According to a briefing by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday, Clinton’s trip was a “private mission” given to him by President Barack Obama.
Gibbs also emphasized that Obama and Clinton had not talked since Clinton’s last visit to the White House in March. And he added that the tab for Clinton’s chartered airplane to and from North Korea was not picked up by the government.
“When their families, Vice President Gore and the White House asked that I undertake this humanitarian mission, I agreed,” said Clinton in a statement on Wednesday.
“I know the president is enormously thankful for his service,” said Mr. Gibbs. “And look, I think if the president is ever looking for people to help, former presidents are always a pretty good group to try.”
‘Private Visit’ a wise move?
According to some analysts, the White House may have made a wise move keeping the mission ‘unofficial.’
The White House made the visit unofficial rather than official in order to retrieve the journalists for “humanitarian” reasons while trying not to compromise the U.S. foreign policy and negotiate their position on other issues, said Stephen Yates, senior fellow in Asia Studies with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.
“I think that the White House spokesman was trying to have some distance between policy and diplomacy,” said Mr. Yates. “So they made a specific mission of getting the two journalists released. If nothing else, that was a smart negotiating posture, because we didn’t want Kim Jong Il and others to believe that they can get some kind of reward for holding hostages.”
