The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that a White House official visited North Korea on two secret visits in 2012 to try to improve relations after Kim Jong Un assumed power. The attempts, conveyed to the Times by former U.S. officials, were unsuccessful.
The brief visits in April and August were aimed at encouraging the new leadership to moderate its foreign policy after the death of Kim’s father, longtime autocrat Kim Jong Il, in December 2011.
The ruling elite apparently spurned the outreach effort, however. This month, after a surge of fierce anti-U.S. rhetoric, the government in Pyongyang defied international warnings and conducted its third and most powerful underground nuclear test…
The April trip was led by Joseph DeTrani, a North Korea expert who then headed the National Counter Proliferation Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates U.S. intelligence agencies, the former U.S. officials said. It was unclear who led the August trip.
