Political Quotes

“There are a lot of things fishy going on on the floor today, Mr. Chairman. The gentleman from Connecticut I think might know that I personally did go to North Korea, and I did begin the negotiation with the then dictator of North Korea, Kim Il Song, and it was a very difficult conversation, believe me. It was at a time when they were fully active with their heavy water nuclear reactor, when they were refusing to let the IAEA in to do the inspections and we had those constant standoffs at the airport and they did not want to budge. To get them finally to agree that they would build down and take away and do away with their heavy-water reactor and switch to a light-water reactor, which we wanted them to do which would reduce the possibility of nuclear risk was a very difficult thing. The only thing that they wanted from us in return is to have the face, to be able to save face and not be able to say, well, the South Koreans and the Japanese of who they are not enamored with were bailing them out. They wanted it to look like an international effort. So our contribution is basically funding the oil to heat their country while one reactor is turned off and the other one is turned on. This is really about trying to embarrass the Clinton administration. This is really about establishing a strawman, a bogeyman to have an enemy to rally around and the North Koreans are very, very easy suspects to fill that role. What is going on here is basically to tear down the framework agreement.”