2. South Korea Hits Back
“It is retrogression of sorts that the President’s office exists as a small Cheong Wa Dae within Cheong Wa Dae”: Choi Sung-jin, “Blue House’s Building Layout Ineffective in Emergency,” Korea Times, November 7, 2015.
the Cheong Wa Dae complex retained two very important government functions: “No Blue House for South Korea’s New President,” Associated Press, May 10, 2017.
Many of her political opponents… had demanded to know what became of the “seven missing hours”: Kim Bo-eun, “President’s ‘7 Missing Hours’ Still Shrouded in Mystery,” Korea Times, November 26, 2016.
while another reported that she was having plastic surgery: James Pearson and Yun Hwan Chae, “South Korea Lawmakers to Quiz Doctors, Nurses about Park’s ‘Missing’ Seven Hours,” Reuters, December 13, 2016.
They turned the documents over to investigators and filed a complaint: “Former President Park’s Four Aides Indicted for Doctoring Time Log of Sewol Sinking Report,” Yonhap, March 28, 2018.
“Neither South-North relations nor US-North relations will go far if the other fails”: Kang In-sun, “Interview with Suh Hoon” (in Korean), Chosun Ilbo, March 10, 2018, translated by Grace Liu.
“Dialogue is impossible in a situation like this”: “Moon Says Dialogue with N. Korea ‘Impossible,’” Yonhap News Agency, September 15, 2017.
North Korea’s relentless “strategic and tactical provocations”: “JCS Chief Nominee Vows to Build Military ‘Feared by Enemies, Trusted by Citizens,’” Yonhap, August 18, 2017.
“President Moon seems to have meant that we ought to be doing everything we can to prevent a crisis situation”: Park Byong-su, “New Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Claims South Korea Can Achieve Air Superiority within Three Days of Conflict,” Hankyoreh, August 19, 2017.
Lee wanted a big and bold response, but military officials pushed him to consult with the United States: “Ex-President Lee Ordered All-Out Retaliation after North’s Yeonpyeong Bombardment in 2010,” Yonhap, December 13, 2015.
“South Korea’s original plans for retaliation were, we thought, disproportionately aggressive”: Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 497.
satellite images later showed that its retaliation had done little or no damage: Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., The Yonp’yong-do Incident, November 23, 2010, Special Report 11-1, January 11, 2011.
“Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation”… had been publicly described in some detail after 2016: “South Korea Announces ‘Massive Punishment and Retaliation’ in Response to Fifth Nuke Test,” Hankyoreh, September 13, 2016.
“wiping a certain section of Pyongyang completely off the map”: “S. Korea Unveils Plan to Raze Pyongyang in Case of Signs of Nuclear Attack,” Yonhap, September 11, 2016.
Pyongyang… would“be reduced to ashes”: “S. Korea Unveils Plan to Raze Pyongyang.”
striking ninety-seven targets over four days, including three presidential palaces and the headquarters of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party: Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of Desert Fox: A Preliminary Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 16, 1999).
US and South Korean officials did, of course, visit the headquarters: The US Department of Defense released a pair of images from Admiral Cecil Haney’s visit to the ROK Army Missile Command headquarters on June 23, 2015.
“The issues on the rules of engagement… should be discussed”: Yi Whan-woo, “Rules of Engagement at JSA in Dispute,” Korea Times, November 16, 2017.
3. Hurricane Donald
Sometimes surprised wedding-goers even had an unscheduled appearance by the president: Jaime A. Cardenas, “Trump Crashes Nashville Socialite’s Wedding at Mar-a-Lago,” USA Today, February 13, 2017.
Over the years, these shelters had been repurposed to serve as storage and, for a time, as an office for Trump’s butler: Alex Leary, “Greeting from Mar-a-Lago: Donald Trump’s Presidential Paradise,” Tampa Bay Times, November 25, 2016.
“Pompeo kept feeding Trump assessments”: This quotation is based on the assessment of “several officials familiar with [White House] discussions” as described by Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed, and Hyonhee Shin, “’He’s Such a Dreamer’: Skepticism Dogs US Envoy’s North Korean Peace Efforts,” Reuters, November 3, 2017.
“spends that time in his [executive] residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting”: Anonymous “officials,” as described by Jonathan Swan, “Trump’s Secret, Shrinking Schedule,” Axios, January 7, 2018.
“Once he goes upstairs [to the residence], there’s no managing him”: An anonymous “adviser,” as quoted in Ashley Parker and Robert Costa, “‘Everyone Tunes In’: Inside Trump’s Obsession with Cable TV,” Washington Post, April 23, 2017.
“But if he wants to watch [television], it’s not like we can say, ‘Oh, the TV doesn’t work’”: Anonymous official, as quoted in Matthew Nussbaum, Josh Dawsey, Darren Samuelsohn, and Tara Palmeri, “West Wing Aides Fearful of Directly Attacking Comey,” Politico, June 7, 2017.
In one case, a golf club member invited a New York Times reporter: Michael S. Schmidt, “Our Reporter Mike Schmidt on His Golf Club Interview with President Trump,” New York Times, December 29, 2017.
Of particular interest was a list of late-night phone calls: Dan Amira, “Blogger Who Allegedly Slept with Female Candidate Releases the Texts,” New York, May 26, 2010.
Once in office, even uglier rumors about Haley began to spread: Wolff only hints at the possibility of an affair in Fire and Fury (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2018, 305–306), although he drew attention to suggestive passages in a 2018 television interview with Bill Maher.
Trump had famously posed as his own publicist to spread rumors to gossip columnists: Marc Fisher and Will Hobson, “Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag about Himself,” Washington Post, May 13, 2016.
Haley called him “Lemon”: This detail and others are drawn from a profile of Lerner by Kambiz Foroohar, “Haley’s UN Brinkmanship Comes with Advice by Long-Time Pollster,” Bloomberg, September 11, 2017.
“there are no dissidents in China”: Shi Jiangtao, “Why Ma Zhaoxu, China’s New Man at the United Nations, Signals Greater Ambition on Global Stage,” South China Morning Post, January 21, 2018.
For instance, Hillary Clinton has often told a story: Laura Blumenfeld, “For State Department Officers Directing Calls, Adrenaline Always on the Line,” Washington Post, July 14, 2010.