Of Unsound Mind  Dealing With `Flaky' North Korea  April 02,
1999|By Jim Hoagland, Washington Post Writers Group.  WASHINGTON
— Add two big question marks to the mysteries that envelop North
Korea's schizophrenic rulers, who rage as bullies one moment and
beg for food the next: What did the Pyongyang regime do to help
Pakistan develop and explode its first nuclear bomb last year?
And why?  Intelligence experts in Europe and in Washington have
mulled these questions for months and failed to come up with
clear answers. "We can say that North Korean technology was
helpful to Pakistan in this area," one European expert carefully
told me. "But what North Korea did exactly and what it got in
return remains in the realm of gossip."  Even without final
answers, the detection of a Pyongyang-Islamabad nuclear link is
a significant development. It underlines the possibility of
spreading informal networks of pariah states cooperating to
evade international controls and sanctions. And it raises
questions about a big power