War of Nerves At the Nuclear Brink

By J.F.O. McAllister/Washington

During the agonizing negotiations to end the Korean War, the American general in charge became so infuriated with the rococo delaying tactics of the North Koreans that he asked Washington for permission "to employ such language and methods at the talks as these treacherous savages cannot fail to understand, and understanding, respect." He was turned down. Getting an armistice took two more years of an excruciating saraband between envoys who may have loathed each other but had too much to lose to get mad. Now American and North Korean diplomats are in the trenches again, speaking tactfully on matters of life and death, as Washington tries to stop Pyongyang's apparent march toward building an atomic bomb, and Pyongyang tries to head off the international sanctions its ambitions will inevitably prompt.

The dispute is heating up. Hans Blix, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to tell the U.N. this week that North Korea's violation of international nuclear safeguards is "continuing and widening." In addition to blocking inspections of two secret sites to which the IAEA demanded access last February, Pyongyang is now refusing to allow even routine monitoring of five declared nuclear sites at Yongbyon, 65 miles north of the capital, and two other sites elsewhere. At a 5-MW power reactor whose fuel core could be mined for plutonium to make bombs, IAEA inspectors are not being allowed to reload spent surveillance cameras. Three smaller research facilities due for inspection have been off limits since May 1992. A uranium fuel-fabrication plant slated for examination every three months has not been seen for more than a year. Last August, when IAEA officials visited the plutonium-reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, they were allowed in only at night, with all the lights turned off, peering through the 600-ft. building with what one Western official described as "weak flashlights" provided by their hosts. After that, says the official, "Blix came back and vowed 'never again.' They have to allow full inspections with no more horses---."

Blix has the right to refer the dispute to the U.N. Security Council, which can punish a nuclear miscreant with sanctions that can range from a reprimand to an embargo, and ultimately to war. Three weeks ago, he told Washington he would begin the process this week if the North didn't start behaving. But the West decided to keep negotiating instead. "We're not talking in terms of a deadline," says an IAEA spokesman. Reason: fear of driving Pyongyang into a corner from which it would fight its way out. The North Koreans have threatened to resume plutonium reprocessing and their atomic-weapons program if the U.S. breaks off talks over the stalled inspections. That threat seems real. Even the flashlight search, as well as satellite photos, showed the North preparing to resume plutonium reprocessing.

Moreover, if an oil or trade embargo is imposed, U.S. analysts fear a violent response. Also, Pyongyang diplomats have said privately that any attack on their nuclear facilities would trigger an invasion of the South. None of these risks of escalation are worth taking yet, since Western intelligence analysts are fairly sure that the North has only small amounts of plutonium and no operational bomb. Further, says a State Department official, "none of our main interlocutors on this issue -- South Korea, Russia, Japan, China -- think negotiations have been exhausted."

The first high-level talks between Washington and Pyongyang in decades began last June but stalled because of the North's foot dragging. To see if they might be rescued, officials have held a series of meetings in New York City since September, mostly at U.N. headquarters and at least once in a fashionable coffee shop. "But there has been no socializing," says one official. The U.S. insists that Pyongyang live up to its promises to permit formal IAEA inspections and exchange envoys with South Korea for more nuclear talks. If it does, Washington will resume formal talks and offer some carrots: the possibility of diplomatic ties, and even economic aid and investment -- tempting to a country where many people can afford only one meal a day and soap is a luxury.

The talks have been a slog. The North Koreans, superb brinksmen, never budge until the last moment. They negotiate with that combination of self- righteousness and unblushing bad faith common among old-style communist regimes, violating commitments in order to sell the same concession two or three times. On the American side, a certain admiration has even developed for this doggedness. But the atomic clock is ticking. "I think both sides are getting tired of going over and over each tiny concession," says one source. "Now that we've gotten to know each other, gotten comfortable with each other and gotten to really hate each other," he jokes, "I think we are looking for a more comprehensive solution to wrap this up."

With stakes so high, comprehensiveness is the right goal. Failure, in the worst case, could lead to war. Success could be a first step in bringing one of the last troglodyte regimes into the modern world.

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo/New York and Jay Peterzell/Washington