Clinton, 2 Freed Reporters Headed Home

Updated 7:35 a.m. Eastern.

Former President Bill Clinton brought two freed U.S. journalists out of North Korea early Wednesday following rare talks with reclusive leader Kim Jong Il, who pardoned the women sentenced to hard labor for entering the country illegally.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling were heading back to the U.S. with Clinton, his spokesman Matt McKenna said, less than 24 hours after the former U.S. leader landed in the North Korean capital on a private, humanitarian trip to secure their release.

According to a statement from Clinton's office, their flight was to arrive at Bob Hope Airport in the northwest LA suburb of Burbank at about 5:30 a.m. Pacific time (8:30 a.m. Eastern).

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the former president's wife, told reporters late Wednesday she was "very happy and relieved" that the women were on their way home.

"I spoke to my husband on the airplane, and everything went well, we are extremely excited that they will be reunited soon when they touch down in California, and it is just a good day to be able to see this happen," said Secretary Clinton. She said she would have more to say on the matter after Link and Lee were reunited with their families.

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that the entire Clinton rescue operation was apparently highly orchestrated.

Laura Ling's mother tells CBS News that when her daughter called a couple weeks ago, she made it very clear that it would take a visit by the former president to win their release.

After the family made a number of phone calls to Washington, reports Whitaker, that's exactly what happened.

The women, dressed in short-sleeved shirts and jeans, appeared healthy as they climbed the steps to the plane and shook hands with Clinton before getting into the jet on Tuesday, APTN footage in Pyongyang showed. Clinton waved, put his hand over his heart and then saluted.

North Korean officials waved as the plane took off. McKenna said the flight was bound for Los Angeles, where the journalists will be reunited with their families.

That, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told The Early Show, is America's main prize for sending Clinton to North Korea - winning the two women's release. However, he said North Korea also won in this "chess game."

Richardson, himself considered for the mission before North Korea made it clear they wanted Bill Clinton to show up, told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that in the diplomatic battle between Washington and Pyongyang, "it's equal right now."

"We got the journalists home. We get a lessening of tension," explained Richardson. "North Korea gets more international prestige and Kim Jong Il is able to say to his countrymen, one of the poorest nations on Earth, 'I brought a former president to our soil,' something he's been trying to do for years."

Their departure was a jubilant conclusion to a more than four-month ordeal for the women arrested near the North Korean-Chinese border in March while on a reporting trip for Current TV, the media venture founded by former Vice President Al Gore. They were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and engaging in "hostile acts."

Clinton, who arrived in North Korea Tuesday on an unannounced visit, met with the reclusive and ailing Kim for talks described by Pyongyang as "exhaustive." It was Kim's first meeting with a prominent Western figure since his reported stroke nearly a year ago.

"The pardon and release of the Americans to former President Clinton is a win for the United States because it effectively resets the dials, so that Washington can start again and try to get the North Koreans back to the six-party talks," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N. "The only problem with the high visibility trip is that it rewards bad behavior, so that Americans become more vulnerable to capture as a part of a larger negotiation."

A senior White House official in touch with the Clinton plane says the two journalists released by North Korea "are enormously relieved and seem to be in very good health," reports CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer.

The release of Lee and Ling, who were arrested March 17 near the China-North Korea border, was a sign of North Korea's "humanitarian and peace-loving policy," the Korean Central News Agency reported.

State media said Clinton apologized on behalf of the women and relayed President Barack Obama's gratitude. The report said the visit would "contribute to deepening the understanding" between North Korea and the U.S.

While the White House emphasized the private nature of Clinton's trip, his landmark visit to Pyongyang to free the Americans was a coup that came at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear program.

The meeting also appeared aimed at dispelling persistent questions about the health of the authoritarian North Korean leader, who was said to be suffering from chronic diabetes and heart disease before the reported stroke.

Kim smiled broadly for a photo standing next to a towering Clinton. He was markedly thinner than a year ago, with his graying hair cropped short. The once-pudgy 67-year-old, who for decades had a noticeable pot belly, wore a khaki jumpsuit and appeared frail and diminutive in a group shot seated next to a robust Clinton.

According to White House sources, in mid-July the North Koreans signaled a willingness to grant amnesty to the women if "an envoy in the person of Bill Clinton" would travel to Pyongyang, Maer reports.

Over subsequent days the administration became convinced the mission would lead to freedom for the women. Officials who briefed reporters say the U.S. used a number of channels to seek and receive North Korean agreement that a Clinton visit would lead to release of the women. The U.S. stipulated that North Korea had to confirm the Clinton visit was not part of negotiations on any other concerns including the face-off over the North Korean nuclear program.

An official says Mr. Clinton made it clear to the North Koreans that he was on a " purely a private humanitarian mission" aimed solely at the release of the journalists and was separate from other issues on the table between the North and the US and other countries. The official says Mr. Clinton "also pressed very hard" on positive developments that could occur if the North released South Korean detainees and people abducted from Japan.

North Korea accused Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, of sneaking into the country illegally in March and engaging in unspecified "hostile acts." The nation's top court sentenced them in June to 12 years of hard labor.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged North Korea last month to grant them amnesty, saying they were remorseful and their families were anguished by their detention.

"We want to thank the Obama Administration for its continuous and determined efforts to achieve this outcome, and President Clinton for his willingness to undertake this mission," Gore and Current Media co-founder Joel Hyatt said in a statement late Tuesday (ET). "All of us at Current are overjoyed at Laura and Euna's safe return. Our hearts go out to them - and to their families - for persevering through this horrible experience."

They added, "We will have more to say in the days and weeks ahead. But for now, all our thoughts are with Laura and Euna and their families, who have shown remarkable courage and initiative for the 140 days of this ordeal."

Since the women's arrest, tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have soared, reports CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen. North Korea tested a long-range ballistic missile on April 5; it then tested a small nuclear device the next month; on June 12, the U.N. responded with unanimous economic sanctions.

For all that North Korea could enhance its international stature for letting the women go.

"They're playing all sides of this very well," said CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate. "They've held these two women, held a kangaroo trial, and have basically used them as diplomatic pawns."

Some think Kim is raising tensions with the nuclear arms program as a way to securing the leader's job for his youngest son - or a way of protesting ever tightening international sanctions, reports Petersen.

The journalists' release followed weeks of quiet negotiations between the State Department and the North Korean mission to the United Nations, said Daniel Sneider, associate director of research at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Clinton "didn't go to negotiate this, he went to reap the fruits of the negotiation," Sneider said.

Pardoning Ling and Lee and having Clinton serving as their emissary served both North Korea's need to continue maintaining that the two women had committed a crime and the Obama administration's desire not to expend diplomatic capital winning their freedom, Sneider said.

"Nobody wanted this to be a distraction from the more substantially difficult issues we have with North Korea," he said. "There was a desire by the administration to resolve this quietly and from the very beginning they didn't allow it to become a huge public issue."

The families of Ling and Lee said they were "overjoyed" by the pardon.

"We are so grateful to our government: President Obama, Secretary Clinton and the U.S. State Department for their dedication to and hard work on behalf of American citizens," the families said in a statement. "We especially want to thank President Bill Clinton for taking on such an arduous mission and Vice President Al Gore for his tireless efforts to bring Laura and Euna home.

"We are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms," the statement said.

Lee, a South Korean-born U.S. citizen, is the mother of a 4-year-old. Ling, a California native, is the younger sister of Lisa Ling, a correspondent for CNN as well as "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "National Geographic Explorer."

They were arrested as they reported about the trafficking of women. It's unclear if they strayed into the North or were grabbed by aggressive border guards who crossed into China but recent statements suggested they admitted to deliberately crossing into the country.

The Committee to Protect Journalists also welcomed their release.

North Korean state media said Clinton and Kim held wide-ranging talks, adding that Clinton "courteously" conveyed a verbal message from Obama.

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs denied Clinton went with a message from Obama. "That's not true," he told reporters.

"While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment" until the mission is complete, Gibbs said in a statement. "We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton's mission."

Clinton was accompanied by John Podesta, his one-time White House chief of staff, who also is an informal adviser to Obama.

Clinton was accorded honors typically reserved for heads of state. Senior officials, led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, who also serves as the regime's chief nuclear negotiator, met his private unmarked plane as it arrived Tuesday morning.

"Clinton was able to secure the Americans' pardon and release, when other efforts have failed, because he had a record of successful negotiations with the North Koreans and they trust him," Falk said, "and it will now be up to the Obama administration to see if they can transform the good will into a negotiated agreement with Pyongyang on nuclear disarmament."

"The North Korean U.N. Mission had told CBS last week that the government of Kim Jong Il wanted direct negotiations with the U.S.," said Falk, "and the trip by former President Clinton, in their eyes, was one step in the direction of a direct dialogue."

Video from the APTN television news agency showed Clinton exchanging warm handshakes with officials and accepting a bouquet of flowers from a schoolgirl.

Kim later hosted a banquet for Clinton at the state guesthouse, Radio Pyongyang and the Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported. The VIPs and Kim posed for a group shot in front of the same garish mural depicting a stormy seaside landscape that Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, posed for during her historic visit to Pyongyang in 2000.

Clinton is relatively well-regarded in North Korea, mostly for a less-bellicose attitude toward the country during his administration.

Just last month, North Korea's Foreign Ministry had harsh words for his wife, describing her as "a funny lady" who sometimes "looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."

In the past, envoys have been dispatched to Pyongyang to secure the release of Americans. In the 1990s, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a congressman at the time, went twice on similar missions: in 1994 to arrange the freedom of a U.S. pilot whose helicopter strayed into North Korean airspace and again two years later to fetch an American detained for three months on spying charges.

Richardson told CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric that Kim is domestically trying to get support, and engaging with Bill Clinton was a goal for many years - "something he wanted badly," he said.

"Kim Jong Il gets a lot of juice out of this," Richardson said. "But we get the two women back."

Richardson, Clinton and Gore, Clinton's vice president, had all been named as possible envoys to bring back Lee and Ling. However, the decision to send Clinton was kept quiet, revealed only when he turned up Tuesday in Pyongyang.

The trip was reminiscent of one 15 years ago by former President Jimmy Carter when Clinton was in office, also at a time of tensions over North Korea's nuclear program.

Carter's visit - he met with Kim Jong Il's father, the late Kim Il Sung - helped thaw the deep freeze in relations with the Korean War foe and paved the way for discussions on nuclear disarmament. Clinton later sent Albright to Pyongyang for talks with Kim in a high point in the often rocky relations with North Korea.

Discussions about normalizing ties went dead when George W. Bush took office in 2001 with a hard-line policy on Pyongyang. The Obama administration has expressed a willingness to hold bilateral talks - but only within the framework of the six-nation disarmament talks in place since 2003.

North Korea announced earlier this year it was abandoning the talks involving the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, China and the U.S.

Last month, the U.S. Navy tailed a North Korean cargo ship as it sailed south suspected of carrying cargo banned under a U.N. resolution on board until the vessel turned around and returned to port.

Kim inherited leadership of impoverished North Korea upon his father's death in 1994, 20 years after being anointed the heir apparent. Kim has not publicly named his successor but is believed to be grooming his third son, 26-year-old Jong Un, to take over.