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Monday, May 27, 2024

From ABC News: Some prominent Americans who have met with North Korean leaders

Some prominent Americans who have met with North Korean leaders

Trump has agreed to meet with Kim Jong Un.

ByMeghan Keneally

March 9, 2018, 2:55 PM

If the shocking, recently announced meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un actually occurs, it will make history.

No sitting U.S. president has ever met with a North Korean leader, though there have been lower-level sessions.

Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton waited until after their time in office to meet with North Korean leaders.

Carter met with Kim Il Sung, North Korea's founder, in 1994, more than a decade after leaving office.

PHOTO: In this June 16, 1994 photo distributed by Korea News Service, leader Kim Il Sung takes part in a souvenir picture with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter, and other members who visited North Korea. — In this June 16, 1994 photo from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, leader Kim Il Sun...

Kim Il Sung, who died weeks after meeting with Carter, is the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un.

Clinton was invited to meet with Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung's son, and successor, in 2000 but declined the invitation.

Instead, then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright went to North Korea.

PHOTO: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il, left, shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the Pae Kha Hawon Guest House in Pyongyang on Oct. 23, 2000. — North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il, left, shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at...

It wasn't until nine years later when Clinton himself, then out of office, met with Kim Jong Il as part of an effort to help secure the release of two U.S. journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

PHOTO: In this photo released by Korean Central News Agency, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, seated left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, seated right, in Pyonggyang, North Korea, on Aug. 4, 2009. — In this photo released by Korean Central News Agency, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, seated left...

Former Vice President Al Gore met Ling and Lee when they returned to the United States.

PHOTO: Freed journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are welcomed by former vice-president Al Gore after they arrived from North Korea at the airport in Burbank, Calif. with former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Aug. 5, 2009. — Freed journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are welcomed by former vice-president Al Gore after they ar...

That wasn't the last time that a former president met with North Korean officials to help free an American. In 2010, Carter returned to North Korea on behalf of Aijalon Gomes, a Massachusetts resident who was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for entering the country illegally.