The upcoming presidential election in South Korea on December 19 could mark a critical turning point in U.S.-ROK relations and the ongoing negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear programs. At stake are potential realignments in economic, political and military relationships that will have a significant impact on all the countries of the Northeast Asian region, including China and Japan.


The outcome of this pivotal election will be analyzed in an informal discussion led by leading experts on Korea and the region, including Donald P. Gregg and Evans J.R. Revere, the chairman and president of The Korea Society; Don Zagoria, project director, Northeast Asia Projects, National Committee on American Foreign Policy; and Leon Sigal, director, Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project, the Social Science Research Council.

Come join us for this timely event on Thursday, December 20 at 12:00 PM, just 24 hours after the election.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

24 Hours After South Korea's Presidential Election: An Assessment

Donald P. Gregg is Chairman of the Board of The Korea Society in New York City. Following graduation from Williams College in 1951, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and over the next quarter century was assigned to Japan, Burma, Vietnam and Korea. Gregg was seconded to the National Security Council staff in 1979, where he was in charge of intelligence activities and Asian policy affairs. In 1982, he was asked by the then Vice President George H. W. Bush to become his national security advisor. He then retired from the CIA, and was awarded its highest decoration, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. During his six years with Vice President Bush, Gregg traveled to 65 countries, and also was a professorial lecturer at Georgetown University, where he taught a graduate level workshop entitled “Force and Diplomacy.” From September 1989, Gregg served as ambassador to Korea. Prior to his departure from Korea in 1993, Mr. Gregg received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, an honorary degree from Sogang University, and a decoration from the Prime Minister of Korea. Recent awards include an honorary degree from Green Mountain College (1996), the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service (2001), Williams College’s Kellogg Award for career achievement (2001), and the 2004 Bartels World Affairs Fellowship from Cornell University.


A career diplomat and senior foreign service officer, Mr. Evans Revere is the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Korea, one of the United States’ largest overseas diplomatic missions. He previously served as country director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Korean Affairs, managing U.S. relations with both halves of the Korean peninsula. In that capacity, he was the U.S. government’s primary day-to-day liaison with the North Korean government and served as deputy in a series of U.S.-DPRK negotiations. He also accompanied presidential envoy Dr. William J. Perry during his historic May 1999 visit to P’yongyang.

During a previous assignment to Seoul, Revere worked on plans for a U.S. liaison office in P’yongyang in his capacity as director-designate of that office. His previous assignments have included service as counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand; a fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School; and special assistant to the under secretary for political affairs, with responsibility for Asia. Revere was principal officer of the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka, Japan, and served at the U.S. Embassies in Tokyo and Beijing. He was also executive assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs. Revere worked at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) in 1980-1981, handling consular and economic-commercial matters.

Revere has an honors degree in East Asian studies from Princeton University and served as a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force during 1969-1972. He was the 1998 recipient of the American Foreign Service Association’s Sinclaire Award for accomplishment in Korean language study. He is a three-time winner of the State Department’s Superior Honor Award, has received the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award, and was commended by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright for his contributions to her October 2000 visit to North Korea. He speaks Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

Leon V. Sigal is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York.

His book, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea, published by Princeton University Press, was one of five nominees for the Lionel Gelber Prize as the most outstanding book in international relations for 1997-98 and was named the 1998 book of distinction by the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Sigal was a member of the editorial board of The New York Times from 1989-1995. He served in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, in 1979 as International Affairs Fellow and in 1980 as Special Assistant to the Director.

Sigal was a Rockefeller Younger Scholar in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in 1972-1974 and a guest scholar there in 1981-1984. From 1974-1989 he was a professor of government at Wesleyan University. He was an adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs from 1985-1989 and from 1996-2000, and a visiting lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School in 1988 and 2000.

His most recent book, Negotiating Minefields: The Landmines Ban in American Politics, was published in 2006. Sigal is also the author of Reporters and Officials: The Organization and Politics of Newsmaking; Alliance Security: NATO and the No-First-Use Question (with John Steinbruner); Nuclear Forces in Europe: Enduring Dilemmas, Present Prospects; Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945; and Hang Separately: Cooperative Security Between the United States and Russia, 1985-1994; as well as numerous articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic Monthly, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others. He edited The Changing Dynamics of U.S. Defense Spending.