Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

(broadcaster speaking Korean)

LISA (off screen): On September 3, 2017,

a man-made earthquake, 6.3 on the Richter scale,

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

is felt on the Korean peninsula.

The North Korean leadership boasts a successful test

of a hydrogen bomb.

(crowd cheering)

MAN (speaking Korean): As long as Kim Jong Un is with us,

the victory, without question, will be ours.

NEWSCASTER (on screen in Korean): Much congratulations must be given

to our nuclear scientists and technicians.

(dramatic music)

LISA (off screen): The underground explosion

strikes fear and anger throughout the international community.

BESSHO: The Security Council must act to stop North Korea.

NIKKI: We have kicked the can down the road long enough.

There is no more road left.

DAVID SANGER (off screen): I think they've come to the conclusion

that they have a much greater chance of survival

by being a threatening power than being a cooperative one.

LISA (off screen): North Korea is the most secretive

and isolated nation in the world,

and its actions have been vexing America for 70 years.

In 2006, I went undercover there

and found a world of absolute conformity...

Government minders...

Tomorrow you're going out of our country.

LISA (off screen): And unimaginable horrors

that people risked their lives to escape...

(man speaks Korean)

I'd never felt as isolated as I did as soon as I touched down in North Korea.

Then, three years later, it got personal

when my sister Laura was abducted and imprisoned there

while on assignment for Current TV.

LAURA: The soldier raised the butt of his rifle

and brought it down on my head, and I just blacked out.

The next thing I know, I'm in North Korea.

LISA: In the light of a new leader and increased global concern,

I look back on my trip in 2006 and my sister's capture.

Inside North Korea, Then and Now.

(uneasy music)

LISA (off screen): When I went into North Korea in 2006,

the dear leader, Kim Jong Il,

ruled with absolute power.

♪ ♪

He died on December 17, 2011.

In the capital, Pyongyang, the funeral procession lasted for hours.

The dear leader's disciples' grief will last much longer.

His youngest son, Kim Jong Un, has become the third Kim

to rule this dynastic communist nation.

He is called the supreme leader.

To the watching world,

not yet 30-year-old Kim Jong Un was an unknown,

and is today still enigmatic and unpredictable.

DAVID (off screen): When Kim Jong Un took power,

he systematically went out and wiped out his opposition

with a brutality that we had not really seen

from his father or his grandfather

and was smart enough to quickly change his appearance,

his haircut, whatever

to remind everybody of his grandfather, the country's founder, Kim Il Sung.

He may have been young. He may have been callow.

He may have been mistrusted.

He came out on top.

LISA (off screen): It is estimated Kim Jong Un has assassinated

140 senior leaders,

including an uncle and likely his half-brother.

His regime has tested over 80 rockets, successfully launching ICBMs--

intercontinental ballistic missiles-- that threaten its enemies.

In 2016,

American college student Otto Warmbier, touring North Korea,

was arrested and sentenced to 15 years' hard labor.

OTTO: I beg for forgiveness.

LISA (off screen): He was freed after 17 months,

but not before mysteriously falling into a coma.

He died shortly after his release.

President Obama told

then president-elect Trump that North Korea would be

his most urgent international challenge.

Every time there is a new American administration,

it seems like the North Koreans

try to test the new administration.

The difference this time is, Kim Jong Un seems to be

a lot more unpredictable than his father,

and the United States' president, uh, is sort of an untested entity

and is probably the most unpredictable president

who has ever sat in that seat as well.

TRUMP: North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.

They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.

DAVID: What does Kim Jong Un want?

What are his motives?

Across the three Kim dictators,

Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un,

there's been one common theme,

which has been that their development

of missiles and nuclear weapons and their effort to combine the two

is the ultimate survival strategy,

that their number-one concern is survival.

People treat you differently as a nuclear power.

LISA (off screen): The two successful ICBM launches in July 2017

showed that Kim Jong Un has missiles

that appear capable of reaching the continental United States.

It puts the U.S. and North Korea on a collision course

not seen since the Korean War

and proves that its nuclear program is further along than previously thought.

The nation even issues commemorative stamps

celebrating the events.

(suspenseful music)

(upbeat music)

North Korea has one of the largest militaries in the world.

Parades like this boast awesome power to its people

and an ominous message to its enemies.

(applause)

And the North Korean people believe they are still at war with America,

though fighting ended in 1953.

But the roots of North Korea's antagonism toward foreign powers

goes back over a century.

In 1910, Korea was colonized by Japan.

(crowd clamoring)

The brutal occupation ended more than 1,000 years

of Korea's reign as a sovereign nation, and was a major source of shame.

Japan lost Korea in World War II, and the country was split

between the American-backed south and the Soviet-backed communist north,

led by a young rebel named Kim Il Sung.

(artillery booming)

In 1950, Kim Il Sung invaded the south to unify the country,

and the U.S. opposed communist expansion at all costs.

As many as four million people died in the Korean War,

which included some of the most brutal warfare the world has known.

In a four-month period alone,

the U.S. dropped nearly one million gallons of napalm.

Most major cities in North Korea were at least half obliterated,

including Pyongyang.

In 1953, after three years of fighting, Korea remained divided

in almost exactly the same place as it had been before the war began,

the 38th parallel.

There never was a peace treaty, rather a perpetual state of ceasefire.

The joint security area on the border is the one place where North Korean forces

stand toe to toe with the rest of the world.

On one side of this concrete marker is North Korea,

on the other, the joint American-South Korean forces.

Every flinch is monitored.

Neither side wants to blink, and nobody has for over 60 years.

MICHAEL: You can see on the North Korean side

how they're set up. They have two soldiers watching

each other so neither of them defect.

And then they have their leader to the north, making sure

that no one else from the North will come down and defect.

LISA (off screen): With everyone watching, no one can cross here.

And defecting anywhere else along the DMZ is nearly impossible.

The DMZ, or de-militarized zone,

is a two-and-a-half-mile-wide buffer

along the border of north and south Korea.

With more than a million landmines, high voltage electric fences,

and nearly two million soldiers, crossing over is almost certain suicide.

(uneasy music)

♪ ♪

South Korea's capitol, Seoul,

is less than 40 miles away from the border,

but what makes this place so dangerous is the uncertainty of what lies

north of the divide.

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,

is regarded as an "intelligence black hole."

DAVID (off screen): I think you could certainly make a strong argument

that North Korea has been

the biggest intelligence failure for the United States

since Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The American intelligence agencies don't take much heat for this

because everyone understands that North Korea is a very hard target...

LISA (off screen): But we know some basic facts:

North Korea is roughly the size of Mississippi.

It has 25 million people, a showcase capital, Pyongyang,

but vast poverty most everywhere else.

All three Kims were and are absolute dictators,

and worshipped in a personality cult

perhaps more extreme than any other in history.

DAVID (off screen): Not only do you have a population

that has largely bought into the myth

that this family is keeping them safe

against the Americans who would overrun their territory,

but that the myth all comes

out of the founding myth of Kim Il Sung,

and that everybody else's authority

comes from the fact that they descend from him.

(crowd cheers)

LISA (off screen): I'd never experienced a kind of roboticism

like I experienced in North Korea.

CROWD: Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Un.

LISA: And it was really difficult to tell whether people really felt, um,

as passionately about their dear leader

or they felt compelled to act like they did.

Everyone is trained from birth to love the leaders,

and virtually no outside sources of information are allowed.

Newspapers and television are controlled by the state.

Many here don't even know a man has walked on the Moon.

While the elites at the very top of North Korean society may have access

to the global Internet, for millions of ordinary North Koreans,

there's no way to connect to the outside world.

And those elites with cell phones can only speak within its borders.

It is this isolation from the rest of the world

that earns North Korea the moniker, "The Hermit Kingdom."

I had always been so curious about North Korea

because it's just been this enigma in the world,

the country about which the least is known.

And so, when my renowned cataract surgeon friend Dr. Sanduk Ruit

invited me to follow along with him and his medical team,

I jumped at the opportunity to go.

The caveat, though, was that I couldn't say I was a journalist.

I had to go under the auspices of being part of his medical team.

Thousands of people in North Korea go blind

due to a lack of even the most basic medical facilities.

DR. RUIT (off screen): The annual number of surgeries performed

is just, just very little.

And the blindness magnitude is one of the highest in the world.

LISA: Dr. Sanduk Ruit planned to travel from Nepal to North Korea

to do more than 1,000 surgeries in less than 10 days.

His mission was purely humanitarian.

Our entire crew posed as members of Dr. Ruit's medical team.

We were going to document his work and show the world what life

was like inside North Korea.

-...send it back. -DR RUIT: I'm sure you...

LISA (off screen): This meeting in a Kathmandu hotel room

was the last time our team could converse in private.

So there will be a North Korean man

traveling with us the entire time?

-DR. RUIT: Yes. -LISA: From here to Pyongyang?

DR. RUIT: From here to Pyongyang and back to Kathmandu.

LISA (off screen): North Korean minders met us in Nepal

and monitored every step until the trip was over.

Dr. Ruit knew our South African cameraman, Brian, and I

would be watched very carefully.

Do you think that Brian and I will be followed?

DR. RUIT: I'm sure.

LISA: And he was concerned that the cameras

would attract too much attention

as we entered the country...

DR. RUIT: We can put the camera down there.

LISA (off screen): And wanted to pack them more carefully,

buried beneath the medical equipment.

DR. RUIT: Okay, and pack it with linens.

LISA (off screen): A North Korean official checks our luggage

where our cameras are hidden.

OFFICIAL: And everything is okay with the luggage.

LISA (off screen): Two North Korean minders

are already keeping an eye on things.

DR. RUIT (off screen): All of us will be watched very carefully.

I think you should shut the camera down now.

LISA: In retrospect, I think I was a little naive.

I was surprised that no one Googled who I was,

because I was working for National Geographic at the time.

But I thought that if it was ever discovered

that I was a journalist,

I would just be expelled from the country,

so while I had my concerns, I wasn't that scared.

But maybe I should have been.

After hours in the air, we stole these shots

as we approached North Korea.

Normally, Americans were not welcome there,

and I was told I would be the only one in the entire country.

(uneasy music)

♪ ♪

On the ground, we got our first glimpses of Pyongyang

and shot undercover footage,

no easy task with minders in the car.

We passed 12-lane highways with hardly any cars

and saw images of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il everywhere.

Pyongyang was and still is a city of the relatively privileged.

The government rewards strong supporters by letting them live there.

And unless you're a high-ranking official,

you need a permit to travel anywhere in the country.

So from the moment we landed in Pyongyang,

I could tell I was in a place

unlike any place I'd ever been before.

All of our technological devices were removed from our possession.

We had to check them into the airport.

And we were assigned eight government minders,

and they followed us everywhere.

They even stayed in the guest houses where we were housed.

And at a certain point,

I realized that I was in Kim Jong Il's North Korea.

When we reached the hospital, hundreds of blind people

had already gathered for surgery.

This hospital was probably as fancy as it got in North Korea.

Most of the cutting-edge equipment had been donated by other countries,

but few doctors knew how to use it.

DR. RUIT: This one is from America.

Iris. Iris.

LISA (off screen): The government let Dr. Ruit and his team come

because it was a way for Kim Jong Il to get services to his people.

Our team had to bring most of our equipment

and supplies with us.

And because blackouts were common, even here in the capital,

we brought our own generator for power.

I hoped we could see what life was really like here,

but the government controlled our every move.

And the rare times that it had granted foreigners access,

they had only been shown idealized versions of the country,

like in this Dutch documentary called A Day In The Life.

In this scene, a mother sings nursery rhymes

as she walks her child to school.

MOTHER (in Korean): Sing along.

♪ The pathetic Americans kneel on the ground ♪

♪ They beg for mercy ♪

LISA (off screen): The film shows only the cheerful façade,

because here, image matters.

Back at the hospital, Dr. Ruit continued his mission.

In the developed world, cataracts rarely get so bad, especially in young people,

that they result in blindness.

But here, because of poor care and likely poor nutrition,

the incidence is as much as 10 times higher than in the West,

and afflicts young and old alike.

But in North Korea, cataracts are only a small part

of the humanitarian nightmare.

German physician and human rights activist Norbert Vollertsen

worked for over a year in North Korea.

He shot pictures of the horrible medical conditions.

Bloody old operating tables...

beer bottles for IVs...

no antibiotics or anesthesia.

NORBERT (off screen): Of course, the North Korean government will tell you

everything is free in North Korea.

It's not true because it's not available.

There is no medicine. There's no running water.

There's even no soap in the hospital.

LISA (off screen): But it was the lack of food, and its effect on children,

that made the most lasting impression.

NORBERT (off screen): When I was a medical doctor in North Korea,

I saw a lot of starving children.

I saw children dying under my hands

when I was too late, when there was no more need

for any emergency duty because the child was dying when I came into the room.

So I felt so helpless.

(uneasy music)

LISA (off screen): In the mid-1990s,

natural disasters and government mismanagement

created a famine that killed up to three million people,

about 10% of North Korea's population.

Taking place in the heart of prosperous east Asia,

it was one of the worst famines of the century.

Surveys done in the early 2000s

showed that nearly 40% of North Korean children

were chronically malnourished.

The average 7-year-old boy in North Korea was nearly 8 inches shorter

and 22 pounds lighter than his brother in South Korea.

AID WORKER (off screen): I'd say the damage to his bones is permanent.

LISA (off screen): They were called "the stunted generation."

MICHAEL (off screen): It's a tragic situation,

and it's extraordinary,

because same race, same people, same basic diet,

and that's all malnutrition.

LISA (off screen): Over time, the Kims isolated the country

from much of the world,

even cutting off foreign aid

and communications with the neighbors to the south for long periods of time.

So the way we were able to convince our North Korean minders

that we needed to have our cameras with us at all times is,

uh, that I said I was a medical student

and I had to document everything that was happening.

I thought that I would get a very skewed perspective of what life

in North Korea would be like.

I thought that I would just be resigned to just surgical facilities,

but I decided after a few days

to ask our minders if we could visit the home

of a typical North Korean family.

And to my complete shock, they agreed to take me to visit a family.

LISA (off screen): Our minders led us to the home of a blind patient.

The blind woman lived in a sixth-floor apartment

in the heart of Pyongyang.

Since I was told I was the only American in the country, I felt lucky,

but a bit surprised, that the minders were willing to take me here.

What a beautiful home!

There were six government officials watching our every move.

But it was still a rare chance to see inside a real North Korean home.

Like others in Pyongyang, this was a privileged family.

The woman lived there with four of her family members,

including her two granddaughters.

The first thing I noticed was that there weren't any family pictures...

just image after image of Kim Jong Il and his father.

Of all their pictures, which is your favorite picture?

MAN (speaking Korean): Every picture is our favorite.

TRANSLATOR (off screen): Every, every photo of...

LISA: Of course, every picture, absolutely.

We were warned to photograph the dear leader carefully...

So from here up?

What happens if it's only half?

What happens? Why not?

No? Oh, okay.

We weren't supposed to ask why.

We were supposed to sit down and be entertained by the granddaughter.

We wanted to talk to people, but under the watchful eye of the minders,

this was what we got.

(upbeat music playing)

♪ ♪

Wow, that's amazing.

(clapping)

(speaking in Korean)

Finally, we sat down with the family and asked a few questions.

How difficult is life for your mother without sight?

The son-in-law answered without missing a beat.

MAN (speaking Korean): The most difficult thing for my mother-in-law

is not seeing Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader.

LISA: Why do you want to see this supreme leader so much, so bad?

BLIND WOMAN (speaking Korean): My children and I live happily

due to the honor of our Great Leader,

so I want to see him,

even a glimpse of him, so I can thank him.

LISA (off screen): She was obviously moved, but what surprised me was,

so was everyone else.

This party official is crying. Even this government minder.

MINDER (speaking Korean): As I listened to her, I started to cry.

If our nation and leader didn't exist,

we might as well be dead.

My father was killed,

so I was raised in the arms of our Dear Leader,

and now I'm a party member.

LISA: Uh, I just wonder...

can the Great Leader do anything wrong?

MAN (off screen): What?

LISA (off screen): Can the Great Leader do anything wrong?

Is there anything wrong?

Or he's always, what he says is, is magical?

MAN (off screen): I couldn't understand what you are saying.

LISA (off screen): Okay.

I truly believe that our minder did not understand my question,

because I think he may have perceived me

to be questioning the authority of the Dear Leader

and that was something just incomprehensible,

and so he didn't even understand

how to translate such a question.

North Korea is a very small country.

How does the Great Leader defend it against big powers like America?

MINDER (speaking Korean): Even though North Korea is small,

we serve the greatest leader in the world.

We have a strong arm of unity

which is stronger than America's atomic bombs.

America has no idea how to deal with us.

This is all because we have General Kim Jon Il

as the leader of our nation.

LISA (off screen): As the conversation wound down,

I wondered, where did North Korea's willingness

to face down the entire world come from?

MINDER (speaking Korean): Our country's unity is stronger

than a nuclear weapon,

so we're not afraid.

LISA (off screen): How did this powerful mindset take hold?

North Korea's defiant stance toward the rest of the world

stems from a philosophy created by Kim Il Sung, called Juche.

MICHAEL (off screen): The Juche philosophy basically means

"up yours" to the outside world.

We can make everything ourself; we don't need you.

And from an outsider's perspective, it's a peculiar thing.

Why make such a big deal out of being independent?

Your people are starving.

You've got no economy. You've got no trade.

But in the Korean context,

it has a profound resonance, because Korean history

is one of invasion and all sorts of abuse

from major powers.

So the North Koreans turned this history around

and said, "We're not going to take it anymore."

And for Koreans, there is a very profound thrill

that somebody would have the guts to stand up and be like that.

LISA (off screen): Juche ideology is still used to run North Korea

with an iron fist,

and for each Kim leader to wield absolute power.

It also supported the god-like status of Kim Il Sung during a 50-year reign.

REPORTER (speaking Korean): The Great Leader's hearse is approaching.

LISA (off screen): When Kim Il Sung died in 1994,

he left behind a traumatized nation.

REPORTER (speaking Korean): The Great Leader, is this true?

Are you leaving without us?

LISA (off screen): His son, Kim Jong Il, took power

in the world's first communist dynastic handover.

(uneasy music)

♪ ♪

Following in his father's footsteps, Kim Jong Il ruled by fear.

And now his son Kim Jong Un continues to use the Juche ideology of self-reliance

to unify the nation and crush all dissent.

LISA (off screen): On our final evening in North Korea,

Dr. Ruit worked late into the night

to reach his goal of operating on 1,000 patients.

He believes in humanitarian engagement with all the countries of the world,

whatever their politics.

DR. RUIT: The North Korean people have two eyes, like you and me,

they have a mouth, and they have teeth, you know.

And it's for the world in general to understand that in North Korea,

we have a lot of people who need our love.

(somber music)

♪ ♪

LISA (off screen): At the hospital, the cataract patients

were waiting for Dr. Ruit

to remove their bandages.

But they still didn't know if they would be able to see.

It was so fascinating to be in this room.

It was almost like a theater,

and as they were removing the bandages from the patients,

one would think that they would be so

expressive of gratitude to the surgical team

that restored their vision, um, but what I saw was something entirely different.

DR. RUIT (off screen): We did a little more than 1,000 surgeries

and all with very good results,

no infections.

That aspect, I feel okay.

LISA (off screen): The minder gave us one last warning

to shoot only the full image of the dear leader.

The moment of truth came first for a 23-year-old woman.

She came with her father

and had been completely blind for years.

♪ ♪

DR. RUIT: Ask her to open her eyes.

(man translating into Korean)

Can she touch my nose?

Ask her where is her father?

WOMAN (speaking Korean): Dad!

MAN (speaking Korean): Can you see?

WOMAN (speaking Korean): Yes! I can see very well.

MAN (speaking Korean): It's all because of the Great General.

We must bow to our Great General for this.

WOMAN (speaking Korean): Yes, Dad.

MAN (speaking Korean): Thank you, Great General!

WOMAN (speaking Korean): I want to show my gratitude to our Great General!

MAN AND WOMAN (in Korean): ♪ Thank you very, very much ♪

♪ Our Great General Kim Jong Il ♪

(applause)

♪ Thank you very, very much ♪

♪ Our Great General Kim Jong Il ♪

We praise you!

We praise you!

LISA (off screen): Then we spotted the grandmother we had visited at home.

She had been waiting for years to see the dear leader.

And she was not disappointed.

WOMAN (speaking Korean): Thank you!

Thank you!

(applause)

Great Leader, I wish you great health.

How kind you are to hold an old woman like me in your arms.

(applause)

LISA: It was just so, it was so surreal.

And I couldn't tell if they truly believed it

or they felt like they had to do it,

because if they didn't do it, they might pay the consequences.

MAN (speaking Korean): With these eyes that I've received,

I will grab a gun and kill every one of the American enemies

and terminate them far from this Earth!

(applause)

LISA (off screen): After I left North Korea, I certainly breathed

a huge sigh of relief,

and I never thought that I would have any dealings with that country again.

Then our family went into crisis when my sister Laura

was abducted and imprisoned there.

LAURA: In March of 2009, I was working on a documentary

about North Korean defectors,

people who are fleeing

the very desperate conditions in North Korea.

And during that time, we were filming along the Tumen River.

This is the river that separates China and North Korea.

And it was frozen at the time.

And so, we were literally standing on that frozen river

when two North Korean soldiers spotted us.

They chased us into China

and then very violently dragged my colleague, Euna Lee, and me,

across that river into North Korea.

LISA: In the middle of the night, while my husband and I were sleeping,

my sister's husband called, and he said,

"Laura was abducted by North Korean soldiers,"

and my heart just sank.

LAURA (off screen): And I was pretty bruised up, and bloodied.

And I just tried to keep my wits about me,

but I was so scared.

We were eventfully transferred to Pyongyang.

Euna and I were separated for the remainder of our captivity.

And that's when the real formal interrogation began.

And I was grilled every day, for hours on end, day after day.

One of the most difficult parts was trying to convince them that I was not a spy.

It didn't help that the co-founder and chairman of the company

that I worked for at the time, Current TV, was former vice president Al Gore,

so that immediately made them suspicious that I had ties to the government.

One day, my interrogator came in, and he was carrying a file.

And it was all about my sister, and the projects she had worked on.

He was very upset.

Very upset, very suspicious,

and he immediately accused both Lisa and me

of trying to bring down the North Korean government.

Euna and I became the first Americans

to be tried in North Korea's highest court.

And on the day of our sentencing, the judge and his two associates

left the room to deliberate.

They left for five minutes, and they returned with their judgment,

and that was 12 years of hard labor.

(ominous music)

LISA (off screen): Back in 2006, we interviewed a North Korean defector

who had spent time

in one of the notorious North Korean prisons,

and he described it as just an absolutely heinous

and insidious place to be, and so the thought

of my sister going there was just unimaginable.

And I was terrified, I was absolutely terrified.

LAURA: The judge shouted, "No forgiveness, no appeal."

And I just clutched onto the podium.

I was standing at a podium, and I just clutched onto it

to keep from falling over.

And I told my interrogator.

I said, "Let me talk to my sister.

"I don't know what it is that you want,

but whatever it is, I can try to convey to her

what you may want and maybe she can help out here."

LISA: The consensus from the State Department,

from Vice President Gore,

from every official-type person that we'd spoken to was, keep it quiet.

We don't want to antagonize the North Koreans,

we don't know what happened,

so let's keep this out of the press.

And one of the first things I said to my sister was,

"We've been keeping this quiet."

And she said, "No, we need to change that."

LAURA (off screen): It became very clear to me

that the North Korean authorities wanted a visit

from former president Bill Clinton,

that they wanted him to serve as the envoy.

And so, in a phone call to my sister, I asked,

"Do you think that President Clinton can come here to rescue us?"

And she was very quiet.

I mean, there was a period of just silence,

and I think because she realized that that was going to be a very tricky request,

especially since Hillary Clinton was the current secretary of state.

LISA: After that first phone call, I sort of launched

this media campaign of deference

to the North Korean government.

Knowing how sensitive the North Korean government is,

knowing, as an Asian, how important saving face is.

I knew that we had to communicate to the North Korean government

how sorry my sister was and how we had to beg for mercy,

and beg them publicly to forgive the mistake

or at least release my sister and her colleague on humanitarian grounds.

LAURA (off screen): I was also allowed letters.

I devoured each and every word, memorized every letter that I received.

"I so desperately wanted to reach right through the phone when you called

"and just pull you back home to me.

I can't believe this is still happening."

LAURA (off screen): My sister's letters were really strategic.

Lisa always expressed messages of deference and respect

to the North Korean authorities,

always apologizing.

And she knew I was not the only one reading those letters.

In fact, sometimes they would arrive with coffee stains on them.

LISA: After Vice President Gore

had gotten President Clinton to agree to go,

we had a conference call.

It was a secret mission to North Korea, and it all happened very, very quickly.

Images of President Clinton landing in North Korea

started to emerge on television.

And there to greet him was a-a jubilant-looking Kim Jong Il.

LAURA (off screen): It became pretty apparent to me

when there was a news report on in the guards' room.

And I heard the North Korean newscaster,

and I heard her say, "Clinton,"

in this booming voice.

And I looked at the TV, and I could see the report

about the meeting that had gone on between President Clinton and Kim Jong Il.

And Euna and I were together at that time, and I said, "What is she saying, Euna?"

And she said that there was a warm meeting between Kim Jong Il and President Clinton.

And I looked at her, and I said, you know, "We're going home."

REPORTER (off screen): After 140 days of fear and uncertainty,

Laura Ling and Euna Lee walked away from North Korea free women again,

looking well and bound for home.

LAURA: When he met with Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Il had told Clinton

that when Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, passed away in 1994,

Clinton was the first leader to call Kim Jong Il

to offer his condolences, even before Kim's own allies.

Kim told Clinton that he always remembered that gesture,

and had wanted to meet him ever since.

(gentle music)

♪ ♪

And I think that it's so wild to think

that that gesture that happened so many years before

could have been responsible for our freedom.

And I think it also shows how there was

a mutual civility between the two leaders that allowed diplomacy to really work.

LISA (off screen): Now, a decade later, Kim Jong Un enjoys the devotion and power

his father and grandfather had.

He also seems to have a penchant for wanting to be on the world stage.

DAVID (off screen): Kim Jong Un, like his father and his grandfather,

has played an extremely weak hand brilliantly.

There are people who are looking out there and say this man's crazy.

If so, he is crazy,

but a pretty brilliant strategist, a pretty brutal player,

and pretty savvy at understanding

how small technological edges in nuclear and in cyber

enable him to have the power to reach out

at the United States and other enemies.

LISA: According to North Korea, their country has technically been at war

with the United States for decades,

and in many respects, I think that they do need to feel that tension

between our two countries, because otherwise they would start to question

the regime about why there's so much poverty and devastation.

By having this enemy to focus on, it gives, uh, a pass

to their own government

for not providing sufficiently for its people.

DAVID (off screen): Certainly, the North Koreans want

to be treated with respect as a significant power,

but they have no illusions that they will get there by integration,

economic integration, with the West.

Do I think that the North Koreans would pick up a nuclear weapon

and lob it at the United States?

No, because 45 minutes later, that would be the end of the regime.

Do I think that they might use the threat

that they could hold American cities hostage

as a way to get something else that they want?

Yeah, I think that's completely within their capability.

LISA (off screen): According to the Korean central news agency,

Kim Jong Un says, defiantly,

that North Korea is nearing its goal of military equilibrium with America.

TRUMP: The United States has great strength and patience,

but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies,

we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.

In 70 years...

LISA (off screen): As the rhetoric between the U.S. and North Korea

escalates, the international community

is largely where they've been for decades,

initiating harsher sanctions that appear to have no effect

on stopping Kim's goal of being a threatening nuclear power.

Captioned by Captionmax