Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb - Hardcover

"A valuable case study in political malfunction." --Hamish McDonald, Brisbane Times, 8/14/2007 "The incredible pressures facing American diplomats in the last few years are vividly and painfully on display in this insider's account of the nuclear negotiations with North Korea. This book is indispensable to understanding how the George W. Bush administration has dealt with what the president has called 'the gravest danger'--nuclear weapons--and why we may be facing a global nuclear arms race as dangerous as the cold war version. FAILED DIPLOMACY is a superb contribution to the diplomatic history of our times." --Ambassador (Ret.) James E. Goodby, Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Security and Dismantlement, 1995-96 "In this valuable insider account of the Bush administration's tumultuous dealings with the Korean Peninsula, Pritchard recounts the policy struggles and turning points that ran from President George W. Bush's decision to end the Clinton-era engagement of North Korea to the rise of "axis of evil" thinking and the counterproliferation doctrine, to North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, to the saga of the six-party talks." --G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs " Failed Diplomacy is an invaluable insider's exposure of the way foreign policy is crafted in Washington, and will be welcomed by some as another attack on the nefarious dealings of the neocons, or "hardliners" as Pritchard calls them." --Jasper Becker, Times Literary Supplement "A revealing account of the past half-decade of arduous U.S.-DPRK diplomacy over the North's nuclear weapons program... it will serve as a useful primary source for special Northeast Asian security affairs, presidential decision-making, and foreign policy." --Jason A. Kirk, Virginia Military Institute, American Review of Politics "The book is a must-read for those who want to understand the failure of diplomacy to stop North Korea from going nuclear." --J.J. Suh, SAIS-Johns Hopkins University, Political Science Quarterly

North Korea's development of nuclear weapons raises fears of nuclear war on the peninsula and the specter of terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction. It also represents a dangerous and disturbing breakdown in U.S. foreign policy. Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb offers an insider's view of what went wrong and allowed this isolated nation -a charter member of the Axis of Evil -to develop nuclear weapons. Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard was intimately involved in developing America's North Korea policy under Presidents Clinton and Bush. Here, he offers an authoritative analysis of recent developments on the Korean peninsula and reveals how the Bush administration's mistakes damaged the prospects of controlling nuclear proliferation. Although multilateral negotiations continue, Pritchard proclaims the Six-Party Talks as a failure. His chronicle begins with the suspicions over North Korea's uranium enrichment program in 2002 that led to the demise of the Clinton-era Agreed Framework. Subsequently, Pyongyang kicked out international monitors and restarted its nuclear weapons program. Pritchard provides a first-hand account of how the Six-Party Talks were initiated and offers a play-by-play account of each round of negotiations, detailing the national interests of the key players -China, Japan, Russia, both Koreas, and the United States. The author believes the failure to prevent Kim Jong Il from "going nuclear" points to the need for a permanent security forum in Northeast Asia that would serve as a formal mechanism for dialogue in the region. Hard-hitting and insightful, Failed Diplomacy offers a stinging critique of the Bush administration's manner and policy in dealing with North Korea. More hopefully, it suggests what can be learned from missed opportunities.