The Room Where It Happened

by John Bolton;

  The reorganized directorates performed perfectly well, as I had fully expected. In real-world terms, the renewed Ebola outbreaks in the eastern Congo and nearby areas in 2018–19 were handled with great skill across the interagency process.36 Apart from continual monitoring, my personal interventions were limited to helping ensure adequate security and protection for Centers for Disease Control experts to access the affected Congo regions. Trump himself told Kupperman, when OMB raised budgetary objections to sending the teams, to have OMB make available whatever funds would be needed “to keep Ebola out of the US.” In addition, the Directorate oversaw the creation of a fully revised national biodefense strategy in 2018,37 and also produced two important presidential decisions, one (following on the new strategy) on support for biodefense in September, 2018,38 and one on modernizing influenza vaccines in September, 2019.39 These and other less publicly visible achievements are the hallmark of an effectively functioning interagency process.

  The idea that a minor bureaucratic restructuring could have made any difference in the time of Trump reflected how immune bureaucratic pettifoggery is to reality. At most, the internal NSC structure was no more than the quiver of a butterfly’s wings in the tsunami of Trump’s chaos. Even so, and despite the indifference at the top of the White House, the cognizant NSC staffers did their duty in the coronavirus pandemic. As the New York Times reported in a historical review in mid-April:

  The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus to the United States, and within weeks was raising options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down cities the size of Chicago. Mr. Trump would avoid such steps until March.40

  Thus, responding to the coronavirus, the NSC biosecurity team functioned exactly as it was supposed to. It was the chair behind the Resolute desk that was empty.

  And fundamentally, after all the human and economic costs of the coronavirus are reckoned, there are two chilling conclusions. First, we must do everything possible to ensure that China, and its contemporaneous disinformation campaign about the origin of the virus, will not succeed in proving that the Big Lie technique is alive and well in the twenty-first century. We must tell the truth about China’s behavior, which Trump was consistently loath to do, or we will suffer the consequences and the risk well into the future.

  Second, after decades in which biological (and chemical) warfare have been belittled as “the poor man’s nuclear weapon”—given what the likes of North Korea, Iran, and others have just seen happen worldwide—we must treat these other two weapons of mass destruction with at least the vigilance we now afford to nuclear weapons. And, in fact, by combing the biosecurity directorate with the Directorate responsible for weapons of mass destruction, I intended to do just that.41 The reorganization was not a downgrading of biosecurity, but an effort to increase the salience of biological threats to US national security.

  CHAPTER 11 CHECKING INTO THE HANOI HILTON, THEN CHECKING OUT, AND THE PANMUNJOM PLAYTIME

  When the 2018 congressional elections concluded, another Trump-Kim summit looked depressingly inescapable. Trump’s fascination with obtaining “a deal” with the North waxed and waned, but with over six months having passed since the Singapore summit and nothing much happening, waxing was becoming ascendant. Pompeo was to meet North Korea’s Kim Yong Chol in New York on Thursday, November 8, and Kim wanted another White House meeting that day or the next. Fortunately, I would be in Paris preparing for Trump’s upcoming visit, so there would be no repeat of the spring 2018 scene. It still turned my stomach to imagine Kim Yong Chol back in the Oval. Then, mercifully, Kim Jong Un canceled the trip. Prospects for a Moon-Kim summit were also going nowhere, at best being kicked into 2019.

  After New Year’s, though, the pace increased, not that it took much to fire up Trump. Kim Jong Un flew unexpectedly to Beijing on his birthday, January 8, very likely to prepare for another Trump meeting. Sure enough, next up was a Kim Yong Chol visit to Washington on January 17 and 18, with a Trump meeting on Friday the eighteenth. I couldn’t wait. I explained to Pompeo I had a minor surgery long scheduled for that day; he asked if I was sure I didn’t need some help. Kim Yong Chol brought along another Kim Jong Un letter, and the Oval Office meeting lasted ninety minutes, obviously making surgery preferable.1 Charlie Kupperman (who had recently replaced Ricardel) attended the session, reporting that the discussion rambled, typically, and loose language was undoubtedly used. Nonetheless, he saw no real Trump commitments, and at the end, Trump said he couldn’t lift sanctions until North Korea denuclearized, or he would look like a fool, which was true, and it was good Trump still remembered it. That may not normally be the basis for grand strategy, but it’s what we had to work with. Staff-level negotiations were scheduled over the weekend in Sweden, and it was there I feared things would start slipping out of control. Indeed, according to press reports,2 that seemed ever more likely, especially since North Korea had finally named a counterpart to the State Department’s special envoy Steve Biegun, one Kim Hyok Chol, a veteran of the Bush 43–era Six-Party Talks. This was not a good sign.

  With the summit venue and dates fixed for Hanoi on February 27 and 28, I thought hard about how to prevent a debacle. Remarks by Biegun at Stanford strongly implying that the Administration was prepared to follow the “action for action” formula demanded by North Korea only increased my concern,3 compounded by the State Department’s reversion to type: uncooperative and uncommunicative on what they were telling the North Koreans. The State Department had done exactly the same thing to the NSC during the Six-Party Talks. It was possible that Pompeo was not fully aware that Biegun’s personal agenda to get a deal was so firm. But whether Pompeo ordered Biegun’s enthusiasm, allowed it, or was ignorant of it was beside the point; the dangerous consequences were the same.

  Since State’s negotiators seemed to be spinning out of control, overcome by zeal for the deal, and intoxicated by the publicity, I considered what to do with Trump personally to prevent mistakes in Hanoi. I concluded that Trump’s pre-Hanoi briefings needed to be significantly different from those before Singapore, which had had little impact. The first Hanoi prep session was on February 12 in the Sit Room, starting at four forty-five and lasting forty-five minutes. We showed a film, opening with news clips of Carter, Clinton, Bush, and Obama all saying they had achieved great deals with North Korea, then turning to North Korea’s actual conduct since Singapore and how they were still deceiving us. The film ended with clips of Reagan describing his 1986 Reykjavik Summit with Gorbachev. Reagan’s point was that when you held firm, you got better deals than when you gave in. There was a smooth flow of discussion, Trump asked good questions, and the session was remarkably focused. When we finished, Trump himself said the key points he carried away were: “I’ve got the leverage,” “I don’t need to be rushed,” and “I could walk away.” The briefing allowed Trump to conclude that Hanoi was not make-or-break; if no real progress emerged, he could simply proceed as before. I couldn’t have scripted it better.

  Our economic pressure on North Korea was greater than before, but it was a matter of degree. The sanctions nonetheless gave us a near-term advantage. Kim Jong Un was the one more desperate for the deal because the squeeze, while far from perfect, continued to frustrate his efforts to deliver economic improvement inside his country. Over the long term, time always benefited the proliferator, but my definition of “long term” was now two weeks: getting past the Hanoi Summit without making catastrophic concessions and compromises. If we stalled any rush to make a deal just to say we had, which was the State Department’s every inclination, I would be satisfied. I foresaw the pressure on us to deal declining once we were past the second Trump-Kim summit. We could instead refocus on the very grave threat the North still represented, whether or not they were actively testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. I felt enormously relieved the briefing hadn’t been a disaster and that we might even
have made progress with Trump.

  The second briefing, on February 15, just after two o’clock, again lasted about forty-five minutes. We ran an excerpt from a North Korean propaganda film showing them still engaged in robust war games, even if we weren’t, pursuant to Trump’s orders. He was very interested in the video and asked to have a copy. We focused on the most important point: the meaning of “complete denuclearization.” Trump asked for the conclusions on a single sheet of paper, which we had already prepared. After a good discussion, Trump said, “Clean this up and get it back to me,” which suggested he might hand it to Kim Jong Un at some point. I stressed the importance of getting a full baseline declaration, not the piecemeal approach that the State Department would accept. I thought this second briefing also went extremely well, accomplishing all we could expect to get Trump into the right frame of mind so as not to give away the store in Hanoi.

  Even another phone call with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, persistently pushing South Korea’s agenda, on February 19 didn’t cause major damage. Trump proclaimed that he was the only person who could make a nuclear deal with Kim Jong Un. He pressed Moon to let the media know that progress was being made, since they typically tried to put a negative spin on whatever he did. He promised to keep South Korea’s interests in mind, but stressed that Kim wanted a deal. They all wanted deals. Later that morning, Pompeo, Biegun, the NSC’s Allison Hooker, and I yet again had a meeting with Trump, during which he said, “If we walk away, it’s okay,” the main point made in the briefings. To Biegun, Trump said, “Tell them [the North Koreans] how much I love Chairman Kim, but also tell them what I want.”

  After further discussions, Pompeo and I went back to my office to talk about Hanoi. I stressed again why a baseline declaration by North Korea was the starting point for any intelligible negotiation. I also underlined why we couldn’t give up economic sanctions and why we needed more pressure. Pompeo bristled at my “interference” with his turf, but he didn’t disagree on the substance, which he rarely did when we talked alone. At a Principals Committee later that day on North Korea, the clear weakness Biegun displayed disturbed many of those present, especially Shanahan and Dunford, even Pompeo. Was he managing Biegun or wasn’t he? Dunford wanted to be sure that any “end-of-war declaration” would not have binding legal effect, which of course raised the question of why we were considering it at all. The North had told us they didn’t care about it, seeing it as something Moon wanted. So why were we pursuing it?

  The third and final North Korea briefing, on February 21, followed a call with Abe the day before that couldn’t have teed it up better. We had prepared a set of “wild cards” that Kim Jong Un might bring to Hanoi to surprise Trump and get him to make unnecessary concessions. Once again lasting about forty-five minutes, the session was a successful conclusion to our briefing efforts. Whether they would suffice to prevent catastrophic concessions to Kim remained to be seen.

  I left for Hanoi early on February 24. Flying toward our refueling stop in Anchorage, we received a draft US–North Korea statement. The NSC’s Allison Hooker said Biegun had “table-dropped” it at a meeting with the North, without previously clearing it. It read as if drafted by North Korea, enumerating all Trump’s prior “concessions” to Kim Yong Chol in the Oval Office without seeking anything in return beyond another vague statement that North Korea would agree to define “denuclearization.” It was a complete mystery to me why Pompeo would allow such a text. What if the North Koreans simply accepted it word for word? This was another massive process foul, and a political time bomb. I had Kupperman show the draft to Mulvaney and Stephen Miller in Washington, and Mulvaney agreed it was both a first-magnitude political mistake and a deliberate violation of the established interagency process. They were flying with Trump to Hanoi on Air Force One and explained the problems to him en route. Trump was completely unaware of the draft, so Biegun had no authority from on high. I also called Pence on Air Force Two, as he flew back to Washington from the Lima Group meeting in Bogotá, and he had the same reaction to the Biegun draft that I did.

  Having been overwhelmed by Venezuela before leaving for Hanoi, once there and ensconced in the US delegation’s hotel, the JW Marriott, I tried to learn what was going on. The record was very confused, but the State Department was working overtime to lock down everything they could on Biegun’s draft, excluding NSC and Defense Department representatives, before Trump arrived late that evening. It was all bad news.

  The next morning, Wednesday, February 27, Mulvaney told Pompeo and me that Trump was very unhappy about a Time magazine story4 on his intelligence briefings and how little he paid attention or understood them. I hadn’t heard of the story, although Pompeo had, saying Time was doing a profile of him, which was perhaps where it had come up. He was willing to issue a statement, similar to one he had made months before, that Trump was deeply involved in the briefings. I had not made such a statement before and was looking for exits from the hotel room so I wouldn’t have to now. The Time article nearly severed an already tense relationship with the intelligence community. Trump called Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats “an idiot” and asked Pompeo and me in the elevator later, “Did we make a mistake with [CIA Director] Gina [Haspel]?”

  We then trooped to another room set up to brief Trump for the day’s events. Trump was still on fire because of the Time article but started by telling Pompeo he didn’t like Biegun’s comments, which were “too much,” referring to the draft statement Kupperman and Mulvaney had shown him on Air Force One. The import was clear to everyone in the room. After a detour on the Time article, Trump again criticized Biegun, repeating what he had said just minutes before. (For the record, when he saw Biegun the next morning, he didn’t recognize him.) Trump said he saw three possible outcomes: a big deal, a small deal, or “I walk.” He immediately rejected the “small deal” because it would mean weakening the sanctions. The “big deal” wasn’t going to happen because Kim Jong Un remained unwilling to make a strategic decision to renounce nuclear weapons. The idea of “I walk” came up repeatedly, which meant Trump was at least prepared for it, and might even prefer it (ditch the girl before she ditches you). There would be criticism no matter what he did, Trump said with a shrug, so I mentioned Reagan’s walking away at Reykjavik and the important boost that gave to later negotiations (ironically, on the INF Treaty, which we were leaving). Trump mused about what he would say at the concluding press conference (“We still like each other; we’ll keep talking”) and, looking at me, said, “You should go out and defend it.”

  Trump seemed consumed by the coming testimony in Washington of Michael Cohen, one of his former lawyers, a rare occasion when I saw his personal problems bleed into national security. I was relieved the earlier briefings were still top of mind and that the option of walking away was live. We spent the rest of the day in meetings with Vietnam’s top leadership, up until Trump’s dinner with Kim Jong Un. By that time, morning in Washington, the news coverage was all Michael Cohen. The North Koreans excluded me from the dinner, with only Pompeo and Mulvaney attending with Trump, following a one-on-one with the two leaders. I didn’t like it but figured it was a cost of doing business.

  Mulvaney called me to his room after the dinner ended at nine p.m. to debrief with Pompeo and others. Trump had wanted to avoid substance until the next morning, but as the dinner was ending, Pompeo said Kim had proposed that the North give up its Yongbyon nuclear facilities, in exchange for the lifting of all post-2016 UN Security Council sanctions.5 This was a typical “action for action” ploy, giving them economic relief they desperately needed but giving us very little, since even without Yongbyon, it was publicly well known that North Korea had many other facilities with which to continue its nuclear program. I asked if Kim Jong Un had something else up his sleeve, but Pompeo didn’t think so. I also asked if Trump had raised the Japanese-abductee issue, which he had, meaning he had fulfilled his commitment to Japan.

  I thought that was it for th
e evening, but word soon came that Shanahan and Dunford wanted to talk to Pompeo and me about a ballooning crisis between India and Pakistan. After hours of phone calls, the crisis passed, perhaps because, in substance, there never really had been one. But when two nuclear powers spin up their military capabilities, it is best not to ignore it. No one else cared at the time, but the point was clear to me: this was what happened when people didn’t take nuclear proliferation from the likes of Iran and North Korea seriously.

  The next morning, February 28, was the big day. Having stayed up well into the night watching Cohen testify, Trump canceled the preparatory briefings. I worried that his every instinct would be to do something to drown out Cohen’s hearings in the media, which he could only do with something dramatic and unexpected. Walking out would certainly achieve that objective. So too, however, would making a deal he could characterize as a huge success, even if it was badly flawed. The flaws wouldn’t catch up until later. Trump had Mulvaney, Pompeo, and me ride with him to the Metropole hotel in the Beast. He had heard from someone that we should ask the North Koreans to give up their ICBMs, which I thought secondary to dismantling the nuclear warheads. Eliminating just the ICBMs would not reduce the dangers to South Korea, Japan, and our deployed forces, nor protect against shorter-range, submarine-launched missiles fired just off our coasts, which the North was pursuing. Trump was irritable and frustrated, asking whether it was a bigger story if we got a small deal or if we walked away. I thought walking away was a far bigger story, if that was what he was looking for. Trump wondered how to explain taking a walk, and Pompeo offered a line: “The teams had met, we had made progress, there was still no testing, and we would meet again notwithstanding the failure of this summit,” which Trump liked. It made me gag, but as long as Trump was comfortable with the explanation and walked away, I was not going to complain. He was moving in the right direction, but a fluttering leaf could have turned him 180 degrees. As we arrived at the Metropole, I had no sense of how the rest of the day would play out.