Former President Clinton Brokers Release of American Journalists From North Korea

The two journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were working for Current TV, a news channel headed by President Clinton's vice president, Al Gore.

What did they talk about?

	Previous negotiations between Secretary Clinton and North Korean officials have been unsuccessful.

The former president met with Kim Jong Il, the eccentric and mysterious leader of North Korea who has goaded America by developing nuclear weapons and making war-like threats against his neighbors.

The mission was politically tricky, as Mr. Clinton is married to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who speaks directly for President Obama when she visits other countries.

The Clintons tried to make very clear that Bill Clinton was on a purely private humanitarian mission and not a representative of state.

North Korean state media reported that the journalists were released after Mr. Clinton apologized for their behavior, a claim the White House denies. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said North Korea was not promised any rewards for their release and there was no link to nuclear non-proliferation talks.

Secretary Clinton commented that, “We have always considered that a totally separate issue from our efforts to re-engage the North Koreans and have them return to the six-party talks and work for a commitment for the full, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

Secret deal in the works

	Journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling arrived home this week after four months in North Korea.

Negotiations had been in the works for several weeks to send a representative from the United States to lobby for the release of the journalists. Some of the names that had been floated included Al Gore, but the North Koreans preferred Bill Clinton, according to the captive journalists.

Mr. Clinton has a long history of contact with North Korea: negotiations stalled the North’s nuclear program from 1994 to 2002 and Clinton sent condolences to Kim Jong Il when his father passed in 1994.

Mr. Clinton even wanted his final trip as president to be to North Korea to broker a nuclear deal but it fell through. “There is not enough time while I am president to prepare the way for an agreement with North Korea that advances our national interest and provides the basis for a trip by me to Pyongyang," Mr. Clinton said of the decision.

President Obama, who some Republicans say is naïvely engaging dangerous enemies, tried to distance himself from the direct contact with Kim Jong Il, but he did thank Mr. Clinton “for the extraordinary humanitarian effort that resulted in the release of the two journalists.”

North Korea’s nuclear past and future

	In a May 25 protest, South Korean demonstrators decry the North Korean dictator's most recent nuclear test.

North Korea and the United States have long had strained relations since the establishment of Communist North Korea following the Korean War.

In recent decades, the countries have clashed over the North’s nuclear program, and President Bush labeled North Korea part of the “Axis of Evil”.

Relations further soured between 2003 and 2006 when diplomatic efforts aimed at encouraging North Korea to end its nuclear program failed and North Korea conducted its first confirmed nuclear test.

President Clinton’s trip to North Korea was the first meeting between the United States and North Korea since the North walked away from the six-party talks and conducted another missile test earlier this year.

Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy told the NewsHour that “before, the idea was, you would denuclearize, denuclearize, and then you would normalize relations. Now they've got different terms for denuclearization.”

“The complete denuclearization will be later down the pike, after we have normalized relations with them, but they are ready for tradeoffs that would stop any further expansion of their nuclear program, which seems to me to be a very valuable achievement for the United States to work for.”