Thursday, June 14, 2018

Dust: North Korea

It was deja vu.  Mindi Ramsey and I were on the set, getting ready for Newswatch 16 This Morning on Tuesday.  Images of President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea were on the giant monitors in front of us.

Suddenly, it was 1972.

I remembered President Nixon's trips to China and the USSR in 1972.  It was fascinating.  Television images of things we hadn't seen up close before-- the Great Wall, The Forbidden City, the Kremlin.

Even though the U.S./North Korea Summit was held in neutral territory, I remembered those presidential trips 46 years ago.  There was quite a bit in common.  An American president was talking with leaders of countries we feared engaging in a war.  Like North Korea, the Chinese and Soviets were not known for their human rights.

China is still around.  The USSR isn't.  There have been ups and downs in our relationships with China and Russia, but so far, the missiles are still in the silos.

By all accounts, North Korea, while a nuclear power, is a mess.  Electricity is spotty.  The economy is a disaster   There isn't enough food to go around,  Kim needs to be taken seriously on the world stage.  North Korea needs change to survive.  It began on a Tuesday in Singapore.