CONTROVERSY STIRS OVER JOHN BOLTON'S MEMOIR

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Controversy is mounting over the memoir of former White House national security adviser John Bolton. KBS obtained a list of requests the White House delivered to Bolton regarding his memoir. Take a look.

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​The White House National Security Council received John Bolton's memoir on April 27 and came up with this list of revision requests after reviewing it. In the 17-page list, the council asked Bolton to alter or delete 414 of his claims. Most of them are about the U.S.' relations with South and North Korea. Bolton gave a report to President Donald Trump after meeting with South Korea's National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong ahead of the 2018 inter-Korean summit at Panmunjeom. Bolton said he told Trump that the U.S. needed the closest possible coordination with President Moon Jae-in to avoid North Korea's engineering a split between Washington and Seoul. The White House wanted Bolton to take out the expression "North Korea's engineering a split between Washington and Seoul" and change it to say that no deal could occur without greater coordination with Moon Jae-in to ensure a cohesive stance. It appears that the White House wanted to avoid a disclosure of its strategies. However, Bolton refused the request. The former national security adviser said in his memoir that South Korea's agenda was not the U.S.' The White House wanted to add "always" and change it to, "South Korea's agenda was not always ours. The addition of the word "always" seemed to be a way to sound less offensive to a diplomatic partner and Bolton agreed. However, the White House could not block Bolton from expressing his discontent toward President Moon. Bolton wrote, "like other South Korean political leaders, Moon tried to make Japan an issue when times at home were difficult." He declined the White House' request not to pinpoint Moon and to replace it with "the South Koreans." The White House also asked Bolton to use quotation marks multiple times out of concern that his claims could be established as facts. Bolton, however, refused to alter key points of his memoirs. The White House's revision requests show its current stances on Washington-Pyongyang relations and inter-Korean ties. And they look different from those pursued when Bolton was in office.