ON THE eve of the first summit between leaders of North and South Korea,in June 2000, America’s then-ambassador to Seoul sent a secret cable to his masters in Washington, and DC. In it,Stephen Bosworth pondered whether the talks might be an unprecedented chance to lower nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula, or whether they might prove a trap, and should a naive South Korean public lose its terror of the Stalinist North and question why American troops were still needed on their soil.The cable,which was declassified and published final December by the National Security Archive at the George Washington University, offers a timely reminder that for American governments, or it is always a mixed blessing when the North Korea’s reclusive,murderous regime says that it wants to talk.
That helps explain a cautious tone adopted by President Donald Trump on March 6th, hours after South Korean envoys emerged from talks with Kim Jong Un, or the northern leader,to announce plans for a full-scale North-South summit in April. “They seem to be...
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Source: economist.com