FRONTLINE: KIM'S NUCLEAR GAMBLE (TV)
Summary
One in this documentary series. In this edition, Frontline correspondent Martin Smith reports on the conflict between the United States and North Korea over North Korea's desire to develop a nuclear weapons program under the leadership of former president Kim Il-Sung and his son, North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong Il. The program features archival and broadcast footage, and segments of interviews between Smith and politicians and diplomats from the U.S. and South Korea. The first section reviews the career of Kim Il-Sung, covering the period from the 1940s, when he defended the country against Japan, through his 1950s success against the U.S. and South Korea in the Korean War, to the late 1980s when U.S. spy satellites captured images of the construction of nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities in North Korea just as the cold war was ending and North Korea was losing its biggest sponsor, the U.S.S.R.; this section includes interviews with the following people: Ashton Carter, assistant secretary of defense 1993-96; James Lilley, ambassador to China 1989-91; Donald Gregg, CIA recruiter 1951-82 and U.S. ambassador to South Korea 1989-93; and Charles Kartman, State Department 1995-2001. The second section looks at diplomatic relations between the U.S. and North Korea under the Clinton administration, during which Kim Il-Sung died and was replaced by his son, Kim Jong Il, with whom U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (1996-2001) met in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang in 2000; this section includes commentary from the following persons: Lilley; Robert Gallucci, assistant secretary of state 1992-2001; William Perry, secretary of defense 1994-97; Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States and peace broker in 1994 agreement with North Korea; Stephen Bosworth, executive director of KEDO (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) 1995-97 and ambassador to South Korea 1997-2000; Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) 1985-present; Kartman; C. Ken Quinones, State Department 1980-97; Lim Dong Won, advisor to former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung; Albright; and Wendy Sherman, special envoy to North Korea 1998-2000. The third section deals with George W. Bush administration's decision to halt talks with North Korea (includes a clip of Bush's January 2002 speech where he named North Korea as one of the countries that constituted an "axis of evil"), the diplomatic freeze between the U.S. and North Korea, and the escalation of tensions between the two nations. It includes segments from Smith's interviews with the following people: Lim Dong Won; Gregg; chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle; Thomas Hubbard, State Department- appointed spokesperson for the Bush administration's policy on North Korea and ambassador to South Korea; Perry; Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly; and Albright. This program is closed-captioned.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by The Marc Haas and Helen Hotze Haas Foundations, 2003/2004.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: April 10, 2003 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:56:46
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:76749
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Arms control - nuclear weapons; Disarmament - nuclear non-proliferation - North Korea; U S - Foreign relations - North Korea; U S - Foreign relations - South Korea; War on Terrorism, 2001-; Asian American Pacific Islanders Collection
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1983-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- David Fanning … Executive Producer
- Michael Sullivan … Executive Producer
- Eamonn Matthews … Executive Producer
- Robin Parmelee … Coordinating Producer
- Sharon Tiller … Senior Producer
- Martin Smith … Producer, Writer
- Marcela Gaviria … Co-Producer, Director
- Christopher Durrance … Associate Producer
- Olga Domratcheva … Researcher
- Izabella Tabarovsky … Researcher
- Catherine Wright … Researcher, For "Frontline"
- Arnold Buk … Music by
- Miranda Hentoff … Music by
- Mason Daring … Music (Misc. Credits), Series Music
- Martin Brody … Music (Misc. Credits), Series Music
- Will Lyman … Narrator
- Martin Smith … Reporter
- Madeleine Albright
- Stephen Bosworth
- George W. Bush
- Ashton Carter
- Jimmy Carter
- Bill Clinton
- Robert Gallucci
- Donald Gregg
- Thomas Hubbard
- Charles Kartman
- James Kelly
- Kim Dae Jung
- Kim Il-Sung
- Kim Jong Il
- James Lilley
- Lim Dong Won
- John McCain
- Richard Perle
- William Perry
- C. Ken Quinones
- Wendy Sherman