One holdover on security team

The Roh Moo-hyun administration’s national security and foreign relations team is heavy on bureaucrats, academics and military men in what observers said was an effort to bring expertise to bear on two thorny issues: dealing with North Korea and repairing rifts with Washington.
Jeong Se-hyun is the only official to be carried over from the Kim administration, as unification minister. He has, most observers say, detailed theoretical knowledge of the North and practical experience in dealing with officials there. He will be in charge of Mr. Roh’s stated objective of continuing a policy of reconciliation and cooperation with North Korea.
Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan has an academic background in international relations, but his only public service was two months working on the presidential transition. He has been Mr. Roh’s closest adviser on external affairs, but he stirred some alarm in Washington as a member of a delegation dispatched by Mr. Roh in early February to discuss his policies with Korea’s leading ally. Press reports said that Mr. Yoon told a group of Korea-watchers there that he would prefer a nuclear-armed North Korea to that nation’s collapse; Mr. Yoon defended his comments in a column in this newspaper on Feb. 18.
Defense Minister Cho Young-kil is said to be a straightforward career military leader who wants to do away with intramilitary bickering and focus on improving the nation’s defenses. Both Mr. Yoon and Mr. Cho are considered by officials of the two ministries as reformers.
The Blue House senior adviser for national security, Ra Jong-yil, the new adviser for foreign policy Ban Ki-moon and the defense adviser, Kim Hee-sang, also bring a combination of practical experience and academic knowledge to their coordinating roles with the cabinet. Mr. Ra, a former ambassador to Great Britain, served with the new Blue House chief of staff, Moon Hee-sang, at the agency that is now the National Intelligence Service early in the Kim Dae-jung administration. Mr. Jeong was at that time the vice minister of unification.
Mr. Ban has considerable diplomatic experience in the United States; he was deputy chief of mission in Washington during the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993-94. He is expected to play a key role in coordinating measures on North Korea, no easy task given the present strains in the alliance. Mr. Kim, the defense adviser, brings a theoretical background from research work at the RAND Institute after retiring from the Korean Army.

by Lee Young-jong