War of Nerves At the Nuclear Brink

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During the agonizing negotiations to end the Korean War, the American general in charge became so infuriated with the rococo delaying tactics of the North Koreans that he asked Washington for permission "to employ such language and methods at the talks as these treacherous savages cannot fail to understand, and understanding, respect." He was turned down. Getting an armistice took two more years of an excruciating saraband between envoys who may have loathed each other but had too much to lose to get mad. Now American and North Korean diplomats are in the trenches again, speaking tactfully on matters of life and death, as Washington tries to stop Pyongyang's apparent march toward building an atomic bomb, and Pyongyang tries to head off the international sanctions its ambitions will inevitably prompt.

The dispute is heating up. Hans Blix, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to tell the U.N. this week that North Korea's violation of international nuclear safeguards is "continuing and widening." In addition to blocking inspections of two secret sites to which the IAEA demanded access last February, Pyongyang is now refusing to allow even routine monitoring of five declared nuclear sites at Yongbyon, 65 miles north of the capital, and two other sites elsewhere. At a 5-MW power reactor whose fuel core could be mined for plutonium to make bombs, IAEA inspectors are not being allowed to reload spent surveillance cameras. Three smaller research facilities due for inspection have been off limits since May 1992. A uranium fuel-fabrication plant slated for examination every three months has not been seen for more than a year. Last August, when IAEA officials visited the plutonium-reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, they were allowed in only at night, with all the lights turned off, peering through the 600-ft. building with what one Western official described as "weak flashlights" provided by their hosts. After that, says the official, "Blix came back and vowed 'never again.' They have to allow full inspections with no more horses---."

Blix has the right to refer the dispute to the U.N. Security Council, which can punish a nuclear miscreant with sanctions that can range from a reprimand to an embargo, and ultimately to war. Three weeks ago, he told Washington he would begin the process this week if the North didn't start behaving. But the West decided to keep negotiating instead. "We're not talking in terms of a deadline," says an IAEA spokesman. Reason: fear of driving Pyongyang into a corner from which it would fight its way out. The North Koreans have threatened to resume plutonium reprocessing and their atomic-weapons program if the U.S. breaks off talks over the stalled inspections. That threat seems real. Even the flashlight search, as well as satellite photos, showed the North preparing to resume plutonium reprocessing.