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The back story was handled by anchor Katie Couric (at the tail of the Bill Whitaker videostream) on CBS, by Martha Raddatz on ABC and by Andrea Mitchell, traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Kenya, on NBC. All three pointed out that the journalists were never sent to prison as sentenced. They were allowed to telephone their families back in the United States and in mid-July they relayed a message from North Korea that a visit by Bill Clinton would secure their release. Their families told Al Gore; Gore asked Clinton to make the trip; the White House approved it; and once Clinton was assured in advance that the pardons would be granted he agreed to go.
NBC's Mitchell added the detail of the back-channel diplomacy that preceded those July phone calls: the State Department talked to North Korea's United Nations ambassador in New York City while in Pyongyang the Swedish ambassador looked after the journalists' interests. ABC's Raddatz explained that North Korea insisted on Clinton instead of Gore as the intermediary because "Kim Jong Il sees Clinton as a charismatic and powerful force who will attract world attention."
CBS' Couric consulted with diplomatic experts about the White House's purported insistence that Clinton was traveling "as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Obama Administration" and that Clinton's talks with Kim should not touch on North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Couric was skeptical: "Given the former President's interest in the issue it is likely the subject came up."
From the White House, ABC's Jake Tapper parsed the difference between Barack Obama's line that Clinton's trip was "strictly private" and Clinton's explanation that "the White House asked him" to go. Tapper's unidentified source, an Obama aide, tried the paraphrase that Clinton "coordinated his trip with the White House and that the White House said it was OK for him to go." Tapper was not impressed: "Of course that is not what President Clinton said." NBC's Mitchell reported that Obama telephoned Clinton today, "their first conversation since the mission began, to say he did a great job."
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