Happy New Year!
The “Christmas Surprise” that wasn’t It’s 2020, and after a long hiatus (caused in part by physical ailments, sigh!) I’m starting to post here again. I started the year off with a bang by posting a story on January 1…
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
Tim Shorrock
Tim Shorrock is a Washington-based investigative journalist who grew up in Japan and South Korea. He is the author of SPIES FOR HIRE: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence, published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster (see him talking about his book here). Over the past 35 years, his work has appeared in many publications in the United States and abroad, including The Nation, Salon, Daily Beast, Mother Jones, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus and Asia Times. He also appears frequently on the radio as a commentator on intelligence, contracting, foreign policy, East Asia and North and South Korea. He has been interviewed on Democracy Now, NPR’s Fresh Air, HuffPostLive and many other outlets.
And Behold, A White Horse
That line from Johnny Cash was all I could think of when these bizarre photos were posted on social media today. Here’s how the Washington Post reported the story. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was shown riding a white horse in…
Park Chung Hee and America’s Hidden Hand in Korea’s Dispute with Japan
The roots of the historical divisions between South Korea and Japan go back to a 1965 normalization treaty that was signed by Seoul and Tokyo after years of U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure. In a 2016 article in The Nation,…
Democratic Hawks Helped Scuttle the Hanoi Summit
I just wrote an editorial for The Nation on the US and North Korea, paying attention to the Democrats who are even more to the right than Trump. It will run in the magazine’s next print edition, which comes out…
Why the Trump-Kim Talks Ended so Damn Abruptly
Latest CNN story on Hanoi gives the real scoop. A few days ago, I posted my latest article in The Nation about the failed talks in Hanoi between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Here’s what the POTUS had to…
CSIS and NBC provide a case study in war propaganda
Spreading disinformation on North Korea’s satellite launch facility is a new low. So I got some answers about the site from 38 North. On Tuesday and Wednesday, NBC Nightly News broadcast a story by Andrea Mitchell making lurid allegations that…
The summit that wasn’t
Just posted at The Nation: “The Trump-Kim Talks Ended Abruptly—but Negotiations Will Continue.” I wrote this from DC after staying up all night watching Trump announce the failure of this go-round with the DPRK. My colleague Kathleen Richards reported from…
Moon Chung-in on Vox
Last night, February 26, I went to Twitter to rip Vox.com and Vox reporter Alex Ward for a story they had posted quoting Moon Chung-in, a senior adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, that a pending deal it described…
The New York Times’ Deception Story
My latest, just published in The Nation. Here’s the lead: The New York Times may still have a Judith Miller problem—only now it’s a David Sanger problem. Miller, of course, is the former Times reporter who helped build the case for the…
A few things you may not know about the UN Command in Korea
Note: This was reported and written in 2018, at a time when a peace agreement between North and South Korea seemed within reach. Seems like a long time ago. In my latest article, published today by The National Interest, I ask…
UNC-brokered agreement with the Koreas bodes well for the peace process
My interview with The Real News On Friday, I spoke to Aaron Mate of The Real News in Baltimore about this week’s agreement by the ROK, the DPRK and the UN Command to remove guard posts along the DMZ. I noted…
Pentagon suspends US-ROK exercises
In a surprise development, the Pentagon just announced it was suspending the next round of military exercises with South Korea to give diplomacy a chance to work. This comes after days of acrimony between the Trump and Moon administrations over…
Demining the DMZ
Who says North and South Korea can’t get along? This strikes me as very significant. Yonhap: SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Yonhap) — The two Koreas are wrapping up their demining operations in part of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to carry out…
Max Blumenthal’s Korea Scoop
Over at Harper’s yesterday, Washington journalist Max Blumenthal broke a major story about the Trump administration and North Korea. His scoop was buried in a typically gutsy story from Max about UN Ambassador (and major neocon) Nikki Haley and a speech she…
Agreed Framework was “murdered” by the Bush administration
In the midst of the massive pushback in Washington against the Trump administration’s denuclearization talks with Kim Jong Un, a former US intelligence analyst did some truth-telling about past negotiations. “The Agreed Framework did not fail; it was murdered. It…
Battling the Washington Consensus on Korea
In a commentary today in 38North, Leon Sigal hit the nail on the head. Before we get to it, some background. A week after President Trump met Kim Jong Un in Singapore, the US foreign policy establishment has settled on a simple…
The DPRK’s take on the Trump-Kim Summit
This is the rather amazing and highly unusual film produced by the DPRK about Kim Jong Un’s summit meeting with President Trump. Yes, I know the meeting is being trashed by many Democrats and national security experts. But, hey, it’s…
Sorry Dems, The Peace Train has Left the Station
Guest Post: Join the music festival on the DMZ June 23 and 24! By John R. Eperjesi On August 14, 1945, US Army colonel Dean Rusk and Army staffer Charles Bonesteel went into a room with a copy of National…
Guest post: Simone Chun on South Korea’s elections
Five takeaways from the ruling party’s landslide victory On June 14, less than 24 hours after the Trump-Kim Summit in Singapore, South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party (DP) won a landslide victory in local elections, winning 13 of 17 metropolitan mayoral…
DISPATCH KOREA on Democracy Now!
Trump Vows to End “Provocative” War Games on Korean Peninsula After Historic Summit with Kim Jong-un Here’s the interview I did last night on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.