Here's the column that ran in the Albuquerque Tribune Oct. 26:
HEADS UP
The (nuclear) sky is falling. Or is it? Is North Korea really as evil as some people say it is?
By Arthur Alpert
They warned Henny-penny an attack was coming, but she stubbornly pecked away elsewhere until it caught her flat-footed.
But when Henny-penny screamed "The sky is falling," the farm animals panicked, quite forgetting that the hen house collapsed on her watch. That taught Henny-penny a lesson – so long as you keep clucking "The sky is falling," you stay cock of the walk, so to speak.
Today’s piece of falling sky is nuclear North Korea or, as Dave Cargo prefers, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I recalled that the Governor had visited Pyongyang but turns out he’s traveled there four times, abetted by important Chinese friends; visited China "eight or nine" times and keeps an eye on Asia.
So here’s David Cargo’s take:
First, their leaders are strange but not insane. "The press paints these guys as lunatics. They’re really not. They’re human beings with a different view on life."
Conversing with the late Kim Il Sung, for example, Governor Cargo found him a "very polite, extremely intelligent guy." Quite different, that is, from the God-like image the DPRK perpetrated – to commemorate a stroll he once made on Diamond Mountain, they built a 25-foot statue of him there!
"He did have some peculiar habits," says Cargo, like requiring visitors to bring expensive presents that wound up in the Museum of Foreign Gifts, stuffed today with pricey paintings and sculpture.
The former Governor knows Kim Jong Il less well, but trusted sources tell him the son is craftier than he is crazy.
Cargo says this deified family sits at the top of a totalitarian society, inspired by juche (self-sufficiency) and Confucianism, informed by one TV channel and "official" newspapers only. Imagine the US with just Fox News and the New York Post!
So how do we deal with a nuclear DPRK? Establish personal relationships, show respect and reassure them we won’t attack, says the Governor.
Relationships create trust. "You cannot do it by fencing with them, sitting across the table from them." He would send a presidential confidante to talk to Kim Jung Il. George H. W. Bush "would be ideal."
They hunger for R-E-S-P-E-C-T, too. Cargo believes that their demand for two-party talks is "only asking for respect. It shows they are of the same stature as the U.S." He’d deal with them one-on-one, sending any results to the Six-Party Talks. Sounds reasonable to me, particularly if Aretha Franklin sits in.
Next, says the Governor, "they have to be assured that they are secure from invasion. And they interpret a lot of things as menacing. They can be very aggressive, but I don’t think that they want to commit suicide. They want to survive."
Coercive sanctions? Be careful, says Cargo, when squeezing the North Korean economy. "If you have a highly successful embargo, the country will collapse." That could send refugees streaming into China and South Korea, putting their economies in dire straits.
Which leaves us where?
Well, David Cargo thinks – and "thinks" is the operative word – that we should satisfy the DPRK’s need for respect and security to get what we want. This approach requires, of course, that we stop calling them "evil."
Or we could continue to imitate Henny-penny – squawking loudly, calling people names and screaming "The sky is falling, the sky is falling."
That solves no problems, but – aimed at the barnyard animals – it might make ‘em forget Iraq.
Alpert, a semi-retired Albuquerque newsman, may be reached at ArthurAlpert@swcp.com. His column appears the fourth Thursday of the month.