Christopher Hill

By Brian Bennett

DEALMAKER

Diplomats are trained to stay in line. They promote national policy, but they never make it. Christopher Hill, the U.S.'s head envoy to North Korea, is that rare diplomat who did things differently, stepping out ahead of his talking points and managing to bring his bosses along with him. As a result, he is also helping to bring the most dangerous nation in Asia back into the global embrace.

Hill, 55, began his careful diplomatic dance back in July 2005, when the six-party talks--which included both North and South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China--were stalled. North Korea had restarted its nuclear reactors and was not responding to calls to shut them down. Hill, only five months into his post, wanted to bring the North back to the table, but the Bush Administration had a policy of not meeting one-on-one with Kim Jong Il's government, so Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed Hill could meet with his North Korean counterpart only if the Chinese were there. When the Chinese didn't arrive to host the dinner in the ornate dining room of the St. Regis Beijing, Hill made the decision to go ahead anyway. That day North Korea came aboard, and two weeks later, the talks resumed.

Rice protected Hill after his gamble, when powerful hawks in the Bush Administration were gunning for him for upending the strategy to further isolate the dictatorship. Rice, after all, would have known when she tapped him for the job that Hill was a pragmatic negotiator, a rep he earned as a key player in the accords that ended the Bosnian war.

Since his dinner at the St. Regis, Hill has continued to have face-to-face meetings with the North, along with handling diplomatic affairs with a sweep of other East Asian and Pacific countries. As the talks have made more headway, Hill has gotten greater latitude from the Administration. With some balking, the North has shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Recent talks have dangled carrots before Pyongyang like promising deliveries of heavy fuel oil in exchange for further denuclearization. The New York Philharmonic's visit to North Korea in February is not a direct result of Hill's work, but the event would surely have been less likely without the improved atmospherics he's helped bring about. And a world that's making music is a whole lot better than one that's making bombs.