The negotiations that led to former President Bill Clinton's secret mission to North Korea began when two U.S. journalists were seized by the isolated Stalinist state, and were spurred on by the administration's hope that they might lead to a resumption of gridlocked disarmament talks, according to people close to the process.
The goal was a specific deal: If the United States showed respect by dispatching a high-level emissary to Pyongyang, the North would release journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested along the border with China on March 17.
"This has been an orchestrated diplomatic process, carefully calibrated in both capitals," said a person who has been close to the exchanges since they began. He asked for anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue.
The mission headed for a successful conclusion today, as the two women joined the former president in a flight back to the United States.
A large number of respected figures volunteered to be the envoy, including Clinton; former Vice President Al Gore, who is co-founder of the media company that employs the two women; Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry, D-Mass.; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald P. Gregg.
But it became clear that Clinton was the best choice. He presided over a long thaw in relations between the U.S. and North Korea as president in the 1990s and was one of the most important American visitors to the North since his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, traveled there in 2000.
Clinton was eager for the role. He had been urged to take on the mission in May, when he met in Seoul with Kim Dae Jung, the former South Korean president who had worked with Clinton while both were in office to carry out a "sunshine policy" with the North.
"He was a perfect choice, and a safe choice," said Charles L. Pritchard, a former U.S. negotiator with North Korea. "He'd handled tough North Korea issues before, and he wasn't going to go off and do something that the secretary of State wouldn't like." Although Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made repeated public appeals for the women's release, the negotiations were handled primarily - like much of the Obama administration's foreign policy - by senior White House aides. They included retired Gen. James L. Jones, the national security advisor; Thomas E. Donilon, one of Jones' deputies; and Jeffrey Bader, the top National Security Council expert on the region.
