Perry briefed the president on military options, he opined that the confrontation reminded him of Barbara Tuchman’s analysis of World War I in the “Guns of August.” Events could spiral out of control.
The president’s steward interrupted. Jimmy Carter was on the line from Pyongyang and wanted to speak to Gallucci. Carter told the Gallucci that Kim Il Sung was willing to let inspectors stay in place. Carter asked the U.S. envoy what he thought about restarting talks and putting off sanctions in return, a move that would upend Washington’s policy.
Almost as an afterthought, the former president ended the conversation by saying he planned to go on CNN – a news team had accompanied him – momentarily. The crew’s presence suggested that Carter might just hand Washington and Pyongyang a fait accompli. On camera, he seemed critical of the United States, especially the sanctions drive, and tolerant of North Korea.
Still, Clinton calmly recalled that President Kennedy had received two letters – one conciliatory and the other harsh – from Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis. Not only had Carter been critical of Washington’s sanctions drive, but he also failed to secure a North Korean pledge not to reload its reactor with fresh rods that could eventually be used to produce plutonium. “The best approach diplomatically and psychologically” was to view Carter’s interview in a favorable light and put the burden on North Korea to contradict that interpretation.
An angry phone call from Tony Lake, Clinton’s national security adviser, and another session with Kim during a river cruise did the trick. Carter secured an additional pledge by Kim not to reload rods, essentially freezing North Korea’s nuclear program. Still, the CNN crew filmed him erroneously telling Kim that the U.S. sanctions effort had been stopped. The White House immediately issued a statement that consultations at the United Nations were continuing.
The backbiting between Clinton’s aides and Carter escalated. As Carter crossed back over the DMZ, Ambassador Laney met him with instructions to stop talking about sanctions. Even worse, the former president was told that he would meet Clinton’s advisers, not the president, when he returned to Washington. Carter still complained to the press that U.S. policy on Korea was misguided.
At home, the reaction was harsh and bipartisan, portraying the administration as weak and vacillating. Within days of Carter’s return, however, a letter arrived in Washington by fax from North Korea. Pyongyang confirmed that it would freeze its program and agreed to a U.S. proposal to convene new talks between Gallucci and his counterpart.
Clinton mended bridges, calling Carter personally to tell him about the response and telling the press, “I was glad he went.” In private, the president explained he knew he was going to take heat for letting Carter go but wanted to give the North Koreans space to back down.
Three months later, Clinton turned once again to Carter to find a peaceful exit to a mounting crisis in Haiti. He succeeded. Once again, Carter was roundly attacked for his efforts.
Years later, President Barack Obama contemplated sending Clinton to Pyongyang to retrieve two American reporters seized by the North Koreans. Wanting to “avoid a repeat of Jimmy Carter,” Obama enlisted Clinton, but significant restrictions were placed on the former president, including instructing him not to smile in any photographs taken in Pyongyang. Like Carter, he was successful.
With Carter’s passing, perhaps the best tribute to him is to remember the value of his commitment to peace and what certainly ranks as one of the former president’s greatest diplomatic feats, stopping a second Korean war.