The Intercept
September 26, 2017
The nuclear shouting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un often seems like a maddening version of whack-a-crazy-mole, in which an unhinged comment by one of them is hastily followed by a lunatic retort from the other. Trump calls Kim “rocket ...
The New York Times Magazine
October 22, 2006
In a classic Mexican standoff, two men point guns at each other’s heads. Neither wants to shoot, but each knows the downside of not pulling the trigger first. It is an inherently gripping situation, and Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” ...
The New Republic
December 22, 2003
It was a perfect day for a provocation. In late August, Norbert Vollertsen, a German human rights activist, traveled in a chartered bus from Seoul to Cholwon, just a few miles from the border with North Korea. His mission was simple: to launch a flock of hot air balloons, ...
The New York Times Magazine
October 19, 2003
The Dear Leader is a workaholic. Kim Jong Il sleeps four hours a night, or if he works through the night, as he sometimes does, he sleeps four hours a day. His office is a hive of activity; reports cross his desk at all hours. Dressed as always in his signature ...
The New Republic
June 12, 2000
In early 1995, Tony Namkung received a phone call from a diplomat at the North Korean mission to the United Nations. Would it be possible, the diplomat asked, to arrange for the magician David Copperfield to perform in Pyongyang? Namkung, a resident scholar at the Atlantic ...
The New Yorker
September 14, 1998
A little before dawn one day last April, a chauffeur-driven Mercedes sedan entered the grounds of an estate in Tarrytown, New York, and stopped in front of a brick carriage house that had been converted into a meeting room. An elderly passenger in a business suit got ...
Sports Illustrated
June 26, 1989
Aside from the sports stadiums squatting along the Han River, there are few traces in Seoul of the 1988 Summer Olympics. The Games, which catapulted South Korea into global prominence nine months ago at a cost to its citizens of $3.1 billion, have slipped into the past ...
