This conclusion reflected a broader consensus within the US intelligence community that Kim Jong Un was rational and could be deterred: This belief is discussed at length in a classified assessment—a 2017 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)—described in Nancy A. Youssef, “Why the US Considers North Korea’s Kim a ‘Rational Actor,’” Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2017.
“The phrase has never, ever been uttered by anyone in the White House”: An anonymous senior official, as quoted in David Nakamura and Greg Jaffe, “The White House’s ‘Bloody Nose’ Strategy on North Korea Sounds Trumpian. So Why Do His Aides Hate It?” Washington Post, February 26, 2018.
The US Air Force had established a “continuous bomber presence” mission at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam: The “continuous bomber presence” mission is described in Amy McCullough, “Bombers on Guam,” Air Force Magazine 98: 8, August 2015, 20–25.
This work fell to the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center (JIOWC) at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio: JIOWC’s activities are highly classified, but one area of responsibility is developing approaches to messaging about US capabilities to strengthen deterrence. See [author redacted], “Cybersecurity: Capabilities and Related Policy Issues,” RL31787, Congressional Research Service, March 17, 2009.
Pentagon officials highlighteda series of three flights involving B-1 and B-52 bombers in March 2013: Thom Shanker and Choe Sang-hun, “US Runs Practice Sortie in South Korea,” New York Times, March 28, 2013.
Again, in 2016, the Obama administration publicized three more flights: Yoo Han-bin, “US Bombers Fly over South Korea for Second Time since North’s Nuclear Test,” Reuters, September 20, 2016.
with twelve publicly announced flights taking place in 2017: The estimate of twelve publicly announced bomber flights in 2017 is based on Department of Defense press releases.
Starting in 2017, operations were in some cases conducted at night and much farther north: “Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers from Guam, along with Air Force F-15C Eagle fighter escorts from Okinawa, Japan, flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea today, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said in a statement announcing the mission. This is the farthest north of the Demilitarized Zone any US fighter or bomber aircraft have flown off North Korea’s coast in the 21st century, White said. The mission underscores the seriousness with which the United States takes North Korea’s ‘reckless behavior,’ she added.” US Department of Defense, “US Bombers, Fighter Escorts Fly over Waters East of North Korea,” press release, September 23, 2017.
a brand-new system, which the North Koreans called the Pongae-5 surface-to-air missile: Joost Oliemans and Stijn Mitzer, “North Korea’s Pongae-5 Anti-Air Missile: What Do We Know?” NK News, June 2, 2017.
North Korean state media openly referenced the “defects” that had slowed its development: “Kim Jong Un Watches Test of New-Type Anti-Aircraft Guided Weapon System,” KCNA, May 28, 2017.
“We received an order that an American bomber was violating our airspace”: Roh’s remarks are based loosely on comments by Gennadi Osipovich, the Soviet pilot who in 1983 shot down KAL 007, a civilian airliner that strayed into Soviet airspace—an event widely attributed to the tension that arose from the Reagan-era PSYOPS program. “I saw two rows of windows and knew that this was a Boeing,” Osipovich told the New York Times’s Michael Gordon. “I knew this was a civilian plane. But for me this meant nothing. It is easy to turn a civilian type of plane into one for military use.” He also told Gordon that even “those who did not take part in this operation received double their monthly pay. At that time, monthly pay was 230 rubles. So I expected to be paid at least 400 rubles.” Michael R. Gordon, “Ex-Soviet Pilot Still Insists KAL 007 Was Spying,” New York Times, December 9, 1996.
2. South Korea Hits Back
“It is retrogression of sorts that the President’s office exists as a smallCheong Wa DaewithinCheong Wa Dae”: Choi Sung-jin, “Blue House’s Building Layout Ineffective in Emergency,” Korea Times, November 7, 2015.
the Cheong Wa Dae complex retained two very important government functions: “No Blue House for South Korea’s New President,” Associated Press, May 10, 2017.
Many of her political opponents . . . had demanded to know what became of the “seven missing hours”: Kim Bo-eun, “President’s ‘7 Missing Hours’ Still Shrouded in Mystery,” Korea Times, November 26, 2016.
while another reported that she was having plastic surgery: James Pearson and Yun Hwan Chae, “South Korea Lawmakers to Quiz Doctors, Nurses about Park’s ‘Missing’ Seven Hours,” Reuters, December 13, 2016.
They turned the documents over to investigators and filed a complaint: “Former President Park’s Four Aides Indicted for Doctoring Time Log of Sewol Sinking Report,” Yonhap, March 28, 2018.
“Neither South-North relations nor US-North relations will go far if the other fails”: Kang In-sun, “Interview with Suh Hoon” (in Korean), Chosun Ilbo, March 10, 2018, translated by Grace Liu.
“Dialogue is impossible in a situation like this”: “Moon Says Dialogue with N. Korea ‘Impossible,’” Yonhap News Agency, September 15, 2017.
North Korea’s relentless “strategic and tactical provocations”: “JCS Chief Nominee Vows to Build Military ‘Feared by Enemies, Trusted by Citizens,’” Yonhap, August 18, 2017.
“President Moon seems to have meant that we ought to be doing everything we can to prevent a crisis situation”: Park Byong-su, “New Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Claims South Korea Can Achieve Air Superiority within Three Days of Conflict,” Hankyoreh, August 19, 2017.
Lee wanted a big and bold response, but military officials pushed him to consult with the United States: “Ex-President Lee Ordered All-Out Retaliation after North’s Yeonpyeong Bombardment in 2010,” Yonhap, December 13, 2015.
“South Korea’s original plans for retaliation were, we thought, disproportionately aggressive”: Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 497.
satellite images later showed that its retaliation had done little or no damage: Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., The Yonp’yong-do Incident, November 23, 2010, Special Report 11-1, January 11, 2011.
“Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation” . . . had been publicly described in some detail after 2016: “South Korea Announces ‘Massive Punishment and Retaliation’ in Response to Fifth Nuke Test,” Hankyoreh, September 13, 2016.
“wiping a certain section of Pyongyang completely off the map”: “S. Korea Unveils Plan to Raze Pyongyang in Case of Signs of Nuclear Attack,” Yonhap, September 11, 2016.
Pyongyang . . . would“be reduced to ashes”: “S. Korea Unveils Plan to Raze Pyongyang.”
striking ninety-seven targets over four days, including three presidential palaces and the headquarters of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party: Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of Desert Fox: A Preliminary Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 16, 1999).
US and South Korean officials did, of course, visit the headquarters: The US Department of Defense released a pair of images from Admiral Cecil Haney’s visit to the ROK Army Missile Command headquarters on June 23, 2015.
“The issues on the rules of engagement . . . should be discussed”: Yi Whan-woo, “Rules of Engagement at JSA in Dispute,” Korea Times, November 16, 2017.
3. Hurricane Donald
Sometimes surprised wedding-goers even had an unscheduled appearance by the president: Jaime A. Cardenas, “Trump Crashes Nashville Socialite’s Wedding at Mar-a-Lago,” USA Today, February 13, 2017.
Over the years, these shelters had been repurposed to serve as storage and, for a time, as an office for Trump’s butler: Alex Leary, “Greeting from Mar-a-Lago: Donald Trump’s Presidential Paradise,” Tampa Bay Times, November 25, 2016.
“Pompeo kept feeding Trump assessments”: This quotation is based on the assessment of “several officials familiar with [White House] discussions” as described by
Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed, and Hyonhee Shin, “’He’s Such a Dreamer’: Skepticism Dogs US Envoy’s North Korean Peace Efforts,” Reuters, November 3, 2017.
“spends that time in his [executive] residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting”: Anonymous “officials,” as described by Jonathan Swan, “Trump’s Secret, Shrinking Schedule,” Axios, January 7, 2018.
“Once he goes upstairs [to the residence], there’s no managing him”: An anonymous “adviser,” as quoted in Ashley Parker and Robert Costa, “‘Everyone Tunes In’: Inside Trump’s Obsession with Cable TV,” Washington Post, April 23, 2017.
“But if he wants to watch [television], it’s not like we can say, ‘Oh, the TV doesn’t work’”: Anonymous official, as quoted in Matthew Nussbaum, Josh Dawsey, Darren Samuelsohn, and Tara Palmeri, “West Wing Aides Fearful of Directly Attacking Comey,” Politico, June 7, 2017.
In one case, a golf club member invited a New York Times reporter: Michael S. Schmidt, “Our Reporter Mike Schmidt on His Golf Club Interview with President Trump,” New York Times, December 29, 2017.
Of particular interest was a list of late-night phone calls: Dan Amira, “Blogger Who Allegedly Slept with Female Candidate Releases the Texts,” New York, May 26, 2010.
Once in office, even uglier rumors about Haley began to spread: Wolff only hints at the possibility of an affair in Fire and Fury (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2018, 305–306), although he drew attention to suggestive passages in a 2018 television interview with Bill Maher.
Trump had famously posed as his own publicist to spread rumors to gossip columnists: Marc Fisher and Will Hobson, “Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag about Himself,” Washington Post, May 13, 2016.
Haley called him “Lemon”: This detail and others are drawn from a profile of Lerner by Kambiz Foroohar, “Haley’s UN Brinkmanship Comes with Advice by Long-Time Pollster,” Bloomberg, September 11, 2017.
“there are no dissidents in China”: Shi Jiangtao, “Why Ma Zhaoxu, China’s New Man at the United Nations, Signals Greater Ambition on Global Stage,” South China Morning Post, January 21, 2018.
For instance, Hillary Clinton has often told a story: Laura Blumenfeld, “For State Department Officers Directing Calls, Adrenaline Always on the Line,” Washington Post, July 14, 2010.
Madeleine Albright needed to reach a diplomat who was out of contact at a football game: Daniel Stone, “Hillary Clinton’s State Department Nerve Center: Inside the Other Situation Room,” Daily Beast, May 19, 2011.
the State Department had used the New York channel before: Josh Rogin, “Inside the ‘New York Channel’ between the United States and North Korea,” Washington Post, August 11, 2017.
“pressure, compete with, and outmaneuver” US adversaries: Nahal Toosi, “Leaked Memo Schooled Tillerson on Human Rights,” Politico, December 19, 2017.
Hook had stayed on: “For now, however, another top Tillerson aide, Brian Hook, appears to be staying in place. Hook has also spurred resentment in Foggy Bottom for using the division under his control, the Policy Planning Staff, to effectively take over many decisions and tasks traditionally left to the department’s regional and functional bureaus.” Nahal Toosi, “Top Tillerson Aides Resign amid State Department Shuffle,” Politico, March 14, 2018.
“Believe it or not, I do not follow the tweets”: Noah Bierman, “Trump’s Chief of Staff: ‘I Do Not Follow the Tweets,’” Los Angeles Times, November 12, 2017.
“pushing the tweets in the right direction”: Josh Dawsey, “John Kelly’s Big Challenge: Controlling the Tweeter in Chief,” Politico, August 4, 2017.
4. The Noise of Rumors
In fact, she had merely extinguished a trash fire: Max Fisher, “North Korean ‘Traffic Girl’ May Have Won Military Award for Saving Kim Jong Un Poster,” Washington Post, May 9, 2013.
the US Department of Defense took more than an hour to activate its alternate command center at Site R: Rick Newman and Patrick Creed, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 2008), 174.
According to Ahmed El-Noamany: Chad O’Carroll, “Inside North Korea’s Cell Network: Ex-Koryolink Technical Director Reveals All,” NK News, August 20, 2015.
US and United Nations forces captured thousands of hours of secret recordings of meetings, phone calls, and conferences: This section is modeled on the discussion found in David D. Palkki, Kevin M. Woods, and Mark Stout, The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime, 1978–2001 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
“plotting bastards”: I have chosen a Korean equivalent of “conspiring bastards”—the term that Saddam used to describe the United States. See Hal Brands and David Palkki, “‘Conspiring Bastards’: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic View of the United States,” Diplomatic History 36, no. 3 (June 2012): 625–659.
Images of Jang being led away: “Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed,” Korean Central News Agency, December 13, 2013.
The North Koreans simply said that Jang had been shot: Alistair Bunkall, “North Korea: Kim Jong-Un Official Speaks,” Sky News, January 30, 2014.
when North Korean agents rubbed a nerve agent in his face at the Kuala Lumpur airport: Kyle Swenson, “A Gruesome North Korean Murder Plot: Trial Sheds New Light on Assassination of Kim Jong Un’s Brother,” Washington Post, October 17, 2017.
North Korean agents continued to make attempts on the lives of his children: Lee Young-Jong and Lee Sung-Eun, “China Arrests Would-be Assassins of Kim Han-sol,” JoongAng Ilbo, November 1, 2017.
“There’s a clarity of purpose in what Kim Jong Un has done”: Zachary Cohen, “CIA: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Isn’t Crazy,” CNN, October 6, 2017.
In October 2017, for example, North Korea alleged that it had discovered a plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un: “In May this year, a group of heinous terrorists who infiltrated into our country on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US and the South Korean puppet Intelligence Service with the purpose of carrying out a state-sponsored terrorism against our supreme headquarters using biological and chemical substance were caught and exposed.” “DPRK Representative on Principled Stand of DPRK on Terrorism,” Korean Central News Agency, October 6, 2017.
“get China to make that guy disappear in one form or another very quickly”: “Trump on Assassinating Kim Jong Un: ‘I’ve Heard of Worse Things,’” CBS News, February 10, 2016.
In December 2014, North Korea suffered a massive distributed denial-of-service attack: Ashley Feinberg, “So Who Shut Down North Korea’s Internet?” Gizmodo, December 23, 2014.
And in late 2017, the United States accused North Korea of conducting another large-scale cyber-attack called Wanna Cry: “US Blames North Korea for ‘WannaCry’ Cyber Attack,” Reuters, December 18, 2017.
The day before the invasion was set to begin: The attack on Dora Farm is described in detail by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor in Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Random House, 2007), 188–204.
“Right now we present ideal targets for atomic weapons in Pusan and Inchon”: “Substance of Discussions of State–Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting Held in Room 2C-923, the Pentagon Building, on Friday, March 27, 1953, at 11:30 AM, Top Secret, Minutes, c. March 27, 1953.”
“As early as 1965, Kim Il-sung had said that North Korea should develop rockets and missiles to hit US forces inside Japan”: Ko Young-hwan, in “North Korean Missile Proliferation,” hearing before the Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, S. Hrg. 105–241, October 21, 1997, 18.
“Kim Jong Il believes that if North Korea creates more than 20,000 American casualties in the region”: Ko Young-hwan, “North Korean Missile Proliferation,” 5.
North Korea was “well aware of [the] foolishness of Saddam Hussein”: “US Slightest Misjudgment of DPRK Will Lead It to Final Doom: KCNA Commentary,” KCNA, March 13, 2017.
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Iran had, for many years, trained its proxies to attack American-made Patriot defenses: Conflict Armament Research, “Iranian Technology Transfers to Yemen: ‘Kamikaze’ Drones Used by Houthi Forces to Attack Coalition Missile Defence Systems,” March 2017.
After an Israeli battery shot down a $200 quadcopter with a $3 million Patriot missile: “Israel Uses Patriot Missile to Shoot Down Drone,” Associated Press, November 13, 2017.
North Korea released images of drones being used in combat and paraded them through Pyongyang: Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., “North Korea Drones On, Redux,” 38North, January 19, 2016.
Soldiers on runs would log their route: Liz Sly, “US Soldiers Are Revealing Sensitive and Dangerous Information by Jogging,” Washington Post, January 29, 2018.
a North Korean drone had crashed while taking pictures of the site: Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “Suspected North Korean Drone Photographed Advanced US Missile Defense Site, Report Says,” Washington Post, June 13, 2017.
They trained to reduce that launch time to about twenty minutes: The estimate of twenty minutes is provided in an account of Iraqi Scud operations and the challenges associated with hunting them. See Peter de la Billière, Storm Command: A Personal Account of the Gulf War (New York: HarperCollins, 2008).
within fifteen minutes, the unit needed to move 15 kilometers away: The Iraqis trained to be within nine miles of the launch point within fifteen minutes. See Jeffrey D. Isaacson and David R. Vaughan, Estimation and Prediction of Ballistic Missile Trajectories, RAND/MR-737-AF (Washington, DC: RAND, 1996).
5. Sunshine State
Because it was Saturday morning, his son-in-law and daughter were out of contact: The Kushners discussed turning off their cell phones in a profile for Vogue. Jonathan van Meter, “Ivanka Trump Knows What It Means to Be a Modern Millennial,” Vanity Fair, February 24, 2015.
The secure video conference hardware in the Mar-a-Lago Situation Room was made by CISCO: “It’s possible the black box to the left of the photo is a Cisco Telepresence Touch, according to Brian Roemmele.” Sarah Emerson, “What the Heck Are These Electronic Devices in Trump’s Situation Room?” Motherboard, April 7, 2017.
The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States Page 22
