Bolton's Persistent Hanoi North Korea-US Summit Disruption 'Operation'

Preparing materials on negative impacts of Trump from the preparatory meeting
Circulating the draft negotiation to hardliners to elicit opposition

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] Former U.S. National Security Council (NSC) advisor John Bolton has drawn attention by detailing in his memoir how he persistently obstructed the negotiation team out of concern that President Donald Trump might make 'concessions' to North Korea.

Known as a 'super hawk' for his staunch support of hardline foreign policies, the circumstances under which he tried to hinder the negotiations pushed by President Trump indicate that their compatibility was fundamentally mismatched from the start.

According to the memoir released on the 22nd (local time), Bolton judged that the State Department negotiation team had become uncontrollable with enthusiasm for an agreement ahead of the second North Korea-U.S. summit held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in late February 2019, and personally considered ways to influence President Trump.

He recorded in the memoir that to prevent mistakes in Hanoi, he focused on ensuring "the U.S. would get through the Hanoi summit without disastrous concessions or compromises."

A representative example was the preparation of a video for the first Hanoi summit preparation meeting held in the White House Situation Room on February 12 last year, which highlighted that although previous presidents claimed achievements with North Korea, North Korea continued to deceive the U.S. even after the Singapore North Korea-U.S. summit.

This video concluded with a scene explaining why former President Reagan ended talks without an agreement when he met Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986.

Bolton wrote that at the second preparation meeting, he emphasized the importance of a complete nuclear declaration rather than the gradual (denuclearization) approach that the State Department might accept. This meant he pushed for nuclear declarations, which North Korea had shown resistance to, and insisted the negotiation team maintain a hardline stance until the end.

On February 24, on his way to Hanoi, Bolton recalled reviewing a draft prepared by the negotiation team and showing it to Mick Mulvaney, Acting White House Chief of Staff at EKDTL in Washington DC, and Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the White House, receiving negative reactions.

Bolton also contacted Vice President Pence, who was returning to Washington by plane, and received similarly negative feedback. This is interpreted as having secured support from key figures who shared his hardline position.

Bolton said that President Trump also received the draft from Mulvaney and others, and that Trump was displeased with comments from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about Stephen Biegun, the Special Representative for North Korea, who was overseeing the working-level negotiations, considering them too extreme.

Bolton also revealed that the two leaders were anxious about whether to issue a joint statement. He said Kim Jong-un kept pushing for a joint statement and mentioned feeling a barrier between the North Korea and U.S. leaders, and he worried that Kim’s clever strategy of appealing to Trump’s emotions might succeed.

Regarding this, a diplomatic source said, "Bolton’s perspective seems to typically reflect the neoconservative stance," adding, "Nevertheless, neocons are likely to prefer Trump over the Democrats."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.