Three days in North Korea: change can--and must--come to this rogue nation, but it will not be easy, as a trip to this bastion of Communist control proved.

• Author: Nathan, James A.
• Position: Worldview

THE COLONEL LOOKED us in the eye. "Aren't you afraid to be here? We are enemies!" So began our tour of the Korean demilitarized zone from the North Korean side--and of 20th-century history from the North Korean perspective. During several three-day periods in October 2005, Americans were allowed, for the first time in three years, to enter North Korea. Visitor diplomacy, the North Koreans called it. We saw CBS anchor Dan Rather at the airport in Pyongyang, the capital. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico came to engage in informal nuclear arms negotiations. Ordinary Americans like us also were allowed in. Things seemed to be moving as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was gearing up to engage in a new round of formal nuclear talks.

Months before, we had put our names on the lists of travel agents specializing in trips to North Korea. Each time we asked if we could go, we were told no, it was impossible for Americans to enter. Since 2002 and the final collapse of the Clinton era nuclear accord with the North, only a very, very select few Americans were able to visit. One of our Chinese friends suggested that a forged visa could be arranged for us. We politely declined. Having lived and taught in China in recent years--but never having seen it during Mao Tse Tung's heyday--we both wanted to visit North Korea, this strangest iteration of Communist oppression, before it changed. It was that simple. Now we had our chance.

We asked ourselves if we were going to be present at the very beginning of something new and important. Perhaps, like the fictional Chauncey Gardner of "Being There" fame, or the American ping pong players suddenly invited to be part of history years ago by Mao Ze Deng, we were in the right place at the right time.

Day 1. We arrived in Pyongyang on a Saturday afternoon, after a one-hour, 20-minute flight from Beijing. We flew in quite smoothly in the old Russian Ilyushin jet the North Korean airline uses, complete with its Greyhound-like open overhead luggage compartment. We were met at the Sunan International Airport--the least-busy international airport we ever had seen--by our two smiling guides, and minders of our every move. Our tour group consisted of only three people, which was an excellent stroke of luck, considering some of the characters on a larger American tour we crossed paths with at various destinations.

Who chooses of their own free will to go to North Korea? That is an interesting question. Besides the two of us, our group included, of all things, another political science professor, now living and teaching in South Korea. For three days, we did everything except sleep together.

Our guides immediately led us to the minivan that would be our means of transportation for our stay. First, there was Mr. Lee, in his mid 20s, about 5'9", very thin, and direct in manner, who would serve as our translator. Then there was Ms. Park, about the same age, about 5'3", average build, soft-spoken, and polite. Both were personable. Although Mr. Lee spoke English, Ms. Park, we soon learned, was in charge. The ground rules were explained to us. No taking photos without permission. No taking photos through our windows as we drove along in our van. No doing anything without permission or going anywhere without our guides who, we discovered, could not take us anywhere without themselves getting permission.

Still, we were glad finally to be in the DPRK so we could find out what people there are like and what they are thinking. We struck up a conversation with our hosts as we drove on to Pyongyang center. Mostly, we spoke to Mr. Lee but, on occasion, he would translate for Park. It mostly was small talk and that, in a way, is the point. Although the circumstances were extraordinary, the smiling and chatting all seemed quite normal.

According to the memories of many who visited China back in the late 1950s and 1960s, North Korea today is Mao's China of that era, although it is hard to imagine a country as big as China being so thoroughly controlled and completely traumatized. In the China of those bygone days, little red books, blue Mao jackets, and red Mao pins proliferated on the streets and in people's homes. Today, the little red books, even those with inscriptions from comrades, often are for sale--that is, if the shops that sell them have not been bulldozed to make way for the newest hotel, office building, or department store. Over the course of our three days in North Korea, everyone we saw--everyone--wore a pin depicting Kim II-Sung, "The Great Leader" and "Eternal President" who helped found the Article, country in 1948.

Trips like ours are completely orchestrated by the two official North Korean tour companies who work through a number of foreign tourist agencies, such as the Swedish-based Koreakonsult, the one that booked our trip. Spontaneity of any kind virtually is impossible. Our tour guides also were our minders, and they undoubtedly were watching each other and being watched as well. Going meant going on North Korean terms--seeing what they wanted us to see, and how they wanted us to see it.

On our first afternoon there, we were taken to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum (given their views, they might as well call it the Museum of American Aggression) and were treated to a lesson about what we in the U.S. call the Korean War. In the museum guide's telling of the tale, North Korea was the victim. The American imperialists invaded the North hoping to overthrow the Communist regime. North Korea had not initiated the war, but it had won the conflict decisively under the brilliant leadership of The Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-Sung.

In case we missed the point, the long, lightning-fast march of the comrades of the North down the Korean peninsula, as they routed the South Korean "puppets" of the "American imperialists"--never mind that Pres. Harry Truman had, by then, pulled the U.S.'s World War II troops out of Korea--was illustrated with a Christmas display of lighting, illuminating on a massive wall map all the spots of key victories. The American and UN counterattack that would push the Northerners all the way back to the Yalu River, their border with China, was not illuminated. In fact, it hardly was mentioned.

The themes of the war to liberate Korea from Japan, which had occupied it since 1905, and then the war against the Americans soon after the end of WWII, were to reappear many times during our stay. However distorted the history as told, the division of Korea and the utter devastation of the Korean War--a war that plays a minor role in the American, but not Korean, collective memory--had an enormous impact. These themes still loom large in a way hard for Americans to understand.

Understood by the Northerners as grievous offenses and used by their government as ideological weapons, these war themes abet what noted Korea-watcher Selig Harrison has called the "siege mentality" of the DPRK. This state of mind has driven much of the North's orientation to the outside world, including, at times, the Soviet Union of old, and even the People's Republic of China today. The fact is that the DPRK is a relatively small and very impoverished country that fought a devastating war against--and then for half a century was under the watchful eye of--a military superpower. Reinforced by Kim Il-Sung's ideology of self-reliance or juche, a lethal combination of history, geopolitics, and self-destructive behavior has produced insularity unique in the modern world. As Americans, it is important that we understand these things, even as we abhor the appalling human rights violations.

We stayed at the Koryo Hotel, built in the mid 1980s, and one of the two best and biggest in the city. We were neither allowed to leave the hotel on our own, nor to change our itinerary in even the smallest way. In fact, when we ate at the restaurant across the street from our hotel, we were escorted there and back. Our guides did not rest until they believed we were securely in our beds. Still, we wondered, why were Americans being let in now? We knew that in Beijing the North Korean regime had promised it would stand down its nuclear weapons if certain conditions were met, particularly delivery of a light water reactor promised as part of the 1994 agreement. On the record, the U.S. refused to consider this demand before the disarmament...