Clinton, Freed Reporters Take Off for U.S.

En Route to Los Angeles for Reunion with Families after N. Korean Leader Kim Jong Grants Pardon

(CBS/AP)  Last Updated at 7:48 p.m. EDT.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il issued a "special pardon" freeing two jailed American journalists after talks with former U.S. President Bill Clinton, North Korea's official news agency announced Wednesday.

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 release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, 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.

U.S. officials said there was no indication that Clinton's private plane has departed Pyongyang, despite a report by KCNA that it had left. The U.S. officials, who described the sensitive schedule on condition of anonymity, said Clinton's mission was expected to wrap up in the early morning in Pyongyang - early evening EDT - and that he hoped to bring the two journalists with him.

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.

North Korea accused Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, both of former Vice President Al Gore's Current TV media venture, 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.

The women were arrested on March 17 and since then tensions 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," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N., "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.

[Sloughfoot]

Way to go, Bill.

[proudmilvet]

Oh,Yeah. Glenn(Crying Boy)Beck has something New! Saw him tonight for a few minutes on Faux News. I Can Only stand to watch him & his Nutwork for a few minutes at most. Along with his Failed "Teabagging Parties" & his Failed "Birther Movement," He's now asking his Regular Viewers to become "Constitutional Watchdogs" With Him!! He reminds me so much of some of the arrogent Little Snot Nose Nerds in Junior High School who used to get Beat Up on a Regular Basis!!

[proudmilvet]

caliguy55... Well Said! Could not Agree With You More!! Repubs Are So P.O.'d Right Now!! Bravo,President Clinton!! Tommorrow, Rush Limbaugh Will Definitly Have Something Negative To Say About Both President Clinton & President Obama. Sean Hannity Will Still Be Talking About President Obama's Birth Certificate, & Glenn Beck Will Be Weeping on Air Again About How Much He Just Loves His Country, & About How He Thinks President Obama is a Racist! HA! HA! LOSERS!!!

[proudmilvet]

gordonshummway... Yeah, we'll send in all of your Great Heros to save us! Rush Limbaugh,Newt Gingrich,Sean Hannity,Ann Coulter,Michelle Malkin, Glenn(Crying Boy)Beck,Bill O'Reilly,Karl Rove,Laura Ingrahm,Tom Delay,Dick Armey,Phil Gramm, & Dick(OL'Draft Dodgin Dick)Cheney! All Super Patriotic,Flag Waving Clowns, Who All Somehow Never Managed To Serve In The Military!! Yes,neither Bill Clinton or Barack Obama Served in the Military Either,but they are not Hypocrits about it.Bill Clinton at Least had the Courage of his Convictions.He Did not believe we should have been in Vietnam, Therefore he Protested against the War.Dick Cheney Fully Supported the War in Vietnam, but took 5 College Draft Deferments anyway!As Long as Someone else did the Fighting for Him! Typical Republican,Right Wing,Neo-Con CHICKENHAWK!!! Probably Just Like YOU!!!

[velma179]

While Bill Clinton is the "front man" in this and absolutely needs to have all the gratitude shown for his part -- a lot of people have been working without any recognition in order to bring about the release of the two young women.

I'd like to say THANKS to all of them.

Hard work, patience and diplomacy wins the day!

[erasmus111]

by hamiltongrad August 4, 2009 7:23 PM EDT
of yes, they crossed the border. Given, but why ? Who made them do it ? What abuse did they undergo to be forced to "get the story " by the stupid TV network, NBC ? Did they willingly do so ? I doubt it. The TV editor, Al Gore ? well he has been very very quiet, and refused to go to Korea himself.


Did you not read my post at 7:18?


Who made them do it? How could anyone MAKE them do it? I will bet you any money that they took it upon themselves to do it, thinking that everyone would be patting them on the back for getting THE story. Which anyone with a brain would have figured out that there was no way that they would succeed. They thought that they would be exposing the trafficking of women, when everyone already knew about it. They probably thought that that would make North Korea stop. If anyone has noticed, North Korea does what it wants and no one or nothing is going to stop them.

Hamiltongrad, I'm beginning to notice a sign of mental illness where you're concerned. I suggest you seek help.

[legacyabq]

Excellent!

I'm glad these two are safe.

Ol' Kim Jong Il must be lapping it up, appearing with an american of Bill Clinton's noteriety!

Anyway, NK's propaganda aside, it's nice to have them released. It's always best if it can be done peacefully, of course.

[SAMTORRES66]

2 ******** for Billy.....U are the man......

[SAMTORRES66]

2 blow job$ for Billy.....U are the man.....

[winstrv]

I assume that when I go into another country and break their laws, America will send an ex-President to get me out. These idiots broke the laws of North Korea and should have to serve their sentence. Once the sentence is served, they can be deported just as we do with those who break our laws. Having them serve their sentence would hopefully send a message to others who might think about doing something this stupid. I guess the next trip for Clinton will be to Iran to get those idiots released. Maybe not. You might have to be a "reporter" to get that perk.

[endurorob]

My sentiments exactly. You break the laws of another country you suffer the consequences. It is a bad precedence to set by Clinton negotiating the release of these idiots.

[vivaviva44]

I would like to say just thank you for this, to Mr. Clinton.
Amazing relationship and he is a one may be can have right relationship with North Korea.

Now I see in him, just he is one politician, who is so strong mentality has and he is in a verbal abuse and media abuse in USA often, but as an immigrant, I learnt he is an excellent one, and the USA people once were not so wrong.
Taxation etc etc etc......

OK, usually ordinal say so.

Any people include me and you are not perfect, even media people are not perfect.

And if Mr. Clinton can fix the relationship about Nuclear weapons, it would be nice.

It was amazing.

Thanks.

[jumkey]

I came here for my 2 minute Clinton hate and the trolls didn't disappoint. Clinton got some hostages released - HATE! HATE! HATE!

Thank god you righties will never be in power again.

Deal with it losers.

[veteran71]

Yea, nevergraduated has even been a 2 hour rant/hate fest over Gore....
(Those Wingnuts and their hate of Global Warming Science I guess)....that, and the fact Gore stated on several occassions that he believes the Earth to be round......go figure

[hamiltongrad]

there should be a lawsuit against Gore and his stupid TV channel. What a dangerous mess he got these young women into, just for ratings.

[erasmus111]

See my post above.

[dscott2009]

Job well done Mr. Clinton...

Good solid diplomacy where tough talk alone wasn't producing any results.

Safe journey home...

[curiously1]

I think whatever deals Bill made with NK, he threw GM in the deal.

[erasmus111]

by hamiltongrad August 4, 2009 6:37 PM EDT
Clinton has guts to go into the crazy place. Really. I have read that AlGore was asked to go by the family and REFUSED ! GOOD job Mr. Ex President, the new SuperHERO !


Maybe Al Gore told them not to go into North Korea.

[hamiltongrad]

Gore ? Where are you ??

Read TV Commentary Magazine, July issue, Gore was begged to go, but refused. Then he said maybe, getting the hopes up, and then no again. The potential lawsuits, once these young women are home is massive. What role did he play in setting them out on this dangerous mission ? There has to be an investigation, depositions and we need to clear the air of this mess, once the real hero Bill Clinton gets home. For now I am both outraged and supremely happy. Next time Al, clean up your own mess.

[erasmus111]

by hamiltongrad August 4, 2009 7:12 PM EDT
Read TV Commentary Magazine, July issue, Gore was begged to go, but refused.


HELLO?! I'm not saying that he didn't refuse. I am saying that maybe he told those women NOT to go into North Korea. Maybe he didn't even know that they were going there at all! Maybe he figured like a lot of other people, that if they are that stupid, they get what they get!

Do you have proof that he sent them there? Or that he told them they should cross the border?

Until then, shut up.

[mary-miami]

I am not surprised that President Clinton was able to achieve the release of the reporters. He was a wonderful President and was respected by many world leaders. I am happy for the reporters and their families.

[hamiltongrad]

Clinton has guts to go into the crazy place. Really. I have read that AlGore was asked to go by the family and REFUSED ! GOOD job Mr. Ex President, the new SuperHERO !

[hamiltongrad]

WHY DIDN'T the big blowhard GORE go ? Chicken ?

[hitah]

Hey if you are want any guy to go and pick up two young chicks Clinton is your man!

[veteran71]

Laura Ling and Euna Lee : Promise us you'll never die.

Bill Clinton: You know I can't promise that.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee : If you did that, we'd make love to you right now.

Bill Clinton: I promise I'll never die.

(All apologies to Team America)

[Questionews]

In fact, when those girls get back, there should be consequences for being that stupid.

The fact that the government was put in this position was BAD.

by erasmus111 August 4, 2009 5:27 PM EDT



How do you know their not being paying the consequences?? It's a long flight back with Bill on board. "If this plane's a rockin, don't come knocking!"

[erasmus111]

Hmmm, I guess it depends on how you look at it, whether or not they are paying consequences.