Other presidents met with dictators. But they didn’t then praise them.
President Donald Trump’s descriptions of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un included language that he usually reserves for himself.
Kim is “very talented,” Trump said at a news conference. Kim’s people have a “great fervor” for him — not entirely voluntarily — and Trump trusts him. Kim is a “rough guy,” but he is also “smart” and “wants a lot of good things” because he “loves his people.” Trump said he had a “great chemistry” with Kim. He would “love to have him at the White House,” but meeting him in Singapore was a “great honor.”
Such language is not unusual coming from a U.S. president when directed at longstanding allies, like the leaders of Britain or Canada. It is highly unusual when directed at a longtime geopolitical adversary — much less one who has been accused of crimes against humanity for his regime’s treatment of its citizens. In part, that’s because the embrace of the American president, the leader of the free world, is a form of validation that can be used as propaganda by such regimes. As such, past presidents have broadly avoided such flattery.
“I too have concerns about how all this with #NorthKoreawill turn out. But I don’t recall all the ‘experts’ criticizing Obama when he met with a brutal dictator in #Cuba who also oversaw a police state & also killed & jailed his opponents. #DoubleStandard,” tweeted U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
The Barack Obama example, though, is instructive to the point above. Obama met and spoke with Cuban leader Raul Castro several times. Obama had a rote way of describing his interactions with Castro.
“I want to thank President Castro for the spirit of openness and courtesy that he has shown during our interactions,” he said in April 2015. The two had “both concluded is that we can disagree with the spirit of respect and civility, and that over time it is possible for us to turn the page and develop a new relationship in our two countries,” Obama said. Nothing about Castro being a beloved, talented leader.
When Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea during Obama’s administration to help free two imprisoned journalists, North Korean media claimed that Clinton had apologized for their actions — a claim that was quickly denied by U.S. authorities. Clinton’s sitting for a photograph with Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father, was criticized, including by pundits on Fox News. But Clinton offered no words of praise for the elder Kim.
When Ronald Reagan welcomed Indonesian dictator Suharto to the White House in 1982, he was more effusive. Suharto, as Erick Trickey noted for The Post this week, had been involved in killing half a million Indonesians as he seized power, and of hundreds of thousands more when he annexed East Timor in 1975.
“I take particular pleasure in welcoming you and Madam Suharto to the United States and to the White House,” Reagan said when Suharto arrived. “And Mrs. Reagan joins me in extending personal hospitality on this important occasion . ... As one of the world’s longest serving chief executives, indeed, as a senior statesman of Asia, your views on world affairs carry special authority and add special meaning to our discussions today. Your viewpoints and wise counsel will be greatly appreciated.”
When Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, an unprecedented trip for an American president, he was more effusive about the activities he participated in than about the country’s leadership.
John Kennedy’s 1961 meeting with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna was not a huge success, which certainly would have disinclined Kennedy’s wanting to shower his opponent with praise even had he considered doing so.
One of the more remarkable encounters between a U.S. president and a notorious foreign leader came in 1938, when former president Herbert Hoover sat down with Adolf Hitler.
“Former President Herbert Hoover appears to have given Chancellor Adolf Hitler at noon today the unusual experience of hearing doubt cast on the fundamental ideas of National Socialism and on the likelihood that it will be a successful system of government,” The New York Times wrote. “Mr. Hoover is reported to have pointed out to the Fuehrer that the American people do not believe that social progress is possible without intellectual liberty.”