The Nuclear Crisis in North Korea
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The Nuclear Crisis in North Korea Siegfried S. Hecker Siegfried S. Hecker, a senior fellow and former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, was the only scientist in an unofficial U.S. delegation that visited North Korea's nuclear facilities in Yongbyon on January 8, 2004, to assess the extent of the nation's nuclear weapons program. That effort continues today as Hecker works with the delegation leader, Stanford University Professor John W. Lewis. This article presents a unique insight into the role of science in international diplomacy by providing a snapshot of Hecker’s involvement this past winter. After visiting the facilities, Hecker presented his findings on January 21 at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. This article, summarizing his report, is reprinted with permission from Bridge 34 (2) (Summer 2004) pp. 17–23, a publication of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (www.nae.edu); © 2004 National Academy of Sciences.
I was somewhat startled when my North Korean host asked me, “Do you want to see our product?” I responded, “You mean the plutonium?” When he nodded, I said “sure.” Scientists and engineers often find themselves in the middle of major diplomatic issues. In the past 12 years, I have worked closely with Russian scientists and engineers (more than 30 visits) to help them deal with their nuclear complex after the breakup of the Soviet Union. However, my visit to North Korea was unexpected. This adventure began with a phone call in late 2003 from my colleague, Professor John W. Lewis of Stanford University, who has been engaged in unofficial Track II discussions with North Korea since 1987. He was there in August 2003 (his ninth visit) trying to help resolve the current nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, and his interactions with the North Korean government had gained him sufficient trust to be invited to visit the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. He asked me to come along so there would be a nuclear specialist present. This nuclear crisis, the second one in 10 years, was precipitated when North Korea expelled international nuclear inspectors in December 2002, withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and claimed to be building more nuclear weapons with plutonium extracted from spent-fuel rods heretofore stored under international inspection. These actions were triggered by a disagreement over U.S. assertions that North Korea had violated the Agreed Framework (which had frozen the plutonium path to nuclear weapons to end the first crisis in 1994) by 782
clandestinely developing uraniumenrichment capabilities as an alternative path to nuclear weapons. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis made little progress in 2003. The United States insisted on talking with the North Korean government only in a sixparty format that included North Korea’s four neighbors, South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. The inaugural meeting in Beijing in August 2003 made little apparent progress. Our “unofficial” U.S. delegation was the first to
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