The American Spectator

Special Report

They never learn, do they?

Return with me now to those days of yesteryear, the days when Bill Clinton was in the White House and the Democrats controlled the House and Senate.

The date: October 22, 1994.

The headline in the liberal bible, the New York Times, read as follows: "U.S. and North Korea Sign Pact to End Nuclear Dispute: Many Details are Kept Secret." Said the story confidently: "Under the broad agreement concluded here late Monday, North Korea will freeze its nuclear activities, [and] renounce any ambition to become a nuclear power..." In addition, the Times trumpeted what the North Koreans would get in return for these two concessions. "In exchange, an international consortium will replace North Korea's current graphite nuclear reactors, which are considered less dangerous because they produce little weapons grade plutonium."

p>Said the North Korean chief negotiator of the deal: It is "a very important milestone document of historic significance" that would resolve his country's nuclear dispute with the United States "once and for all." Kang Sok Ju went on some more about this new agreement he had negotiated with the Clinton Administration, and it's worth reprinting in full. Reports the Times : br> /p>

He said the agreement, once put into effect, would resolve "all questions of the so-called nuclear weapons development by North Korea" that have raised "such unfounded concerns and suspicions. We have neither the intention nor the plan to develop nuclear weapons," Mr. Kang said.

br> And Bill Clinton believed him. The Times reported it this way: "At a news conference in Washington, President Clinton said the treaty 'was a good deal for the United States.'"

There was one other player in all of this as well. The Times took care to say that "former President Jimmy Carter held talks in Pyongyang with North Korea's dictator Kim Il Sung, that defused the crisis and led to new negotiations with the United States." For his part, Carter went on record earlier in the year in meetings with the North Koreans to say that "I personally believe the crisis is over." What did the North Korean leader (the current dictator's father, Kim Il Sung) think of Carter's efforts? "He told me," said Carter, that "he was very grateful I had gone [to North Korea], and thought it [Carter's effort to make peace and help give the North Koreans light-water reactors] was a very fine accomplishment."

The Times concluded that "Bill Clinton will be the biggest winner, a master negotiator on a critical security issue." Five days later, when the North Koreans expressed skepticism the United States would really give them what they wanted, the Times headlined this story: "Clinton, in Letter, Assures North Koreans on Nuclear Reactors." Said the President in a letter to Kim Jung Il: "I will use the full powers of my office" to assure that the dictator got what he wanted.

topics:
Bill Clinton, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons