As The Plutonium Cools

By Bruce W. Nelan

In the White House press room last week, Bill Clinton told reporters he did not think it was useful to talk about the confrontation with North Korea "in terms of winners and losers." Nevertheless, for those who insist on keeping score, the clear winner in the latest round of the 15-month nuclear dispute was former President Jimmy Carter. The Administration had kept its distance and whispered its skepticism when Carter went to Pyongyang two weeks ago and claimed that President Kim Il Sung was ready for a negotiated deal. But last Wednesday the North Koreans confirmed in writing that they will freeze their nuclear program while talks are under way. With that news, Clinton had to embrace Carter, at least figuratively. "We have the basis to go forward," Clinton said, "and I am very happy about it."

The path was cleared by three promises from the North Koreans. In a letter to Washington they pledged they would not extract the plutonium -- enough for four or five atom bombs -- from the 8,000 fuel rods they removed from their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon earlier this month. They will not reload the 5-MW reactor with new fuel rods. And they will allow international inspectors to remain on duty to verify those promises. "This does not solve the problem," Clinton said, "but it certainly gives us the basis for seeking a solution." To pursue it, the two sides will sit down to another round of negotiations, thus defusing what was fast becoming the most dangerous foreign policy challenge Bill Clinton has faced. The coming weeks could offer the last chance they will have for a peaceful resolution of the tension between them.

Kim told Carter he would stick to his freeze as long as the U.S. was making "a good-faith effort" to work out a settlement. If last week's letter from Pyongyang contained any more specific time limit, it was not announced. But since the fuel rods are too radioactive to be processed for several weeks anyway, the two sides have a window of opportunity to determine how good the good faith is and to decide whether their resumed diplomacy promises to produce a settlement.

In the short run both Presidents benefit from their decision to reopen formal talks in Geneva, set to begin next week. Kim takes the steam out of the rising crisis over his apparent effort to build nuclear weapons and diverts the world's attention to what Washington might offer him at the bargaining table. For his part, Clinton wins a respite from his effort to round up support for U.N. sanctions against North Korea -- a campaign that was not going well. If Clinton has to try for sanctions again later, he will be able to say to reluctant countries like China and Russia that he went the extra mile for peace.

During their three days of photogenic negotiating in Pyongyang, Carter did not get Kim to address the issue that produced the crisis in the first place: North Korea's refusal to let inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency do their job. Even now the Koreans are portraying as a concession their willingness to let two inspectors keep watch on the fuel rods lying in water- filled pools. The battle over full inspections has been swept, along with other economic and diplomatic questions, into the new round of talks.

That is one reason some domestic critics fear that the U.S. is going to let the North Koreans keep secret whatever happened at their reactor in 1989. They shut it down for 100 days, and the CIA believes they removed fuel rods and reprocessed enough plutonium for one or two bombs. Finding out now would be extremely difficult: with the rods removed from the reactor, inspectors would have to rely on North Korea's own records and would need access to waste dumps the Koreans have so far refused to open.

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger is worried that the U.S. may not demand the access necessary to sniff out past diversions of plutonium. "We're moving down the road of being willing to accept a Korean arsenal," he argues. Brent Scowcroft, George Bush's National Security Adviser, says ! flatly, "Carter's trip was a blunder." John Holum, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, conceded last week that the main objective now is to freeze Pyongyang's program in place. "We're prepared to let the past be resolved as part of the dialogue," he said. Pyongyang, of course, may not be equally willing, and that will have to be explored at the talks.

North Korea's neighbors indicate they will wait and see. "We find it quite difficult to find new elements in Kim Il Sung's statements to Jimmy Carter," says a Japanese diplomat. "Now their words have to be tested." Says Yang Sung Chul, an expert on the North at Kyung Hee University in Seoul: "We have gone from defiance to talk many times, and this may become interminable." He has a point. Though Kim Il Sung won propaganda points by calling for a summit with South Korean President Kim Young Sam, it was the third time the North has proposed such a summit. The South has done so 10 times. Still, Seoul was encouraged by the North's agreement to a preliminary meeting this week at the border truce village of Panmunjom.

The North Koreans will come into the Geneva meeting asking for a security guarantee -- a pledge that the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons on them. They will also call for a wide range of economic aid and development assistance, possibly starting with loans from the Asian Development Bank. Another major request will be aid from abroad to replace the reactor at Yongbyon with modern technology that uses ordinary water rather than graphite as a moderator. Providing the Koreans with such a light-water reactor would cost billions and take many years to complete. Yet it would be in the West's interest, since light-water technology would make it much more difficult for North Korea to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The North Koreans have promised for now not to take the plutonium out of the fuel rods they removed abruptly from their reactor. They can, of course, change their mind if the Geneva talks bog down; they could also argue that the rods must be sent on to reprocessing because they will deteriorate and might begin to leak after a few months, though Western experts think the safe period could easily be extended. Under the provisions of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, they are permitted to reprocess their spent fuel rods and extract plutonium so long as they do it under supervision of the international inspectors. The problem: at any point, once they have legally stockpiled enough plutonium, the North Koreans could throw the inspectors out and possibly in a few months build themselves a nuclear arsenal.

For the U.S., the main items on the agenda at the talks will be investigating the past and limiting the future of Pyongyang's nuclear program. Some critics say this approach is too narrow, that a deal with the North Koreans will have to offer them economic and diplomatic rewards. Administration officials respond that if the nuclear questions can be resolved, all other aspects of the relationship are open for bargaining. "I think there is a shot at a negotiated settlement," says one key official in Washington. If he is right, everyone could be a winner.

With reporting by Edward W. Desmond/Tokyo and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington