Bartels lecturer Donald Gregg: North Korea is not that evil -- and it's not the last outpost

By Roger Segelken

Former ambassador to South Korea Donald P. Gregg saved the answer to the rhetorical title of his April 12 Bartels World Affairs Fellowship Lecture --"Is Korean the Last Outpost of the Axis of Evil?" -- nearly to the end.

Donald Gregg, left, former U.S. ambassador to Korea, speaks with student Julie Moos '05 during a reception in the Statler Hotel following Gregg's Bartels World Affairs Fellowship Lecture, April 12. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

But his Uris Auditorium audience could guess where he was going, after hearing what he thought about the Bush administration's handling of world affairs under the influence of advisers who call themselves "The Vulcans" -- Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage, in particular -- who guide a president Gregg termed "a pretty good governor of Texas, lacking in foreign affairs experience."

The answer to the question about Korea is "no, on two counts," said Gregg, whose 43 years of government service included a quarter century with the Central Intelligence Agency and a stint as national security adviser to then-vice president George H.W. Bush. "North Korea should never have been lumped in with Iraq and Iran" in President Bush's 2002 formulation of the axis of evil, Gregg stated. Including North Korea showed the influence on George W. Bush of the same Reagan-era "Vulcans" who coined the term "evil empire" to focus fear on the Soviet Union, Gregg added.

"Certainly North Korea is evil. It is unable to feed its people, and it has gulags and other instruments of suppression," Gregg said. "But there is evidence they want to change."

He said that North Korea, under Chairman Kim Jong-Il, truly fears attack by the United States and is baffled at its inability to deal with the Bush administration.

Gregg reiterated that view in the question-and-answer session that followed his lecture. North Korea, he said, "is very much concerned about our ability to harm them. They also are very good at making missiles." Even though North Korea cannot feed its people, he added, they excel in defense technologies "and they are making what they can sell in the world marketplace.'

On the "last outpost" question, Gregg said: "North Korea is not the last evil we will confront. There are plenty of other difficulties we will face as we try to deal with the world."

Gregg had begun his speech by noting the educational purpose of the Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels Lecture series. He said he hoped the telling of his experiences in Asia would awaken in some students a lifelong interest in public service. And he concluded with a list of admonishments, including one for Cornell graduates who would follow his lead in world affairs: "History will deliver you new challenges, new evils and new ambiguities."