Facing the Boogeyman a Korean American Diplomat Recounts His Trips to North Korea

Former Secretary of Defense William Perry visited North Korea in May of 1999 as a special envoy of President Bill Clinton. The delegation landed at P’yongyang International Airport in a “blue and white.” l-r: Dennis Droney, Evans Revere, Chip Gregson, Ken Lieberthal, Wendy Sherman, William Perry, Ashton Carter and Philip Yun. (Photos/ Courtesy of Philip Yun and Dennis Droney) Facing the Boogeyman A Korean American Diplomat Recounts His Trips to North Korea By Philip W. Yun hen it comes to North Korea—a country fies the worry. No doubt they have in mind past cover armed with a military of one million men, stories like The Economist’s “Greetings, Earthlings,” thousands of heavy artillery tubes, chemi- Newsweek’s “Dr. Evil” and Time’s “The Bigger Threat?” cal and biological weapons, and possibly All these capture the particular place North Korea occu- WoneW or two nuclear devices—a little knowledge can be pies in popular Western culture. very dangerous. After Al Qaeda, according to many defense experts, The nightmare scenario Washington policymakers are North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is the most press- grappling with now is not that North Korea will use a ing security threat facing the United States. Given what is nuclear weapon on the United States, but that it will at stake, it is alarming to see so many of our senior gov- become a nuclear weapons Wal-Mart, selling its deadly ernment officials—most of whom have neither been to wares to the highest bidder. The amount needed to North Korea nor ever met a North Korean—acting and weaponize a crude nuclear device could be as small as a justifying policy actions as if media caricatures of North volleyball—something easily smuggled over borders. Korea, its people and leader are true. Therefore, if North Korea’s nuclear ambitions remain unchecked for too long, many believe that it would only be a matter of time before a nuclear weapon is acquired by “…at my house, the boogeyman was terrorists and exploded on American soil. When people learn of my policy work on North Korea a North Korean, who would appear as a Clinton appointee and of my Korean ethnicity, they always ask if North Koreans and their leader, Kim Jong Il, in nightmares or panic attacks.” are as “crazy” as the media claims, and if the hype justi- THE KOREA SOCIETY QUARTERLY 6 VOLUME 4, NUMBER 1 PERSPECTIVES In 1998, when I began my assignment on North Korea soldiers would kill me if they captured me and learned of issues, I too thought I knew all one needed to know about my U.S. birth. Obviously, this was adolescent banter, but it the country. As a Korean American, I had been taught early also was serious.And it did little to assuage my early child- in life simple “truths” about the country and its govern- hood anxieties. ment—it was communist, totalitarian, depraved and “not This was almost thirty years ago, and I treated it all as a to be trusted”; the country was weak, the United States was game then—my Korean heritage, North Korean commu- strong; and with enough pressure, the United States would nists and the tragedy of a divided Peninsula. Of course, as put this tiny country and its leadership in their place. I became an adult, each came to have its own place in my I quickly realized though that things were not so black life. Still, the persistent message about North Korean and white and that a firmer grasp of North Korea’s past “wickedness” from my friends, relatives and parents had and present was essential to seeing North Korea and its had its cumulative effect. My first brush with North Korea people in three dimensions, not one. With each round of as a U.S. government official did little to change my views. negotiation and trip to North Korea, I picked up nuances previously not evident to me, as my preconceived notions A Crack in the Facade: of this peculiar country withered away. And, in the end, I My First Encounter with North Koreans embarked on a path of discovery that led to a new open- In August of 1998, the State Department assigned me to ness to other explanations for North Korean behavior as the team for government-to-government talks in New well as a personal journey to a family past gone-by. York. In those days, representatives of the United States and North Korea met from time to time to discuss dis- North Koreans as the Boogeyman: agreements over the Agreed Growing up Korean American Framework, a broad outline The idea of evil North Korean communists was ever-pres- designed to end the North’s ent in my life, though until relatively recently it was nuclear weapon and long-range always lurking in the background. You see, my father was missile programs that had been born in a farming village near the east coast in what is now concluded between the U.S. and South Korea; my mother, in what is now North Korea, North Korea in 1994.I was nerv- specifically in Yongbyon—site of the nuclear facilities that ous because I was not sure how have caused such great tension between North Korea and the North Koreans would react the United States. Like many other immigrants before and to me, how my American col- after them, my parents came to the United States to study, leagues would view me in this overcoming the unspeakable horrors of war to live their context, or even how my child- American dream. So it is somewhat ironic that their son hood fears might come into ended up dealing intensively with North Korea from 1998 play. In fact, my first personal to 2001, as an official in the U.S. Department of State. interaction with North Koreans From my early childhood, my parents and their Korean was not what I had expected. friends spared no effort to instill in me such values as When the North Korean dedication to study and hard work, respect for elders, negotiating team entered the politeness to others and a strong sense of my Korean iden- top floor of the U.S. Mission to tity. On occasion my siblings and I would hear snippets the United Nations, they were about the Korean War and the concept of Korea as one stiff and somewhat uncomfort- country, which would inevitably lead to admonitions able in gait. Though dressed about North Korea and communism. When we were stylishly in contemporary cloth- behaving badly, our baby-sitter—a favorite aunt—would ing, there was a 1970s patina threaten, “North Korean spies are going to come and take about their appearance—per- you away if you don't listen to me!” So at my house, the haps it was the coifed haircuts boogeyman was a North Korean, who would appear in or the large, Roy Orbison-style nightmares or panic attacks. glasses. In fact, they were This view of North Korea was reinforced when I was 14 painfully shy and awkward, years old, and in Korea for the first time. Not knowing a careful not to draw attention, word of Korean, I was enrolled in a public middle school reserved and understated. And where I was forced to exchange shoulder-length hair and each one had a small red lapel bell-bottoms for a buzz cut and a cadet uniform. Between pin with a portrait of either Kim the lessons and boredom, I sang patriotic songs, endured Il Sung, North Korea’s first anti-communist propaganda and suffered through quasi- leader who had died in 1994, or military training. Whenever I insisted to classmates that I his son, Kim Jong Il, who suc- Robert Carlin and Philip Yun standing in was American, they would warn me that North Korean ceeded him. Kim Il Sung Square. THE KOREA SOCIETY QUARTERLY 7 VOLUME 4, NUMBER 1 PERSPECTIVES Earlier, some of us in the U.S. delegation were warned so firmly. Some table thumping took place. To top it off, in not to ask for one of those pins because the North Koreans the midst of these talks, North Korea test launched a three- would be sure to take offense. Depending on rank and sta- stage missile over Japan. Yet for me, there was a petty bit tus in the Communist Party, the pin differed in color, of gamesmanship about their entire approach. The myth of shape and size. So the pin was not a keepsake, souvenir or an omnipotent North Korean built up over the years had campaign button, but like a medal, it was worn proudly, been deflated. with reverence, for it had the image of one of their supreme leaders. There were stories of fights breaking out On to P'yongyang: A Place to See to be Believed between North Korean and South Korean workers when a Traveling to North Korea's capital P’yongyang for the first South Korean laborer, in plain view, flippantly threw a time gave me a sense of how isolated the country truly newspaper with a front-page picture of Kim Jong Il into was. I had read much about North Korea, but nothing pre- the trash. pared me for what I saw. At that time, Kim Jong Il was a mystery—very few peo- It was November of 1998. We were going to P’yongyang ple had met him in person. He eschewed public events; to outline U.S. concerns over an underground worksite sightings of him were rare. Newspapers described Kim as called Kumchangni.

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