Clinton in North Korea: Risky Business

Conn Carroll / August 05, 2009

Former President Bill Clinton arrived in Los Angeles Wednesday with journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee who, just hours earlier, had been prisoners of Kim Jong-il’s North Korean regime. Every American should be relieved that Lee and Ling are home safe, but Americans should also know that this is not the first time North Korea has captured Americans and been rewarded with a high-ranking American envoy.

In 1994 and then again in 1996, then-Congressman Bill Richardson met with the North Korean regime to free American prisoners. The danger is not just again rewarding North Korea’s Mafiaesque behavior with a legitimizing photo-op, but also what else Clinton conveyed to North Korea in their “exhaustive conservation.” Heritage Asian Studies Center senior research fellow Bruce Klingner elaborates: (more…)