Mystery CIA officer thrust into spotlight as Trump-Kim summit looms

[能田]

                                          (World Today Thursday 7 June 2018)

    Mystery CIA officer thrust into spotlight as Trump-Kim summit looms

After years working on North Korea at the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr Andrew Kim (C) has been

thrust into the spotlight accompanying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in key meetings

with Pyongyang officials. Bloomberg

Updated 07 June, 2018

WASHINGTON — The lightning diplomacy between the United States and North Korea before next week's historic summit has thrust a little-known Central Intelligency Agency (CIA) officer into an uncomfortably public role as a key intermediary in talks between the two adversaries.

After years working on North Korea at the CIA, Mr Andrew Kim has been thrust into the spotlight accompanying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in key meetings with Pyongyang officials. He took part in President Donald Trump's Oval Office meeting with a senior North Korean envoy last week and has helped prepare the president for his June 12 summit with Mr Kim Jong-un in Singapore.

The unusual public role has given Mr Kim, who was raised in South Korea, extraordinary influence over the administration's approach to the summit and the North Korean nuclear threat more broadly. Just as Mr Pompeo has become Mr Trump's right-hand man on the Korean talks, twice meeting with Mr Kim Jong-un this year, Mr Kim has found himself in a similar role for the secretary of state.

"He is in effect the connective tissue right now across the dialogues with the North Koreans," said Mr Rexon Ryu, a partner at the Asia Group and former White House official and Pentagon chief of staff. "I wouldn't be surprised if the reality is Andy is perhaps the most influential player right now."

Mr Kim so far has been seen, but not heard, in his new role. But according to half a dozen people who have followed his work, he has been involved in almost all levels of the government strategy toward North Korea. His elevation has pushed seasoned diplomats and policy-makers to the sidelines, an unusual move that breaks with decades of precedent in confronting North Korea's nuclear threat.

As a fluent Korean speaker who became the CIA's station chief in Seoul, he gained the trust of senior officials on both sides of the border. Since returning to Washington, he has also had access to the secretive channel that the CIA maintained with Pyongyang during the Obama and Trump administrations.

Mr Kim first gained public attention when North Korean state media ran a photograph of him in Mr Pompeo's meeting with Mr Kim Jong-un in May. An Associated Press photograph was later disseminated showing him on the tarmac when Mr Pompeo landed in Pyongyang on that trip.

Another photo, taken at a dinner Mr Pompeo and his party had with North Korean officials on the same visit, shows Mr Kim sitting at a table laden with food, right next to Mr Kim Yong-chol, the top adviser to Kim Jong-un who would later meet Mr Pompeo and then Mr Trump in New York and Washington.

A Trump administration official who asked not to be identified discussing Mr Kim said the CIA agent had used his Korean language skills during Mr Pompeo's meetings to make sure that North Korean translators were accurately conveying messages between Mr Pompeo and the North Korean leaders. But the official emphasised that Mr Kim has done far more than serve as translator, using his decades of knowledge to help the administration divine North Korea's intent heading into the Singapore summit.

The CIA declined to make Mr Kim available for an interview and refused to discuss any details of his history beyond describing him as a veteran. Likewise, several people who know Mr Kim refused to talk about him given the secret nature of his work and the tenuous state of the negotiations with North Korea.

'REALLY EXCELLENT'

Mr James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, waved off questions about Mr Kim during an interview in Washington earlier this week, then relented just a bit.

"He's excellent, he's really excellent," Mr Clapper said. "He's very realistic about North Korea."

Born in South Korea, Mr Kim briefly attended the prestigious Seoul High School, alma mater of the current head of South Korea's national intelligence service, Mr Suh Hoon, according to one of the people who knows him. He is also a relative of Mr Chung Eui-yong, the South Korean national security adviser. The newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported in March that Mr Chung is a cousin of Mr Kim's mother.

Mr Kim had spent a career in the agency and retired after working as station chief in Seoul. He was then brought back to lead the Korea Mission Center, a body that Pompeo set up in May 2017 when he was still CIA director. According to a person familiar with Kim's role, Pompeo picked Kim with the advice of his deputy at the time, Gina Haspel. Haspel now leads the CIA after Pompeo's move to the State Department.

'GRIM REAPER'

Since his public outing, Mr Kim has taken on revered status in the Korean media, drawing attention in part for his gray hair. National broadcaster KBS said he's come to be known as the "grim reaper" for what it described as his hawkish views.

Mr Pompeo's trust in Mr Kim now extends so deeply that the secretary has included him in nearly all his meetings on the issue — whether with North Korean leaders or with Mr Trump. He helped brief the president directly as the White House prepares for the Singapore summit and will join the US delegation on the trip, according to one US official.

According to people familiar with the intelligence community's thinking on North Korea, Mr Kim is likely taking a more sceptical tone to the North Korean government's pronouncements, providing a counterbalance to a president who seems intent on making a deal regardless of the cost.

"The North Korean side regards diplomacy as war by other means," said Mr Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute. "The North Korean government doesn't do 'win-win,' it doesn't do 'getting to yes."'

HARDEST OF TARGETS

Such a prominent role for an intelligence officer has raised eyebrows — even among former intelligence officers — given Mr Kim's lack of policy experience and the suddenly prominent role he's playing at the very heart of the debate over policy.

"It does seem unusual," said Mr Bruce Klingner, the former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "Just as the policy community isn't supposed to infect the intelligence community, the intel community provides information to enable policy makers to make the best informed decisions possible but are not supposed to provide advice."

Still, Mr Klingner said Mr Kim's participation and deep knowledge of North Korea's motivations could be invaluable. "We referred to North Korea as the hardest of the hard targets," he said of his time in the CIA. "It's extremely difficult to get good information." BLOOMBERG