The New Yorker
A REPORTER AT LARGE
OUR MAN IN PYONGYANG
Bobby EganÕs barbecue diplomacy.
by Rebecca Mead
OCTOBER 8, 2007
CubbyÕs, a barbecue restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey, is on an undistinguished strip of discount stores and parking lots not far from Costco and the Bergen County Courthouse. It would be within sight of the Bergen County Jail, if the jail had better sight lines. Amid such surroundings, CubbyÕs stands out. The parking lot is elaborately landscaped, with thick beds of pink and white impatiens, grassy banks, and well-placed evergreen shrubs, in the manner of a suburban funeral home. Inside, the place is half steak house, half burger joint, with reproduction Tiffany lamps suspended over Formica tables, and gilt-edged mirrors hanging near framed snapshots of sports celebrities and clippings from local newspapers lauding the ribs. On one wall, an enormous mural depicts the skyline of downtown Manhattan with the World Trade Center intact. Customers place orders at the front counter; behind it, on a board, is the menu, which ranges from hot dogs to twenty-seven-dollar T-bone steaks. A hand-painted sign showing a dyspeptic pig in a chefÕs hat hangs next to a placard that reads ÒWhereÕs the pork?Ó
At lunchtime, the place is full of regulars: local businessmen and lawyers from the courthouse, all of whom the proprietor, Robert Egan, greets with a clap on the back or a hearty ÒWhatÕs up, bro?Ó Egan, who is forty-nine and is known as Bobby, is of Irish descent on his fatherÕs side and Italian on his motherÕs. He is more than six feet tall and burly, with a shock of black hair. He has dark eyes, incipient jowls, and a manner that can change in a moment from expansively genial to theatrically menacing. If you were casting a local television commercial for a Union City car dealership and needed someone who could evoke Robert De Niro in his fleshier, mid-career period, Bobby Egan would be your man.
Egan, who has run CubbyÕs for twenty-five years, is well known in Hackensack, though not solely for the quality of his ribs. For nearly fifteen years, he has served as a kind of unofficial ambassadorÑa go-between and a goferÑfor the government of North Korea. He is, as he puts it, ÒKim Jong IlÕs guy in New Jersey.Ó Dozens of photographs on his restaurant walls offer testimony to EganÕs improbable involvement in international diplomacy. Among the pictures of friendly Giants and Yankees are several images of besuited, slightly ill-at-ease-looking Asian men posing at CubbyÕs.
ÒThatÕs Minister Han, before he became Ambassador here,Ó Egan said to me, pointing to a youthful, bespectacled man in a blue suit. (Han Song Ryol, who joined North KoreaÕs U.N. delegation in 1993, ended his tenure as Ambassador last year and returned to Pyongyang.) ÒAnd thatÕs Ambassador Ho Jong.Ó (Ho left his post in 1994.) In another photograph, a gentleman with the same black hair and grin as Egan stands with a beaming young female athlete, Kye Sun Hui. ÒThatÕs my dad at the Atlanta Olympics, in Õ96,Ó Egan said. ÒShe won the judo title when she was just sixteen. SheÕs a hero in North Korea. She still asks about me.Ó
In one corner of the restaurant is a photograph showing a dreary skyline, shot from what looks like a viewing platform. ÒThatÕs Pyongyang,Ó Egan said. ÒThatÕs when they gave me my pin.Ó The pin to which he refers bears an image of Kim Il Sung, the father of North KoreaÕs Stalinist state, who died in 1994, and whose son is Kim Jong Il, its current leader. North Koreans wear similar pins as a sign of respect for their head of state. Egan keeps his pin in a small, cluttered back office at CubbyÕs. ÒIÕm told there are only two Westerners that have pinsÑme and some guy from Romania,Ó Egan said. ÒI got the pin at the end of my first trip. They inducted me into their family. They said, ÔYou are part of us.Õ I thought, When in Rome, IÕm Roman.Ó
Above a corner booth at CubbyÕs is a clipping from the front page of the Times, dated November 3, 2002, with the headline ÒNORTH KOREA SAYS NUCLEAR PROGRAM CAN BE NEGOTIATED.Ó (At the time, North KoreaÑformally known as the Democratic PeopleÕs Republic of Korea, or D.P.R.K.Ñwas still three years away from announcing that it had detonated a nuclear device.) Ambassador Han is quoted as saying that his country was willing to dismantle its secret uranium-enrichment facilities, in spite of having been branded by President George W. Bush, in that yearÕs State of the Union address, as a member of Òan Axis of Evil.Ó The Ambassador, the article recounts, had asked to be interviewed by the paper: ÒThe North Korean Mission contacted the Times through a New Jersey restaurateur, Robert Egan, who is the chairman of a trade group that has worked to improve ties between the United States and North Korea.Ó Egan, explaining his identification in the newspaper of record, said, ÒYou have to have a reason to move around in a country like that, so the North Koreans made me the president of the U.S.A.-D.P.R.K. Trade Council, or some president of some trade council.Ó
Egan first travelled to North Korea in 1994. He says that he has made Òbetween four and sixÓ visits since then. He has never met Kim Jong Il, who is highly reclusive, and whose political intentions and personal tastesÑincluding a reported fondness for slasher films, luxury cars, and basketballÑhave been the subject of much speculation in the West. ÒI was on the same platform as Kim Jong Il when I got that pin,Ó Egan told me. ÒBut he was up there, and I was down here. It would be very difficult for me to sit down with him or meet him, because they keep him very isolated.Ó Egan says that he respects Kim as a leader, just as he respects Bush as a leader, although there are important differences between the two men. ÒPut it this way, O.K.? IÕd rather have George Bush mad at me than Kim Jong Il,Ó Egan said one day at CubbyÕs, leaning confidentially over the table. ÒI have no problem with George Bush coming in the restaurant and yelling and screaming at me. I would sleep real good that night. I wouldnÕt want to get His Excellency Kim Jong Il angry. I wouldnÕt sleep well that night.Ó
Egan is confident that, for many years, his actions have met with the approval of the North Korean regime, despite his occasional disregard for subtlety. Four years ago, when the North Korean womenÕs soccer team was in the United States for the WomenÕs World Cup, Egan popped up again in the Times; on this occasion, he was serving as the squadÕs outspoken chef. He had also attempted, unsuccessfully, to secure the sponsorship of a sports-drink company. ÒTo demonstrate the incendiary power of the North Korean team,Ó the Times reported, Egan Òsaid he suggested a commercial featuring a nuclear explosion that would occur as a player struck the ball.Ó
When the story appeared, the soccer team was practicing at a camp in rural Pennsylvania, and Ambassador Han was visiting. ÒMy father called me and said, ÔYou had better get every New York Times in that town out of there,Õ Ó Egan recalled. ÒSo we went around and got all the Timeses. Usually, the Ambassador reads the New York Times on Sunday, and he said to me, ÔI canÕt find the Times anywhere.Õ I had them all stacked up in my roomÑa hundred of them.Ó Egan was, however, unable to pull off a complete coverup. ÒTwo days later, Ambassador Han comes up to me at the soccer camp and said, ÔA nuclear explosion with a soccer ball? In the middle of a nuclear crisis?Õ And he just looked at me. He said, ÔI sent the paper back to Pyongyang,Õ and walked away. Two days later, I am sitting on the side of a scrimmage, and here comes Han. I thought, IÕm getting my walking papers. But he said, ÔPyongyang and our generals loved it. You stand for strength, and thatÕs strength. Let everybody know we have nuclear weapons!Õ They thought it was great.Ó
Precisely how Bobby Egan came to be a liaison with the North Koreans is something of a mystery. He certainly does not have the pedigree of Christopher Hill, President BushÕs top negotiator in the current six-party talks with North Korea, in Beijing. (These negotiations, which have taken place on and off for the past four years, have touched on many issues, from the future of North KoreaÕs nuclear program to the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations with the United States.) Hill was educated at Bowdoin and the Naval War College, and speaks half a dozen languages. ÒAnybody IÕm associated with, weÕre a bit out there, O.K.?Ó Egan told me one day at his restaurant. ÒWeÕre not type-A personalities. We might be a Y or a Z.Ó
Egan was raised in Fairfield, New Jersey, which is a twenty-minute drive west of Hackensack. His father was a roofing contractor. ÒI had a very tough upbringing,Ó he recalled. ÒIn my town, we grew up knowing that if you hurt someone you are going to get hurt back, period. You are not going to go into counselling. They are not going to look into your childhood. You are going to get your ass busted.Ó He graduated from West Essex Senior High School in 1976, even though he barely attended class. Michael Nigro, who has been a friend of EganÕs since third grade, said, ÒI donÕt think they were ever going to fail us, because they just wanted us out. We went as far as hanging our teacher by his feetÑwe stood up on top of the desk and shook himÑuntil he changed our grade to a C. ThatÕs how we passed English.Ó
By his mid-teens, Egan was working at the local trapshooting range, setting up clay pigeons and doing other odd jobs. The clientele, he said, included some Òbad guys.Ó In Fairfield, he explained, Òthere is very little distance between good guys and bad guys. We are all friends. We all grew up together.Ó Egan says that from an early age he was approached by F.B.I. agents. ÒThey would say, ÔAre you going to help us out?,Õ and I would say, ÔNo, IÕm not going to help you out,Õ and they would say, ÔYouÕre going to get jammed up eventually, and then you are going to have to help us out.Õ Ó
The Vietnam War was still under way when Egan started high school, and, instead of studying, he was preoccupied with preparing himself for the draft. He recalled, ÒI said to my buddies early on, ÔWe have got to get ready. We had better train ourselves to be fucking animals.Õ And we did. We became expert marksmen, and mentally we were very harsh. We could be devoid of any type of human emotion.Ó He and Nigro, who is now a contractor in Fairfield, went on survivalist missions in the New Jersey woods for days at a time. ÒWe used to bring our shotguns to school, taken apart, in paper bags,Ó Nigro said. ÒOn trips, we took canoes, and brought tents with us. WeÕd shoot whatever was in season and cook it over a fireÑwoodcock, grouse, ducks.Ó Occasionally, if the hunting didnÕt yield much, they would emerge from the swamps of New Jersey for a deli sandwich.
By the time Egan graduated, the Vietnam War had ended, and so, instead of being shipped to Southeast Asia, he became a roofer, like his father. He established his own business, but within a couple of years he went broke and declared bankruptcy. ÒI thought, I guess there are no options left,Ó he said. ÒSo I went and called a couple of the boys up and I said, ÔGot any room on your crew for me?Õ And they looked at me and they said, ÔWhatÕs your last name?Õ I said, ÔYou know my last name.Õ And they said, ÔSay it.Õ ÔEgan.Õ ÔEgan. Kid, go and find legitimate work. YouÕre not Italian, youÕre only half, and youÕll never move up the ranks.Õ The next day, I am hunting with my dogs in the woods and I am crying that my life is over. I canÕt even go on the wrong side of the law.Ó
By 1982, though, Egan had picked himself up enough to open CubbyÕs, in partnership with a friend, Leonard Wehrle, and WehrleÕs parents, who owned the lot that CubbyÕs was built on. (The restaurant is named for one of Leonard WehrleÕs daughters, Rebecca, whose nickname was Cubby.) Aside from EganÕs having worked as a dishwasher, none of them had any experience in the restaurant business. Charlotte Wehrle, LeonardÕs eighty-seven-year-old mother, who did all the cooking, recalled, ÒThe first day we opened, we realized weÕd forgotten pots. We had to run back to my house to get the biggest pots I had. Being Italian, I had a big macaroni pot, but that was all.Ó At first, CubbyÕs served only hot dogs, chili, and burgers. Egan was an eager, if sometimes erratic, businessman, according to Mrs. Wehrle. ÒWorking with Bobby was very difficult,Ó she said. ÒHe would go out and buy a case of frozen chickens because they were a bargain. But we werenÕt selling chickens. TheyÕre only a bargain if you are selling them.Ó
Several years ago, Egan bought out the Wehrle family. He now has a staff of fourteen, and says that CubbyÕs serves upward of five hundred people a day. A familiar presence behind the counter is Lilia Mani, who is the mother of EganÕs two daughters, and whom he refers to as his wife. The couple have been separated for about a year.
Although Egan never served in Vietnam, he remained obsessed with the war. ÒA neighbor of mine went overseas, and when he came back he was a changed person,Ó Egan told me. ÒHe was more of a loner, more aggressive. You could see it in their eyesÑthere was some type of loss in their eyes. Something was missing.Ó He recalled NixonÕs statement, in 1973, that all P.O.W.s were on their way home, and doubted its veracity. ÒIÕd studied Vietnam on my own, and I knew it was factionalÑthere was no big government controlling Vietnam but there were ethnic groups that were switching week to week. I had an interest in this that needed to be resolved.Ó
Egan took his interest to unconventional lengths: he called up the Vietnamese mission to the United Nations, paid a visit, and said that he wanted to establish a friendship. ÒThey come from a poor nation, they are underfunded over here, and they are probably pretty goddam lonely so many thousands of miles away from home,Ó he said. ÒSo now they are over here, they ainÕt got a goddam thing to do when the U.N. is closed, and they ainÕt got no money. No-brainer! I could bring a stray dog in there and they would get along. And I am bringing the bag of tricksÑballgames, racetracks, fishing trips, lunches, dinners. And there ainÕt a line of people waiting to do that. If you had five dollars and you had all weekend to do nothing, and I came along, youÕd want to hang out with me, too.Ó
According to Egan, he became an Òunofficial secretaryÓ to the mission, and gradually began to discuss his concerns about P.O.W.s with Ambassador Nguyen Can, who, he said, told him that his government had held P.O.W.s at the end of the war who might still be alive in Laos. (Nguyen Can was eventually recalled to Vietnam, and no P.O.W.s were released.)
Another Vietnamese national whom Egan befriended was Le Quang Khai, who had served for eleven years at the foreign ministry in Hanoi. Le was in the United States on a student visa to do graduate work at Columbia University. In September of 1992, Le defected, telling reporters that it was well known in the Vietnamese government that American P.O.W.s had been held after the war. That October, an article appeared in USA Today, in which Le said that he felt like a Òhunted manÓ for speaking out about the possible existence of P.O.W.s in Vietnam and Laos. Le, the article noted, Òbecame involved with the P.O.W./M.I.A. community through the work of Bob Egan, a New Jersey restaurateur and activist.Ó
Shortly thereafter, Le and Egan testified before a Senate select committee on P.O.W./M.I.A. affairs. John McCreary, a senior intelligence analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was an investigator for the select committee, took depositions from both Le and Egan. ÒI never did figure out how Bobby made his connection with the Vietnamese, but he didÑthe connection was genuine,Ó McCreary, who is now retired, says. ÒHis story was hard to believe, but it bore out. He walked into the Vietnamese Embassy because he wanted to Ôhelp out,Õ or something preposterous like that.Ó In his deposition, Egan said that he had travelled to Vietnam on a number of occasions, in an effort to gain more information on P.O.W.s. ÒI was always talking about live Americans to them,Ó Egan told McCreary. ÒA common saying of mine is ÔIf you killed them, youÕd better breathe some life into them, because youÕll never get what you want unless we get live guys back.Õ Ó
That Christmas Eve, Egan was on his way to his motherÕs house when, he says, he was approached by immigration agents. ÒThey came up to me and the guy said, ÔMerry Christmas, Mr. Egan,Õ and he handed me the denial of LeÕs request for political asylum,Ó Egan says. ÒHe says, ÔTheyÕre sending him back to Vietnam.Õ Ó Egan drew media attention to LeÕs case, and eventually asylum was granted. Egan said of the immigration official, ÒThatÕs one guy I wish I hit. I wish I broke his fucking jaw. ThatÕs the only guy in my life that I didnÕt hit and wished I had.Ó
EganÕs eagerness to take justice into his own hands, and his selective disregard for the channels through which justice is conventionally dispensed, has landed him in trouble many times. ÒI ainÕt running for President,Ó he said. ÒBelieve me, IÕm no angel. But I am not a thief. IÕm not a tax cheat. I donÕt hijack things.Ó People close to Egan are used to his inflammatory nature. ÒWe have bumped heads every day of our lives,Ó Michael Nigro told me. ÒWe were in Wyoming hunting once, and we were in a restaurant and we had a fight, an argument that was so bad we got kicked out. It was the only restaurant around. After that, we had to drive forty miles to eat.Ó EganÕs official record, though, is only slightly grubby. Although he admits to having been thrown in jail a few times, he has no felony convictions. As a young man, he was convicted on a misdemeanor: ÒWe were all drunk and we parked out in a lot, and my dogÕs running over to the firewood pile and bringing us firewood back, and weÕre throwing the firewood in the pickup truck,Ó Egan said. ÒAnd we got arrested for taking firewood off the lot. My hunting dog did it. And I took the rap for it.Ó
Egan has been involved in various legal fights and has had long-running disputes with the police. In 1996, he filed a federal civil-rights suit against the City of Hackensack, claiming that police officers had come into his restaurant expecting free food, and that he had been pressured to hire off-duty cops as security for events that he was holding at CubbyÕs. The suit also claimed that he had been choked, punched, and attacked with Mace or pepper spray by police officers whom he called to his restaurant after a customer had become disruptive. EganÕs larger claims of being targeted by the police were dismissed, but, in 2000, the city paid him three hundred thousand dollars to settle the charges relating to the brawl. ÒThe city paid me three hundred thousand dollars because they arrested me for no reason,Ó he told me.
In August of 2001, Egan was indicted on assault and bias charges after three West African customers claimed that he had refused to serve them at CubbyÕs, had used racial slurs in addressing them, and had engaged them in a fight in the parking lot. Egan, who denied the charges, launched a campaign against Kimberly Holmes, the assistant prosecutor in the case. He posted a message on the electronic-zipper sign in front of his restaurant, declaring Holmes a winner of CubbyÕs Òfirst annual Pork Butt award.Ó He also rented a plane that flew above the statehouse in Trenton with a banner streaming behind it that read ÒProsecutor Kim Holmes: Stop the Lies.Ó A closed-circuit videotape of the incident showed that Egan had repeatedly attempted to take the customersÕ orders, and had made no racial slurs; charges were later dropped. ÒI was the one that got jumped, and there were fourteen witnesses that seen me jumped,Ó he says. ÒThey were threatening me. They paid for it. I know how to defend myself.Ó
Egan believes in the effectiveness of well-placed violence. ÒI donÕt believe in hurting people unless they are going to hurt you. And if they are going to hurt you and your family, or your country, then eat them for dinner,Ó Egan said over lunch one day at the Cheesecake Factory in Hackensack. (Egan, who would like to lose about fifteen pounds, ordered a Chinese chicken salad.) ÒThatÕs my beliefÑan eye for an eye,Ó he added. ÒThen the whole world will be blind? Well, thatÕs why theyÕve got eye surgery.Ó Egan is a patriot of a particularly vivid stripe, and, having been denied a chance to fight for his country in Vietnam, he declares himself more than ready to kill for it, should duty call. ÒIf you told me that to get bin Laden IÕd have to physically eat him for dinnerÑhis whole bodyÑIÕd say, ÔWell, weÕve got a lot of barbecue sauce. LetÕs barbecue him.Õ Ó
In the early nineties, as Vietnam and the United States began restoring diplomatic ties, EganÕs contacts at the Vietnamese mission told him that North Korean officials in New York were looking for someone who might help ease them toward better relations with the U.S. The Vietnamese suggested Egan. ÒThere were no other options for the Koreans,Ó he said. ÒThey said, ÔYouÕre all that weÕve got. Would you work with us?Õ And I said yes.Ó
Egan told the North Korean diplomats that they needed to present themselves as less secretive, and in 1994 he invited them to make a rare public appearanceÑat CubbyÕs. The North Koreans came and met with members of the Giants, then went to a Nets game and toured the locker room. (The Bergen County Record covered the event: ÒNorth Korean officials seeking to end an impasse over inspections of their countryÕs nuclear facilities took time out from their negotiations this week to eat steak in Hackensack.Ó) And during the 1996 Summer Olympics, in Atlanta, Egan arranged for a contingent of North Korean officials to stay with volunteers for an organization called the National Alliance for the Return of AmericaÕs Missing Servicemen. Dolores Alfond, the groupÕs leader, recalled, ÒWe had four or five different officials and their wives, and we more or less tried to entertain them and to emphasize that we were interested in our prisoners of war.Ó
In the mid-nineties, Egan began to forge ties with Han Song Ryol, the North Korean who eventually became an ambassador. In Han, Egan seems to have found an unlikely kindred spirit. ÒHanÕs my brother. You understand that?Ó he says. ÒIÕd die for that man. I wonÕt betray my country for him, but IÕd take a bullet for him without a question.Ó On one occasion when I was at CubbyÕs, the younger of EganÕs two daughters, who is nine, happened to be in the restaurant, and Egan called her over. ÒWhereÕs my kissy?Ó Egan said, pulling her close. He then asked, ÒWhoÕs your uncle?Ó She replied, with a toss of the head, ÒIf I must say it for the millionth timeÑUncle Han.Ó (Han could not be reached in North Korea. But the friendliness of his dealings with Egan may be inferred from a letter that he sent Egan in 1995, concerning flood damage suffered in North Korea, in which he addresses Egan informally, if imperfectly, as ÒBoby.Ó)
Like Egan, Han was a tough guy, if a much smaller and better-educated one. One day, Han reluctantly admitted that he had a toothache, and so Egan sent him to an oral surgeon. ÒThe dentist tells me, ÔWell, yeah, heÕs got a toothache. All his teeth ache. WeÕre going to have to pull them all out and give him implants,ÕÓ Egan recalled. ÒI told Han and he said, ÔIÕm North Korean, you understand that? You know how tough we are? So when I said I had a toothache, it means that all my teeth are rotten, I got gum disease, and I have to have them all pulled out. What did you think, that I would complain about one tooth, like you?Õ Ó Han underwent the surgery, requesting that Egan stay in the room with him. ÒI donÕt know how many teeth he pulled, but I think he pulled most of them out in one shot,Ó Egan told me. ÒThey went at it, man. It was gross.Ó After the surgery, Egan said, Han insisted on going to CubbyÕs for lunch. ÒWe sat down, and I said, ÔYou want some mashed potatoes?Õ Ó Egan said. ÒHe looked me up and down and he says, ÔPut a rack of ribs on.Õ And he sat there and ate a rack of ribs. Then Han said, ÔNow go and get my prescription for the infection. DonÕt worry about the pain medicationÑI donÕt want you to spend money on that.Õ So I came back and IÕm giving it to him and he says, ÔI told you not to get the pain medicine.Õ I said, ÔMinister Han, please take it.Õ But he said, ÔI donÕt want it.Õ And now heÕs got a Hollywood smile.Ó (John Kallis, the surgeon who performed the extractions, said that he and Han became so friendly that he invited Han to his daughterÕs sweet-sixteen party. Han sent a gift.)
According to Egan, he and Han used to joke about having the opportunity to fight each other if it came to war between the U.S. and North Korea. ÒI said to him, ÔWhen I get to you, I am going to yank all those teeth out with pliers before I kill you,Õ Ó Egan recalled. ÒHe laughed and said, ÔYou donÕt even want to know what IÕm going to do to you.Õ Ó
EganÕs interactions with the North Koreans in New York sometimes took the form of trout-fishing expeditions and pheasant-hunting trips in New Jersey. ÒI donÕt play golf and I donÕt play bridge,Ó Egan said. ÒNor do the North Koreans.Ó The group was joined by Michael Nigro, EganÕs swamp-survivalist buddy, who says that, at least five times, he took North Koreans to the hunting club and the fishing club to which he belongs. On these excursions, Egan also took along Michael OÕDonovan, a retired police captain and the head of a small private security firm, who has worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, El Salvador, and Israel. Depending on the size of the North Korean party, OÕDonovan told me, he engaged between two and six employeesÑeach equipped with a rifle, a shotgun, and a handgunÑto insure the North KoreansÕ personal safety.
Egan made his first trip to North Korea in 1994, accompanied by Dave Bratton, a minister. At the time, Bratton was a volunteer chaplain for the Giants; Egan had come to know him in the early nineties, when he undertook Bible study with Bratton. Egan said, ÒKim Jong Il sent word down asking why did I bring Bratton, and I said in case he didnÕt like me or passed harsh judgment on me I would have a priest to give me my last rites. They got a big kick out of that.Ó (Egan, during this period, was Òa seeker,Ó Bratton recalled. He was raised Catholic, and aspires to more religiosity than he achieves. ÒIÕm a foxhole guy,Ó Egan told me. ÒWhen IÕve got my heart broken or IÕm on somebodyÕs hit list, thatÕs when I get down and pray.Ó) Bratton said that they were taken to the sights of Pyongyang, including the tomb of Kim Il Sung. ÒEverybody is supposed to take a bouquet of flowers and put it at Kim Il SungÕs grave and bow,Ó he said. ÒI was saying to Bobby, ÔWhat do I do now?Õ And he said, ÔYou do what I do.Õ I started to bow, and I felt BobbyÕs hand on my arm. Then I saw him nod his head right down and back up.Ó
Egan said that nothing heÕd ever seen had prepared him for North Korea: ÒI had been in some isolated nations beforeÑin Hanoi before we had diplomatic relations, in villages in LaosÑbut I have never seen isolation like I have seen in North Korea. I knew I was in a special place.Ó Egan said that he was allowed to go jogging in the streets of Pyongyang, where the virtual absence of cars makes for some of the cleanest urban air in Asia. And he says that he even went inside PyongyangÕs most distinctive and embarrassing attraction, the Ryugyong Hotel, a pyramidal poured-concrete structure, a hundred and five stories tall, which was started in the nineteen-eighties and never completed, because of structural problems. Egan said, ÒThey didnÕt want to take me in it, but I said, ÔListen, we all make mistakes. But if the architectÕs body is hanging in there I donÕt want to see it.Õ Ó
Egan also visited the North Korean countryside, which made Pyongyang look prosperous by comparison. On one visit, not long after the devastating famine the country suffered in the mid-nineties, Egan thought that there might be an opportunity for him to engage in his favorite pastime. ÒI was travelling on a train, and it would stop often because it ran out of electricity, and so IÕd get out and look at the different villages, which were very remote and impoverished,Ó he told me. ÒI noticed that in every cornfield there were deer standsÑa raised stand, with a guard. I said, ÔI like to hunt. Why donÕt you take me hunting?Õ And they said, ÔWhat are you talking about, Bobby? TheyÕre not deer stands. TheyÕre guards protecting the corn from people coming out in the middle of the night and stealing it.Õ And I took a deep breath.Ó
In 1996, Egan went to North Korea with Captain Eugene (Red) McDaniel, a naval officer who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam from 1967 to 1973. Both men believed that North Korea might be holding American P.O.W.s. When they wanted to do research in PyongyangÕs military archives, a North Korean official suggested that the party enter through the back door, and Egan took him to task for paying insufficient respect to an American war hero. They entered through the front door. Egan told me, ÒMcDaniel said, ÔSix years in Vietnam, and I never, ever thought that I wouldnÕt get out, but I am not so sure about this. You donÕt have to stick up for meÑitÕs O.K. They can disrespect me a bit.Õ Ó McDaniel, who is now seventy-six years old, confirmed EganÕs account, and said of him, ÒI was very impressed with his ability to deal with officials at the highest level of government.Ó The two men failed to bring home any P.O.W.s, however. ÒI came back empty-handed,Ó McDaniel said. ÒWe did not achieve anything.Ó
In his capacity as the head of the U.S.A.-D.P.R.K. Trade Council, Egan investigated the possibility of helping the North Koreans establish some rudimentary industries, such as food and fertilizer production. He showed me a draft of a letter that he said he sent to the U.S. Treasury Department, requesting a license to operate a poultry farm in North Korea. The initial plan, he said, was to supply eggs and chickens at the site of two light-water reactors that, in 1994, the U.S. had agreed to help build in North Korea, in exchange for Korea shutting down its nuclear program. (The agreement fell apart, and the light-water reactors were never built. Neither was the poultry farm.)
Egan says that he even considered going into business in North Korea. He says that the North Koreans asked if he would open a branch of CubbyÕs at the light-water-reactor site, after he had helped them in the 1994 negotiations. ÒThey took me up to the site and they said, ÔIn honor of your hard work, and our recognition of what you have done for us, we bring you up here, and we want you to build a CubbyÕs restaurant. And your government is going to see for the duration of this project that it was your involvement that got this done.Õ I couldnÕt believe it. I was in tears. Of course, it was impossible for me to do. I said, ÔI donÕt have the money,Õ because one thing I know is that in North Korea you donÕt make money. They take the money. As good a friend as I can be, theyÕll take the money.Ó Though he didnÕt extend his barbecue franchise, Egan continued to ingratiate himself with the regime. In a letter dated March 11, 1997, Kim Hyong U, North KoreaÕs Permanent Representative and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, offered to Egan his Òdeep gratitude . . . for your felicitation to our great leader comrade Kim Jong Il on the occasion of his fifty-fifth birth anniversary.Ó
Egan also became involved with bringing humanitarian supplies to North Korea and verifying that they were distributed properly. On two occasions, he was accompanied to Pyongyang by Stewart Greenleaf, a state senator from Pennsylvania. ÒWe carried humanitarian aid with us on the plane, and had some of it shippedÑbaby food, medicines, vitamins,Ó Greenleaf said. On the first trip, he and Egan visited a hospital in Pyongyang to insure that their aid shipment had arrived. While there, they were invited into an operating room to witness minor surgery. ÒThe patient was awake, and he had his coat on, because it was so cold,Ó Greenleaf recalled. Egan got into an argument with North Korean officials on that trip, too. Egan and Greenleaf were at the Beijing airport, en route to Pyongyang; North Korean customs officials demanded that Greenleaf pay a substantial tariff on the medical supplies he was bringing into the country. But, after strong words were exchanged, Egan and Greenleaf got through without paying anything.
Through Greenleaf, Egan made the acquaintance of William A. Henry, who heads a faith-based humanitarian organization, AmericaÕs Heart, which, according to Henry, has shipped Òeverything from ambulances to food suppliesÓ to North Korea. ÒBetween the D.P.R.K. and ourselves, Egan is a liaison,Ó Henry said. ÒHe is a known and trusted individual to the North Koreans. He is someone they can relate to.Ó
After IÕd spent some time talking with Egan about his exploits, he decided that it was time I witnessed for myself the intimacy of his relationship with the North Koreans. That evening, he said, he would be going to New York for a meeting, and he wanted to confirm the details. We were driving in his car: a black Hummer equipped with a radar detector, and packed with fishing equipment and a shooting target made from stuffed sackcloth. Egan hit the speed dial on the carÕs cell-phone extension. ÒMy Minister! How are you?Ó he said when a man with a Korean accent picked upÑapparently, Minister Kim Myong Gil, a top official at the North Korean mission. ÒIÕll see you tonight, O.K.? Probably seven-thirty, no later than eight, O.K.?Ó
ÒO.K.,Ó said the voice on the phone.
ÒHowÕs everything? O.K.? HowÕs the soccer?Ó Egan asked, speaking of the 2007 WomenÕs World Cup, which took place last month in China. ÒHey, if I go to Beijing, you give me tickets for the soccer match, O.K.?Ó
ÒI donÕt have the tickets.Ó
ÒHow about your Embassy over there? The girls want to see me, I know that,Ó Egan said.
This elicited a laugh. ÒThe Chinese have all the control.Ó
ÒWell, youÕve got to call the Chinese Embassy,Ó Egan said. ÒTell them Mr. Bobby needs a couple of tickets, and I got to support your girls.Ó
ÒO.K.,Ó the voice said, agreeably.
ÒAll right. See you later,Ó Egan said, with a broad grin.
A little before eight that evening, I met Egan on the East Side of Manhattan, a few blocks from the United Nations. We walked down Second Avenue, from the parking lot where Egan had left his Hummer to the nondescript office building at Forty-fourth Street where the North Koreans have their offices. Egan, who was wearing jeans and a red sports shirt, flashed an I.D. at the buildingÕs security guardÑgiving the impression that he was a cop, without exactly saying as muchÑand strode into the elevator. ÒGuess what floor theyÕre on?Ó he said. ÒThirteen.Ó We went down a corridor, and Egan knocked on a door marked with a sign for the D.P.R.K. A man in a suit opened the door a hand-breadth and peered out, without showing a glimmer of recognition.
ÒIÕm here to see Minister Kim,Ó Egan said. ÒTell him itÕs Robert Egan. Mr. Bobby.Ó The man disappeared, shutting the door, and reappeared a few moments later.
ÒHeÕs not here,Ó he reported, shiftily. ÒThey finished work. He will be back in the morning.Ó
Egan and I descended to Second Avenue, Egan shaking his head. ÒSomethingÕs up,Ó he said. The man at the mission, he explained, was a new guy. Egan pulled out his cell phone and dialled KimÕs number. ÒWhere you at, bro?Ó he said when the phone was answered. ÒI thought we had a meeting.Ó He listened, then said, ÒI understand, I understand. So youÕll come out to lunch at the restaurant tomorrow? O.K., see you then.Ó Egan snapped the phone shut and told me that Kim had been delayed. ÒMaybe he had a meeting, or someone came and offered to take them out to dinner,Ó he speculated. ÒOr maybe they were testing me, getting me to come out all this way just to see if I would do it.Ó
I got in a cab to go home, and a few minutes later my cell phone rang. It was Egan. ÒI donÕt want you to think IÕve ever overstated my role with them,Ó he said. ÒIÕm the guy who sits under the table, picking up the scraps.Ó
The next morning, I took a cab through the Lincoln Tunnel into Union CityÑpast the sign welcoming me to ÒThe Embroidery Capital of the WorldÓÑand made the fifteen-minute trip to CubbyÕs. Egan assured me that the North Koreans were coming. He installed me in a rear booth, and I ordered lunch. Within minutes, a piece of grilled chicken big enough for two, and smothered with sweet sauce, was delivered to my table. Not long afterward, two Korean gentlemen, dressed in business attire, entered the restaurant and were greeted warmly by Egan.
ÒWhatÕll you have? Steak?Ó he asked, and told them to take the table at the back. The men sat down a few feet from me, under another mural that Egan had commissioned, which shows himÑin a slightly slimmer incarnationÑstanding soberly at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, examining the engraved names; ghostly images of P.O.W.s are reflected in the granite.
After a few minutes, Egan joined his guests, and they talked for forty-five minutes or so. Apparently, one of the Koreans was Minister Kim. I could hear EganÕs booming voice quite clearly, as could, probably, half the other customers. They talked about the quality of the steak, which Kim thought had improved since his last visit. ÒLast time, you were a counsellor, you just got the sliced steak, but now youÕre MinisterÑyou get the T-bone!Ó Egan told Kim. The Koreans expressed an interest in going fishing for trout, and Egan said that heÕd bring along Michael OÕDonovan; at the mention of this name, Kim pretended to shoot a gun.
Egan asked how the talks in Beijing were going, and urged the Koreans to press for a visit to Pyongyang by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He told Kim that he was ready to make another trip to Pyongyang himself. ÒTake me off the bench, coach,Ó he said. They joked about the U.S.S. Pueblo, the spy ship that was captured by the North Koreans in 1968. Egan said that he would give the Koreans five Hummers in exchange for the Pueblo; the Koreans laughed.
ÒYou figure out what you will make over the next ten years charging tourists ten dollars to see it,Ó Egan said. ÒThe tourists you will getÑfive Hummers will be worth more than that.Ó One of the Koreans made a counteroffer, and Egan laughed. ÒTen million?Ó he said. ÒScrap value! IÕll give you scrap value!Ó
Although EganÕs most tangible accomplishment in North Korea may be his efforts on behalf of humanitarian agencies, he lays claim to another, more unlikely role: as an unofficial analyst and policy adviser to the North Koreans. The North Koreans are not well schooled in the nuances of American culture, Egan said. He claims that he helps the North Koreans parse American statements and actions, and offers his own suggestions about how they might respond. His interpretive role is semantic, not linguistic. Egan does not speak KoreanÑÒI asked them once, ÔYou going to teach me?,Õ and they said, ÔListen, you have a hard enough time with EnglishÕ ÓÑand says that his North Korean associates prefer that he remain in the dark so that they can talk privately in his presence.
One of the quirks of EganÕs relationship with the North Koreans is that even as he was befriending them he was also informing American intelligence agencies of their activities. The North Koreans, he says, were well aware that he was doing this. In a photograph that hangs on the wall of CubbyÕs, Egan, in a chefÕs jacket, is standing behind a group of Asian men who are posing for the camera. Egan appears to be reaching for something on one of the menÕs backs. He told me that he was grabbing a piece of hair so that the American intelligence authorities could analyze it and determine what medications the official was taking, and whether he was a blood relative of any other North Korean diplomats on whom they had data. (The F.B.I. declined to confirm whether or not Egan has ever had a role with the agency. However, he showed me a copy of his F.B.I. file, which ran to many pages. Much of it was redacted, but it confirms that information has been obtained from him.) ÒWhen the Koreans are talking to our government, like they are now, and when things are this good, the last person you want to be around, if you are on the U.S. side, is me,Ó Egan told me. Ò ÔThank you, go home.Õ But, when things are difficult, there is nobody else to come to. But the North Koreans have a different relationship with me. They want me in the good times and the bad.Ó
Egan says that the North Koreans are a much misunderstood people. They want normalized relations with the United States, a trading partnership, and aid, he says; they also want the United States not to interfere with any reunification process with South Korea, and for remaining U.S. troops to leave the D.M.Z. His efforts on the North KoreansÕ behalf, he says, have always been aimed toward a peaceful end that would benefit both countries. As he put it, ÒHow can you have fifty years of no diplomatic relations, no low-level diplomatic talks with a country that shares a peninsula with one of our best allies, South Korea, and that borders our biggest economic adversary and military adversary, China? How could that be?Ó Egan says that the very fact that the North Koreans choose to work with a guy like him shows how badly they want to get out of the hole of isolation in which they have buried themselves. ÒLook at what lengths the Koreans would go toÑby using a guy with as little credibility as me, because there was nobody else there to support them,Ó he says. ÒThatÕs how much they wanted to normalize relationsÑthatÕs how much they wanted economic ties. They stooped to that level.Ó
After President Bush characterized North Korea as belonging to the Axis of Evil, and relations between the two countries arrived at a stalemate over North KoreaÕs effort to become a nuclear power, Egan says that he offered his counsel. ÒI told the Koreans, ÔDonÕt give upÑthings will work out. LetÕs just keep on the path,Õ Ó he says. When it became clear that the war in Iraq was not going to conclude with a quick American triumph, Egan claims, he laid out for the North Koreans the possible outcomesÑscenarios that Kim Jong Il, who reportedly enjoys watching Western television news, might well have foreseen himself. ÒI said one of two things is going to happen,Ó Egan told me. ÒBush is not going to get re‘lected, and we have another shot, or he is going to get re‘lected and continue the war, and he is going to be fucked, as far as foreign policy goesÑbecause he will have turned the whole world against him. So what does that do for us? It makes North Korea the only chance of a foreign-policy success.Ó
Even more surprisingly, Egan claims that last year, when relations between the U.S. and North Korea appeared to have reached yet another impasse, he counselled the North Koreans to be more demonstrative. ÒI said, ÔI think you have to bring it up to another level,Õ Ó he told me. ÒI said, ÔForget all this war rhetoric and all this crap. DonÕt blow up a plane, donÕt send another submarine to South KoreaÑdonÕt do any of that stupid stuff.Õ Ó Instead, he suggested, the North Koreans should show the Americans exactly what they had. And, in his telling, they listened. ÒI said, ÔYou have them, right? Maybe you should test one. Maybe they have to see it.Õ Four or five months later, the Koreans did that nuclear test. I called the Embassy that morning and said, ÔCongratulations, you are in the nuclear club now, boys.Õ They were all happy and stuff. I said, ÔWatch the ball start rolling now.Õ And it did.Ó
Over the years, Egan claims to have suggested some even more outlandish gambits. At some point in the mid-nineties, he says, he proposed that North Korea release American P.O.W.s to Iraq in exchange for oil; Iraq, which was at the time under the rule of Saddam Hussein, would then gain favor with the United States by releasing the Americans. In the interest of establishing a relationship with Iraq, Egan took the Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoun and his wife to a Giants game. A photograph on the wall of CubbyÕs shows the couple in the back seat of a limo, next to a grinning Egan. The prisoner-release plan never came to anything, but Egan, in his office at CubbyÕs, keeps a letter written in Arabic on official-looking stationery. ÒThis is a letter from Saddam Hussein to me, thanking me for my help and my ideas,Ó Egan, who never had the letter translated, told me. In fact, the letter is from a lesser official, thanking Egan for his hospitality at the Giants game. Egan also claims that he once proposed a plan whereby the Koreans would sell their nuclear weapons to the U.S., achieving denuclearization and economic recovery in the same stroke. The Americans, he says, rejected the idea. (Last year, an article in Newsweek described such a proposal, citing Egan.)
Although the name Bobby Egan is largely unfamiliar to those in higher diplomatic circlesÑChristopher Hill, through a spokesperson, said that he had Ònever heard of Mr. EganÓÑthere is one senior official who does have some knowledge of him: Charles L. (Jack) Pritchard, who was the director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council under Bill Clinton and, between 2001 and 2003, served as a special envoy for negotiations with North Korea. While Pritchard was in the Clinton Administration, he went to CubbyÕs to meet with Egan, but he has nothing good to say about him. ÒTen years ago, I did go to his restaurant, based upon information that he said he had,Ó Pritchard told me, adding that the information concerned the possibility of P.O.W.s being held in North Korea. ÒI checked it out, and I decided it probably was not as advertised.Ó Pritchard dismissed EganÕs claims of having influence in security matters: ÒHe has made no contributions, no positive suggestions, as far as I can tell.Ó He added that he stopped taking calls from Egan after he discovered that Egan was taping their conversations.
ÒI disassociated myself with him, and I havenÕt missed him a single day,Ó Pritchard said. Egan said that he made the tapes for his own protection. ÒPritchard can kiss my big fat uneducated ass,Ó he said. ÒThe North Koreans are just knock-around guys who need a little insight into what we are really about. They need to know what the Bobby Egans are about, not the intellectuals in Washington.Ó
Minister Kim, whom I called after observing the barbecue summit at CubbyÕs, confirmed that Egan has a relationship with North Korea. ÒHe has been interested in improving the relations between the two countries in the past, and he would like to help with the provision of humanitarian assistance, like medicines, for the D.P.R.K.,Ó Kim said. ÒHeÕs a friend of the D.P.R.K., especially those people who receive the humanitarian assistance from those organizations.Ó In a follow-up call, however, Minister Kim said that Egan had never proposed an oil-for-prisoners deal with Iraq or a nukes-for-cash deal with the U.S. He also said that the idea for North KoreaÕs recent nuclear test did not originate in Hackensack.
When I passed KimÕs comments on to Egan, he seemed momentarily deflated, then resigned. ÒThatÕs going to be their line, and thatÕs O.K.,Ó he said. ÒThatÕs their right to say what they want, and I can understand their position. Maybe itÕs because, right now, the Koreans are in a position to move forward with our government. It is difficult, I guess, for a country to admit to something like this. They can discount it if they like, but I know different.Ó
It has been a few years since Egan was last in North Korea, he says, and he is eager to go back. ÒWhy do I do this?Ó he asked me one day. ÒWhy did Mozart compose music? This is what I do best, and itÕs what I enjoy. I mean, I run a great restaurant, but this is what I do. And I have an overwhelming desire to get involved.Ó He also has personal reasons for wanting to get back into action: he has been going through a tough time emotionally since separating from Lilia Mani, he says, and he wants something to take his mind off things.
He also misses Han. ÒThe only characteristic I have that the Koreans donÕt have is that I get emotionally attached to people,Ó he said. ÒI can take aim, I can break a bone, a nose, a jaw. I can take burning. I can take getting cut. Drop me on my head. I can take any of it. But emotional pain is something that would disqualify me from being a North Korean commander. It is something that is very, very difficult for me. I have a difficult time saying goodbye to people I really care about.Ó
ThereÕs a lot about North Korean society that Egan admires, he said that afternoon as he drove me into Manhattan. (He pays the toll on the George Washington Bridge in cash rather than using an E-Z Pass; he says he doesnÕt want anyone to know how many trips he has made back and forth, should the American authorities ever decide that he is too much of a liability and try to build a case against him for conspiring with the enemy.)
ÒThis is what I likeÑthe North Koreans are very disciplined, and I like discipline,Ó he said. ÒI think that is what is lacking in this country. They are a very hardworking people, and they are very family-oriented. And they have a better take on a manÕs role and a womanÕs role than we do. I think a lot of women in this country are trying to be men, and I think that could be the downfall of the family structure of this society. But, in North Korea, the man goes to work and the woman raises the family. Now, I wouldnÕt want that for my own daughtersÑI want them to be career girls, not dependent on any man but meÑbut in my own life I like the fact that a guyÕs a guy and a girlÕs a girl. You feel like a man when you are in North Korea. And, security-wise, it is a safer nation to live in. You are not going to have anybody break into your house, unless it comes from the top. And if it comes from the top youÕre in trouble.Ó
In any case, Egan says, he prefers the American way of life, even if his way of life has been unlike that of any other American. ÒCertainly, I like where I am, or else IÕd move there,Ó he told me as we drove along the turnpike, past warehouses and swamplands of bulrushes, his radar detector chirping like a demented sparrow. ÒIÕd be somebody in North Korea. Maybe IÕd be in a little position of power. I wouldnÕt take all the power in the worldÑnot to say that I would have muchÑbut I would have more than I have here.
ÒBut I wouldnÕt give this up,Ó Egan went on. ÒI like it where I am. I am an American. I love my country. That is why I am doing all this. There are certain freedoms that I want, and choices I want to be able to make, that I wouldnÕt be able to make there.Ó ?