Synopses & Reviews
Meltdown is the riveting inside account of an American diplomatic disaster
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen. Kim Jong-Il had signaled to the outgoing Clinton administration he was ready to negotiate an end to his missile program. Today, North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power, with enough fissile material to stage an underground test in 2006, manufacture as many as ten more warheads, andin the worst-case scenarioprovide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did the United States fail to prevent a long-standing adversary like North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, longtime CNN correspondent and North Korea expert Mike Chinoy provides a blow-by-blow account that takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown shows how the U.S. refusal to engage in serious diplomacy spurred Kim Jong Il to stage his nuclear breakout, and provides a wealth of new material about the subsequent reversal of course that led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation in the hope of negotiating an end to the nuclear crisis.
Chinoy has produced a gripping account of one of America's longest-running, most volatile foreign policy crises that explains why North Korea remains a danger todayand why it didn't have to be this way. Meltdown is the riveting inside account of an American diplomatic disaster
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen. Kim Jong-Il had signaled to the outgoing Clinton administration he was ready to negotiate an end to his missile program. Today, North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power, with enough fissile material to stage an underground test in 2006, manufacture as many as ten more warheads, andin the worst-case scenarioprovide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did the United States fail to prevent a long-standing adversary like North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, longtime CNN correspondent and North Korea expert Mike Chinoy provides a blow-by-blow account that takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown shows how the U.S. refusal to engage in serious diplomacy spurred Kim Jong Il to stage his nuclear breakout, and provides a wealth of new material about the subsequent reversal of course that led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation in the hope of negotiating an end to the nuclear crisis.
Chinoy has produced a gripping account of one of America's longest-running, most volatile foreign policy crises that explains why North Korea remains a danger todayand why it didn't have to be this way.
Mike Chinoy is the Edgerton Fellow on Korean Security at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. Until 2006, he was a foreign correspondent for CNN, largely in Asia, and made numerous visits to North Korea over the course of nearly two decades. He is the recipient of many broadcast journalism awards, including Emmy, Peabody, and Dupont Awards.His is a fine, insightful diplomatic history of a dire confrontationand a hard-hitting critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy.”Publishers Weekly
A tour de force of reporting . . . Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.” Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen. Kim Jong-Il had signaled to the outgoing Clinton administration he was ready to negotiate an end to his missile program. Today, North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power, with enough fissile material to stage an underground test in 2006, manufacture as many as ten more warheads, andin the worst-case scenarioprovide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did the United States fail to prevent a long-standing adversary like North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, longtime CNN correspondent and North Korea expert Mike Chinoy provides a blow-by-blow account that takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown shows how the U.S. refusal to engage in serious diplomacy spurred Kim Jong Il to stage his nuclear breakout, and provides a wealth of new material about the subsequent reversal of course that led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation in the hope of negotiating an end to the nuclear crisis. A tour de force of reporting . . . Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.” Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
A tour de force of reporting . . . Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.” Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
It's easy to demonize the North Koreans, not quite as easy to dismiss them; although the Bush administration has tried to do both. Mike Chinoy brilliantly and painstakingly reconstructs the faltering and dangerous dynamic by which Washington and Pyonyang misread one another's intentions. It's a path that could well lead to nuclear catastrophe and a story that's been told here with unblinking clarity.”Ted Koppel
Mike Chinoys superbly written book tells the tragic story of how Washingtons unwillingness to engage in serious diplomacy with Pyongyang contributed to a new nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, alienating our South Korean allies in the process. He goes on to document the dramatic reversal of course that has seen the Bush administration drop its failed policy aimed at isolating and confronting North Korea, adopting instead a creative approach that, if North Korea acts wisely and rationally, could finally end the nuclear crisis, bring North Korea into the community of nations, and improve the lives of the North Korean people. This book, and the blunt, no-holds-barred comments it contains from many of the key protagonists of this period, is not to be missed.”Evans Revere, president of The Korea Society
The explosion of a nuclear warhead by North Korea in October 2006 was the single greatest failure in a decades-long effort to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Mike Chinoy's Meltdown tells the tale of the tortured path that led to that failure, and the ongoing attempt to contain the fallout, with an authority and a wealth of insider detail that is unmatched. Meltdown is a diplomatic history that reads like a spy novel. It takes us inside the Washington wars that crippled the Bush administration's North Korea policy, and offers fresh insights into the view from Pyongyang, as well as from Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo. Meltdown will be the gold standard for reporting on the North Korean nuclear crisis for years to come.”Daniel Sneider, Associate Director for Research, Shorenstein AsiaPacific Research Center, Stanford University
The Bush administration's bellicose but feckless attempts to quash North Korea's nuclear weapons program were the nadir of its famously maladroit diplomacy, to judge by this revealing blow-by-blow. Ex-CNN Pyongyang correspondent Chinoy details the rancorous infighting during which hardliners like John Bolton and Dick Cheney talked down State Department doves to impose an intransigent North Korea policy, replacing negotiations with Axis-of-Evil rhetoric and unilateral demands. Their approach backfired disastrously, he argues, as Pyongyang restarted and escalated its dormant nuclear initiative and finally tested an atom bomb while the U.S. fulminated helplesslya needless outcome, he suggests, given the North Koreans' oft-expressed readiness to abandon their nuclear program in exchange for aid and normalized relations. Chinoy presents a lucid exposition of the issues along with a colorful account of diplomatic wrangling in which U.S. officials rivaled their North Korean counterparts in dogmatism and prickly sensitivity to niceties. (One joint statement was almost derailed when the Americans insisted on changing the phrase peaceful coexistence to exist peacefully together.) His is a fine, insightful diplomatic history of a dire confrontationand a hard-hitting critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy.”Publishers Weekly
A knowledgeable chronicle of U.S.-North Korean negotiations during the Clinton and Bush White House years. Chinoy formerly covered North and South Korea for CNN and now studies them from afar as a fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy. He shows that Kim Jong-Il is indeed a dictator who continues the repressive policies of his father. Unlike many other journalists and foreign-policy analysts, however, Chinoy analyzes U.S. and South Korean policymakers just as closely as the North Koreans, with China, Japan and other nations also figuring in the mix. This provides welcome context for North Korea's development of a nuclear arsenal. If Kim Jong-Il comes across as a villain driving an Axis of Evil” nation, current President Bush is painted in colors just as dark. In scene after scene, meticulously sourced by Chinoy (though some of those sources insisted on and received anonymity), Bush and his chief foreign-policy advisors come across as ideologues at best, fools squandering an opportunity for nuclear disarmament at worst. The author does not appear to be a shrill, knee-jerk Bush administration critic, but a journalist taking the story where the facts have led him. The irony is that the Bush administration built its foreign policy around the desire to prevent countries like North Korea from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, but failed in part because of its inability to negotiate effectively. Chinoy's depiction of the visceral, personal hostility Bush developed for Kim Jong-Il is especially disturbing, because he shows a U.S. president making decisions based on emotion instead of reason. The only caveat to make about this splendid book is that its detail is so immense, the back and forth of diplomacy that it describes so lacking in rationality, that the narrative occasionally becomes overwhelming. A triumph of explanatory reporting about foreign policy.”Kirkus Reviews
Review
"A fascinating account of the North Korean nuclear crisis. Through on-the-ground reporting inside North Korea, and meticulous research, Mike Chinoy takes us behind the headlines, offering a rare glimpse inside this secretive country and a better understanding of what really brought us to the brink with Kim Jong Il."--Anderson Cooper, anchor, CNN
"Mike Chinoy brilliantly and painstakingly reconstructs the faltering and dangerous dynamic by which Washington and Pyongyang misread one another's intentions. It's a path that could well lead to nuclear catastrophe and a story that's been told here with unblinking clarity."--Ted Koppel
“A tour de force of reporting…comprehensive and readable.” --The Washington Post
Synopsis
Meltdown is the riveting inside account of an American diplomatic disaster
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen. Kim Jong-Il had signaled to the outgoing Clinton administration he was ready to negotiate an end to his missile program. Today, North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power, with enough fissile material to stage an underground test in 2006, manufacture as many as ten more warheads, and—in the worst-case scenario—provide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did the United States fail to prevent a long-standing adversary like North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, longtime CNN correspondent and North Korea expert Mike Chinoy provides a blow-by-blow account that takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown shows how the U.S. refusal to engage in serious diplomacy spurred Kim Jong Il to stage his nuclear breakout, and provides a wealth of new material about the subsequent reversal of course that led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation in the hope of negotiating an end to the nuclear crisis.
Chinoy has produced a gripping account of one of America's longest-running, most volatile foreign policy crises that explains why North Korea remains a danger today—and why it didn't have to be this way.
Synopsis
Advance Praise for Meltdown
"It's easy to demonize the North Koreans, not quite as easy to dismiss them; although the Bush administration has tried to do both. Mike Chinoy brilliantly and painstakingly reconstructs the faltering and dangerous dynamic by which Washington and Pyonyang misread one another's intentions. It's a path that could well lead to nuclear catastrophe and a story that's been told here with unblinking clarity."—Ted Koppel
“Mike Chinoys superbly written book tells the tragic story of how Washingtons unwillingness to engage in serious diplomacy with Pyongyang contributed to a new nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, alienating our South Korean allies in the process. He goes on to document the dramatic reversal of course that has seen the Bush administration drop its failed policy aimed at isolating and confronting North Korea, adopting instead a creative approach that, if North Korea acts wisely and rationally, could finally end the nuclear crisis, bring North Korea into the community of nations, and improve the lives of the North Korean people. This book, and the blunt, no-holds-barred comments it contains from many of the key protagonists of this period, is not to be missed.”—Evans Revere, president, The Korea Society
“The explosion of a nuclear warhead by North Korea in October 2006 was the single greatest failure in a decades-long effort to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Mike Chinoy's Meltdown tells the tale of the tortured path that led to that failure, and the ongoing attempt to contain the fallout, with an authority and a wealth of insider detail that is unmatched. Meltdown is a diplomatic history that reads like a spy novel. It takes us inside the Washington wars that crippled the Bush administration's North Korea policy, and offers fresh insights into the view from Pyongyang, as well as from Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo. Meltdown will be the gold standard for reporting on the North Korean nuclear crisis for years to come."—Daniel Sneider, Associate Director for Research, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
Synopsis
Meltdown is the riveting inside account of an American diplomatic disaster
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen. Kim Jong-Il had signaled to the outgoing Clinton administration he was ready to negotiate an end to his missile program. Today, North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power, with enough fissile material to stage an underground test in 2006, manufacture as many as ten more warheads, andin the worst-case scenarioprovide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did the United States fail to prevent a long-standing adversary like North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, longtime CNN correspondent and North Korea expert Mike Chinoy provides a blow-by-blow account that takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown shows how the U.S. refusal to engage in serious diplomacy spurred Kim Jong Il to stage his nuclear breakout, and provides a wealth of new material about the subsequent reversal of course that led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation in the hope of negotiating an end to the nuclear crisis.
Chinoy has produced a gripping account of one of America's longest-running, most volatile foreign policy crises that explains why North Korea remains a danger todayand why it didn't have to be this way. Meltdown is the riveting inside account of an American diplomatic disaster
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen. Kim Jong-Il had signaled to the outgoing Clinton administration he was ready to negotiate an end to his missile program. Today, North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power, with enough fissile material to stage an underground test in 2006, manufacture as many as ten more warheads, andin the worst-case scenarioprovide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did the United States fail to prevent a long-standing adversary like North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, longtime CNN correspondent and North Korea expert Mike Chinoy provides a blow-by-blow account that takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown shows how the U.S. refusal to engage in serious diplomacy spurred Kim Jong Il to stage his nuclear breakout, and provides a wealth of new material about the subsequent reversal of course that led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation in the hope of negotiating an end to the nuclear crisis.
Chinoy has produced a gripping account of one of America's longest-running, most volatile foreign policy crises that explains why North Korea remains a danger todayand why it didn't have to be this way.
Mike Chinoy is the Edgerton Fellow on Korean Security at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. Until 2006, he was a foreign correspondent for CNN, largely in Asia, and made numerous visits to North Korea over the course of nearly two decades. He is the recipient of many broadcast journalism awards, including Emmy, Peabody, and Dupont Awards.His is a fine, insightful diplomatic history of a dire confrontationand a hard-hitting critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy.”Publishers Weekly
“A tour de force of reporting . . . Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.” Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen. Kim Jong-Il had signaled to the outgoing Clinton administration he was ready to negotiate an end to his missile program. Today, North Korea has become a full-fledged nuclear power, with enough fissile material to stage an underground test in 2006, manufacture as many as ten more warheads, andin the worst-case scenarioprovide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did the United States fail to prevent a long-standing adversary like North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, longtime CNN correspondent and North Korea expert Mike Chinoy provides a blow-by-blow account that takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown shows how the U.S. refusal to engage in serious diplomacy spurred Kim Jong Il to stage his nuclear breakout, and provides a wealth of new material about the subsequent reversal of course that led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation in the hope of negotiating an end to the nuclear crisis. “A tour de force of reporting . . . Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.” Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
“A tour de force of reporting . . . Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.” Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
“It's easy to demonize the North Koreans, not quite as easy to dismiss them; although the Bush administration has tried to do both. Mike Chinoy brilliantly and painstakingly reconstructs the faltering and dangerous dynamic by which Washington and Pyonyang misread one another's intentions. It's a path that could well lead to nuclear catastrophe and a story that's been told here with unblinking clarity.”Ted Koppel
“Mike Chinoys superbly written book tells the tragic story of how Washingtons unwillingness to engage in serious diplomacy with Pyongyang contributed to a new nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, alienating our South Korean allies in the process. He goes on to document the dramatic reversal of course that has seen the Bush administration drop its failed policy aimed at isolating and confronting North Korea, adopting instead a c
Synopsis
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Koreas nuclear program was frozen and Kim Jong Il had signaled he was ready to negotiate. Today, North Korea possesses as many as ten nuclear warheads, and possibly the means to provide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did this happen?
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex-Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, Mike Chinoy takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown provides a wealth of new material about a previously opaque series of events that eventually led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation and pursue negotiations, and explains how the diplomatic process collapsed and produced the crisis the Obama administration confronts today.
About the Author
Mike Chinoy is the Edgerton Senior Fellow on Asia at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. Until 2006, he was a foreign correspondent for CNN, largely in Asia, and made numerous visits to North Korea over the course of nearly two decades.