North Korea’s mind games at the negotiating table

During a 1999 visit to Pyongyang to discuss North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, chief U.S. negotiator William Perry got under the skin of a senior North Korean military official.

In another capital, Perry might have expected a dismissive gesture from across the table or even a snide put-down. But this was North Korea, which does things its own way: The military man calmly responded that he knew where the American diplomat lived.

“He warned that if the U.S. ever used force against North Korea, they would turn Perry’s home into a sea of fire,” recalled Evans Revere, a former North Korea expert for the State Department, who was at the meeting. “It was nice to have them focus so personally on your hometown.”

Matching wits with Pyongyang while maintaining one’s composure is one of the most challenging assignments a diplomat can draw.

Considered among the toughest, most confounding negotiators on the planet, North Korean officials are notorious for pounding tables and storming out of meetings — the ploys of an insecure nation that will stop at little to gain leverage over the U.S. in talks about its not-so-secret nuclear program, missile launches and arms sales.

As a top U.S. negotiator, Charles L. “Jack” Pritchard says he endured all manner of mind games: endless bombast and surly tirades, often followed by a surprise last-minute compromise.

Passive aggression was a recurring theme. After a frustrating day of talks, the North Koreans would agree to meet the next morning. Then they wouldn’t show — not on that day or the next, leaving the Americans to wonder if they were ever coming back.

Breakthroughs would occur at the most unexpected moments.

“There were entire days when they played hardball and then suddenly downed the gavel and said, ‘Sold, we’ll take that.’ And we thought, ‘We should have seen that coming,’ ” recalled Pritchard, an Asia expert on the U.S. National Security Council during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

“With the North Koreans, it was always two steps forward, one step back.”

North Korea, an isolated autocracy with few allies, commands U.S. attention because it is heavily armed, unpredictable and still technically at war with South Korea. There is also the unnerving possibility that its nuclear materials or technology could wind up in the hands of a rogue state or terrorist group.

Much of Washington’s contact with North Korea has been through six-party talks — the other participants are China, Russia, South Korea and Japan — that are aimed at pressuring leader Kim Jong Il to drop his nuclear ambitions.

Despite occasional signs of progress, the years of negotiations and economic sanctions haven’t prevented North Korea from developing a small atomic arsenal. It conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, and over the weekend a U.S. scientist said he was shown a sophisticated uranium-enrichment plant during a recent visit to the country. Such a facility could produce material for more bombs. The disclosure prompted President Obama to send an envoy to Seoul to consult with Asian allies.

For U.S. veterans of the negotiating crucible, such moments of drama bring back vivid memories. Their deliberations with the North Koreans were so grueling that they recall the details years later. One lesson learned: North Korea is obsessed with acquiring the psychological upper hand. Brinkmanship surrounds matters as simple as agreeing on a time and place to meet.

Over the years, U.S. negotiators became careful observers of body language, which often gave a hint of the North Koreans’ next move. One military officer, for example, always began bouncing his knee before an outburst.

Attaches also learned to skip the dense jargon of Pyongyang’s policy statements and focus on the next-to-last paragraph. That’s where the North Koreans would often reveal a new nuance or change in position.

More often, the North’s tactics were anything but subtle.

Robert Gallucci, who led the U.S. negotiating team during the early years of the Clinton presidency, recalled a make-or-break moment during a 1994 nuclear disarmament session.

“The North Korean negotiator was only a few feet away, screaming at me — pretty unusual diplomacy,” he said. “You found yourself asking, ‘Is this a strategy, something they can turn on or off, or is it genuine heat?’ I never found the answer.”

Above all, negotiators grew to appreciate the importance North Korea placed on saving face.

“This kind of ‘know your negotiating partner’ makes a huge difference,” said Sung Kim, the U.S. special envoy to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks in July 2008. “There were times in 1994 when the Pentagon was looking at options of taking military action against North Korea.

“It was a critical time. The point was to get them to do what you wanted. But you knew you had to give them options so they could walk away without any sense of losing face.”

Lee Dong-bok, who represented Seoul in negotiations in the 1970s and early 1990s with a ferocity that led colleagues to liken him to Darth Vader, says any bargaining table victories over North Korea usually proved short-lived.

He recalled how quickly Pyongyang resumed its threatening posture after a 1991 nonaggression pact with South Korea.

“I remember thinking in 1991, ‘I’m signing the Magna Carta — something issued in 1215 but which took another 400 years to take effect,’ ” he said. “The North Koreans often signed deals they never had any intention of honoring. That time, it only took a few months before they began sabotaging that agreement.”

Although delegates from North and South sometimes went drinking together after a tough day of negotiations, “you were never off your guard,” Lee said. “It was always war.”

North Korea has had the advantage of maintaining the same negotiating team for years, while the U.S. and South Korean sides change frequently as administrations come and go.

“They have continuity while we’re constantly reinventing the wheel,” said Victor Cha, former National Security Council director for Asian affairs in the George W. Bush administration. “We learned to keep expectations low. Something that seemed like a breakthrough turned out to be a rehash of a deal they offered in 1994.”

Revere remembers a classic moment in 1999 when U.S. negotiator Charles Kartman turned the tables on the North Koreans. Known as “Iron Butt” for his knack for enduring North Korean antics, Kartman one day suddenly slammed his notebook shut and announced, “We’re not going to take this anymore.” The U.S. delegation filed out of the room.

“They were speechless because they had never seen the Americans do that,” Revere said. “We gave them a taste of their own medicine. Five minutes later, they came knocking on our door and wanted to resume the talks.”

When pressed, the North Koreans often break into folksy phrases to express their displeasure, like the one who said, “You are trying to make me take off my pants,” a reference to a Korean adage about being pressured to do a distasteful task.

Former North Korea analyst Robert Carlin recalled the time another North Korean began a declaration with: “In the words of your famous American novel ‘Gone With the Wind’… “

“We thought he was going to finish with, ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,’ ” Carlin said. “But instead he said, ‘The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.’ We all just sat back and scratched our heads.”

At their most stultifying, the North Koreans would spend hours reciting talking points without pausing to allow a response.

“Sometimes, you just want to shake them and say, ‘You can’t possibly believe this crap,’ ” said Ralph Cossa, a national security specialist who has made numerous trips to Pyongyang.

Yet negotiators occasionally make personal connections that transcend politics.

“You talk with people about their interests and hobbies and aspirations, and after a while you start to develop a relationship,” Revere said.

“Often you can count on someone to do what they say they’re going to do. I wouldn’t call it trust exactly, but you can break down barriers and develop a human relationship. It’s not impossible.”

john.glionna@latimes.com

Ethan Kim of the Times’ Seoul bureau contributed to this report.