BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — In a few months a former U.S. president — Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton — may be asked to travel to North Korea in pursuit of military denuclearization. Or it will be new President Barack Obama.
In 1994, Carter did exactly that. Meeting personally with then-maximum North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in Pyongyang, the former U.S. president hammered out an understanding that was to lead to the 1994 Agreed Framework negotiated in Geneva.
The lead U.S. negotiator in Geneva was ace diplomat Robert Gallucci, who is now the well-regarded dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. But that war-stopping agreement was achieved not only because the United States was so ably represented, but also because the basics of the accord had been clearly spelled out in that Kim-Carter meeting in North Korea's capital.
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