My secret, almost, trip to North Korea
As I was sixty-four when I ran for Congress, I was keenly aware that if I wanted to represent the American public, and actually achieve something, I had to get a running start.
As a part of the campaign requirements, I spent a lot of time studying economic and global issues so that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself in front of five hundred people while trying to answer difficult audience questions.
I was delighted to hear that North Korea has released the two remaining American prisoners, Messrs. Bae and Miller, and they are now safely at home.
That fact, allows me to reveal a secret about what I tried to do while running for Congress in Georgia’s 11th congressional district. Sad to say, I lost there and in my Hawaii race as well. Why? Lack of contributors and that I insisted on telling the truth, and not what the public wanted to hear.
I was advised to just repeat what the polls suggested as the public would respond better to that than offering actual solutions to our problems. I think that they were right, but that’s not who I am.
I did my best to make America a more prosperous and safer nation. The campaigns were hugely time consuming and expensive, but worth it. I wouldn’t do it again without significant donations, but I’m glad that I ran for office. All you can do in life is try your best.
When I was studying global issues, I looked at our troop dispositions; I realized that North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was an imminent flash point waiting to happen. Why? From my research, I came to believe that it was a brittle society, desperate for foreign currencies to prop up its system.
I thought that Kim Jong-un was young enough to not be inflexible in his dealings with the west, and actually wanted to change course. His country had been cornered for many years, and the stress of maintaining order and lack of money resulted in a society that was crumbling.
It was also very clear that North Korea was also a very dangerous country as it has a huge army and possessed nuclear weapons that they are working to place atop ICBMs. As it is brittle, if it one day broke we could have a massive loss of life in south Korea and elsewhere.
We have 28,500 soldiers on the North Korean border in South Korea. In the event of a nuclear war, most would die. I could not tolerate that, so I formulated a plan that has remained secret until today.
Only two people knew about what I was working on, my wife and a campaign adviser in Washington, DC. As you can read in the attached letters that I wrote to the United Nations Ambassador Pak Kil-yon in New York, and his successor, Sin Son-ho it reveals my secret.
The letters were all sent between September 2013 and January 2014. These two are representative. They were sent by both U.S. mail and using Federal Express. I knew that the FBI would open the correspondence and would either reseal them for delivery, or block delivery. Based on the FBI and CIA visiting my congressional campaign web site, as evidenced by Google Analytics that was true.
I never heard a word from the North Koreans, so either –
1 They never received any letters from my campaign, although FedEx shows delivery confirmations.
2 They didn’t have any interest.
3 They did, but wanted direct negotiations at a much high level. James Clapper and President Obama are as high as it can get.
In the instance that they did respond, my wife didn’t want me to go. If I did she wanted me to give her a Power of Attorney, as she thought I may never have returned and ended up in a DPRK prison for whatever offense they dreamed up.
My Washington, DC campaign adviser told me not to go until I could be a part of a bipartisan Congressional delegation in 2015. She said that I would probably be breaking U.S. law and I could be prosecuted here. I would not have taken her advice as it was more important to me to actually do some good in the world, and risk imprisonment here than to have not gone.
As you know, James Clapper, our Director of National Intelligence, flew to Pyongyang and returned with the two prisoners claiming that no deal was made. Mr. Clapper insists that no secret negotiations are underway. He’s the man who testified before Congress that the NSA was not spying on the American public. You can take it for granted that he is not telling the truth, something required in his job. A deal is in the works.
You may also know that President Obama is in diplomatic discussions with China and is currently in Beijing. That’s not far from North Korea, a country on the southern border of China, about a one and a half hour flight away. Air Force One could not fly to North Korea carrying Mr. Obama as it would be spotted instantly, but no one would notice a Chinese military plane flying there and back for an overnight trip. If he goes, he will be photographed. If the trip is successful, it will be announced. If not, it will remain a secret… for a while.
I hope that we continue our secret negotiations and that North Korea becomes a member of the global community. We need to avoid a potentially disastrous nuclear scenario. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That describes our current relationship with North Korea.
We are celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty-five years ago today and almost the one hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I. Perhaps these November anniversaries will be symbolic of a change of tone.
I wanted to make the impossible, possible and make a change for the better. Perhaps I have.
Time will tell.
