1999 and the Redacted Price for North Korean Silence
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pushed a high-stakes gamble to lift sanctions on Pyongyang while keeping the specific inducements hidden from a skeptical House
By Roy Castellano ·
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright and the 1998 Secret Race to Stop a Nuclear Hole
Kept secret for years, the record shows a high-stakes gamble in Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang to stop North Korean nukes before Congressional funding vanished.
By Eleanor Voss ·
Albright’s KEDO Gamble: A $14 Million Debt and the Nuclear Risk
A confidential 1998 cable shows how South Korea’s economic fragility and a stalled energy project pushed the peninsula to the edge of a nuclear restart.
By Roy Castellano ·
Kim Jong Il promised Albright a "first and last" satellite launch
The North Korean dictator admitted his economy was in ruins and promised an end to satellite launches in a December 2000 exchange that remained hidden for years.
By Eleanor Voss ·
Kim Jong Il offered deal on all long-range missiles to gain foreign currency
U.S. intelligence painted Kim Jong Il as strange and moody while the leader sought foreign currency in exchange for his entire long-range missile program.
By Roy Castellano ·
Madeleine Albright clashes with North Korea over missile program
North Korean officials bypassed diplomatic channels to protect the missile program, insisting Secretary Madeleine Albright deal directly with Kim Jong Il to remove deeply rooted suspicions.
By Eleanor Voss ·
Stapleton Roy warned Albright: North Korean thaw is an old survival tactic
US officials were misled by a 2000 diplomatic thaw that Stapleton Roy argued was a calculated return to survival tactics the Kim regime had deployed since the 1980s.
By Theo Marchetti ·
North Korea Ceased DMZ Propaganda but Kept Targeting Washington
Pyongyang defused Yellow Sea tensions after a naval engagement and ceased DMZ propaganda, though redacted records show the regime continued to target the United States.
By Constance Bell ·