[Update 1 Jul 08: According to a reader tip, the day after I published this post and the photos below, a State Department desk officer contacted Mrs. Kim through supporters to talk about her letter. So Chris Hill can’t tell this particular lie again, but he’s still going to do what he wants to do. The next lie, I suspect, will be delivered directly to Mrs. Kim. It will consist of unenforceable promises to account, eventually, for the fate of her husband … long after the North Koreans have what they want from us. At what point does a character flaw become a clinical diagnosis? I’d bet a psychological profile of Chris Hill would make for fascinating reading.]
You will recall that last week, I posted about a letter from Esther Kim, the widow of lawful permanent U.S. resident Kim Dong Shik, who was ”disappeared” by the North Koreans in 2000. Mrs. Kim wrote to U.S. negotiator appeaser Christopher Hill, pleading with him to use his good offices to save her husband (now believed to have been starved to death by his captors). This month, a Washington Post reporter finally asked Hill about Esther Kim’s letter:
Kim’s wife said she did not receive a reply. Hill has no memory of receiving her letter, a State Department official said, but would answer it if she re-sent it.
“We are concerned about this case and all the other cases of abductions,” Hill said in a statement. “I have raised repeatedly with North Korea the need to address concerns about the abduction issue, not only with respect to Japan, but other countries as well, including South Korea.” [Washington Post, Glenn Kessler; emphasis mine]
(In case anyone at State should ever again suggest that they haven’t seen Mrs. Kim’s letter, I posted it online. This site receives frequent visits from the State Department.)
Shortly after the Washington Post published its story with Hill’s denial, readers started contacting me about it. Acting on a tip from one of them, I made contact with Professor Yoichi Shimada, who confirmed in unequivocal terms that he personally gave Hill Mrs. Kim’s letter. I quoted Professor’s contradiction of Hill in my post. Another reader who read that post contacted me to provide additional information. It turns out that Prof. Shimada wasn’t the only one who gave Hill Mrs. Kim’s letter that day. And this time, a Kyodo News Service photographer was present (my deepest thanks to Kyodo for permission to republish them).
The first two photographs show Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, meeting with Esther Kim, the widow of Kim Dong-Shik, on November 15, 2007.
Also present are the family members of Japanese who were kidnapped by the North Koreans, and who want their loved ones back before North Korea is de-listed as a sponsor of terrorism. In that meeting, Mrs. Kim gave Rep. Ros-Lehtinen a copy of her letter. Rep. Ros-Lehtinen told Mrs. Kim that she would present the letter to Assistant Secretary Hill later that day.
An OFK reader with direct knowledge of the fact confirms that the photographs below show Rep. Ros-Lehtinen meeting with Hill in her office that same day and actually handing Mrs. Kim’s letter to Hill. That’s the same day Professor Shimada met with Hill and also gave him a copy of Mrs. Kim’s letter. This is the same letter Hill says he can’t remember receiving.
Words that come to mind: shameless, flagrant, bald-faced. Does anyone actually believe that all of this just slipped Hill’s mind? Ros-Lehtinen had previously raised this issue in a March 2007 letter to Hill’s boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
Additionally, there is the unresolved kidnapping of the U.S. permanent resident, Reverend Kim Dong-Shik. A South Korean court has confirmed North Korean official involvement in this kidnapping. The Illinois Congressional delegation has made its interest over the Reverend Kim crystal clear in a letter sent two years ago to the North Korean UN Ambassador. The lack of a response, or even an acknowledgement of the letter, is a further cause for Congressional concern. It is our firm belief that North Korea should remain on the terrorist list until the kidnapping issues with both Japanese citizens and the U.S. permanent resident are resolved and assurances are given regarding any such future acts. [House Foreign Affairs Committee]
It’s flatly implausible that Hill truly had no memory of receiving Mrs. Kim’s letter. Just consider the importance to Hill of striking North Korea from the terror list, and what an obstacle North Korea’s recent kidnapping and murder of Kim Dong Shik must have seemed to his obsessive goal. Consider all of the congressional, international, and (later) media attention this case had attracted. And if you can bring yourself to believe Hill’s convenient lapse of memory, then you have to concede that Hill was lying when he said that he was concerned about Rev. Kim’s case, despite having forgotten all about it just seven months after receiving an impassioned appeal from his widow.
The two possibilities aren’t mutually exclusive, either. I happen to believe that Hill lied about having no memory of Esther Kim’s letter, and about being concerned about Rev. Kim’s fate. Having previously caught Hill in a demonstrable lie, I no longer afford him a presumption of integrity. And if Hill wants to prove me wrong, my comments section is open.
It’s remarkable how one letter from one widow has become such a revealing test of the character of two men on whom America may soon invest so much. One of those men is negotiating a largely unwritten and endlessly flexible deal to disarm the North Koreans in exchange for most of the leverage we could use to conform their behavior to the standards of humanity. Hill wants us to believe the North Koreans are actually serious about disarming, but at least one other recent visitor to Pyongyang is telling us that the North Koreans say otherwise. We’ve wagered the security of our nation on the good faith of Kim Jong Il and the veracity of Chris Hill. How much comfort should that really give us?
The other man to fail this test of character was a freshman senator from Illinois in 2005, when he signed this letter promising to oppose de-listing North Korea as a terror sponsor until the North Koreans answered for Esther Kim’s husband. It’s unfortunate that the wife and children of Rev. Kim Dong Shik have become early casualties of a “greater good,” the ambitions of Barack Obama. That’s neither change nor anything we can believe in.
Related: I find it equally implausibe that Hill’s infamous meeting with the North Koreans in Berlin was “accidental,” or that Hill acted alone to arrange it. Taken at face value, it would be an example of Hill being gleefully deceptive toward his own superiors, but I have no doubt that Hill’s superiors — at least within the State Department – knew exactly what he was doing there. Hill is “burdened” with the duty of lying, because we can see how easily it comes to him.
