Saturday, November 11, 2017

The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir- Alex Nichol And Hillary Brooke’s “Heat Wave” (1954)

The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir- Alex Nichol And Hillary Brooke’s “Heat Wave” (1954)



DVD Review

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell

Heat Wave (released in Britain as The House Across The Lake, starring Alex Nicol, Hillary Brooke, Hammer Productions, 1954

Apparently I have lost a step or two (some like the guy who has taken my place as senior film critic my old friend and colleague Sandy Salmon would up those numbers by a few) in the reviewing department. I have long been known to regular readers of this space (and previously at the hard copy edition of American Film Gazette where I first worked with Sandy) as an aficionado of film noir and that is still true. I have also been known in general when I find something of interest which has other material of interest along with it to go on a “run,” to grab every possible combination and write about those things as well. That has been the case with the series that I have been presenting in this space (and on-line at the Gazette) with the headline The Golden Age Of The B-Film Noir. This series of ten films from 1950 to 1955 (a long time of collaboration in the film industry on any project) was the collective endeavor of American producer Robert Lippert and the Hammer Production Company in England to produce a bunch of noirs on the cheap using “has-been” Hollywood actors. Guys like Alex Nichol who stars in the film under review here Heat Wave (that juicy and come on title the way the film was released in America bringing images of sex and violence and in England, Great Britain, the British Isles, the Commonwealth or whatever they are calling themselves these post-Brexit days as the understated The House Across The Lake which seems more appropriate since the serious action, well, takes place across the lake from star Alex’s abode). Other faded stars such as Dan Duryea and Dane Clark have also been enlisted in these efforts along with British character actors filling out the roster. Like I say on the cheap to fill up that craving for noir on both sides of the Atlantic without heavy expenses.           

Getting back to the reason why I believe I have lost a step or two is that as this series has progressed some readers have commented that I have “mailed in” the reviews. “Mailed in” here meaning that I have used a basic format for each review which contained a general appraisal of the series and then a short summary of the plot line.
I have done this on many occasions when I am on a “run.” In this series I have emphasized why these ten films are B-films contrasting them with the Hollywood-produced classics where you can remember a ton of lines, and remember the lessons learned about crime not paying and such. Had run through for examples a few classics for instance the sadder but wiser Sam Spade after Mary Astor had run him a merry chase and he had to send her over once the bodies stared piling up over a freaking black-etched bird in The Maltese Falcon. Ditto when Jane Greer got seriously trigger-happy and took down Robert Mitchum (and Kirk Douglas) with her once she saw that he had doubled-crossed her in Out Of The Past. Ditto Phillip Marlowe trying to salvage an old man’s illusions that he had not begotten Satan’s two daughters in The Big Sleep. And so on.    

One reader had actually if you can believe this, accused me of padding these reviews because and I quote “I must get paid by the word.” Oh the woes of film review-dom. Worse though was that these comments got back to the “boss,” to Pete Markin, the site administrator who actually sided with those readers (although except for a chuckle not the “paid by the word” comment reader since the reader obviously didn’t know that penny-a-word went out with dime-store novels and that nowadays you submit on “spec” and are either taken or don’t get even a penny for your efforts.). Now I have been asked to just give the “skinny” and forget the rest. Here goes.

As I have noted the quality of these Hammer film while purely B-film stuff have a range from almost A to much worse including one, Wings of Danger, which I did not review because it never got to even B-level. The film under review Heat Wave (as noted above released in Great Britain as more accurately The House Across The Lake) almost makes it to A-level mostly because of the acting and not the plotline which has been used in noir almost as much as the boy-girl  meet-up thing in romantic comedies and the like. Mark, played by Alex Nichol, is a pulp fiction writer on the skids, getting ready to go down in the mud was the epitome of 1950s “cool”-detached, street smart, wiseacre, and with a gift of gab (when he wants to). Something out of a Mickey Spillane crime novel if he was a private detective. And a lady’s man as they used to say in the old days. The latter as usual with such guys will get him up to his neck, hell, maybe over his head in trouble. That “trouble” coming from across that fatal English lake is one dishy busty blonde (just the way he likes them), Carol, very married Carol, played by Hillary Brooke. She the epitome of 1950s femme duplicity and so the acting works the film to a higher level.

Not so the plotline which is pretty conventional. Mark eyes high –style wealthy party-girl, very married party girl, Carol having, well, a party, from his rented digs across the lake. They meet via that very party amid a drink and some banter. Mark, like I said a lady’s man, was smitten from the first by this dishy, busty blonde who was free with her favors, sexual or otherwise. The problem though is her husband who Mark likes, likes and befriends. That didn’t stop his downy billow thoughts of milady Carol. This husband, Beverly, was the second time around married very liberal toward Carol’s philandering-up to a point. He was ready to foot the bill, her very expensive bill as his trophy wife but was going to cut her off once he passed on. Which according to the doctors was not long if he kept up his frantic life-style.

Enter the evil plan-Carol’s plan. Good old Beverly had a serious accident at sea while he, Mark and Carol were on board. Carol saw her chance and tried to convince Mark to give him the old heave-ho to the briny bottom, No go. So our brave Carol does the nasty deed. Here’s where our boy Mark went off the skids. Carol convinced him to tell the tale that the whole thing was an accident and he and she could live happily ever after. He buys into the deal and expects to get the pay-off soon. That was the story he told the coppers when they figured out something was wrong with whole setup and let sucker Mark find out that Carol had secretly married and fled that sinkhole house across the lake leaving him holding the bag. He confronted Carol who laughed at him and his stupid American gullibility. Mark got the last laugh of sorts, he like Sam Spade and a million guys before him sent her over, let her, despite his own culpability take the fall, take the big step-off. A hard way to learn to stay away, way away from dishy, busty blondes.

I hope this short bare-bones “skinny” will appease that reader who claimed that I was getting paid by the word. Enough said.                                        

    
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Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind-Take Four

Sitting On The Rim Of The World- With The Son Of The Neon Wilderness Nelson Algren In Mind-Take Four




From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

He wrote of small-voiced people, mostly people who had started out in the world with small voices, small voices which never got louder, never were heard over the rumble of the subway, working stiffs and their women, sometimes their kids, their kids growing up like weeds, who turned out to be disappointments but what could expect more from the progeny of small-voiced people, guys who sat around gin mills all night (maybe all day too I knew a few who inhabited the Dublin Grille in my old hometown of North Adamsville, another town filled with small-voice people). Never wrote, or wrote much, about big-voiced people who tumbled down to the sound of rumble subway stops out their doors, people who fell off the rim of the world from some high place due to their hubris, their addictions, their outrageous wanting habits never sated before the fall (not some edenic fall but just a worldly fall that once it happened the world moved on and ignored). Wrote of the desperately lonely, a man talking to himself on some forsaken park bench the only voice, not a big voice but a voice that had to be reckoned with, of the stuffed cop swaggering his billy club menacingly to him move on, or else, a woman, unhappy in love, hell maybe jilted at the altar, sitting alone like some Apple Annie in that one Ladies Invited tavern on the corner, the one just off Division where she had met that man the first time and meets all men now, all men with the price of a drink, no more. Yeah, a big old world filled with the lonely hearing only their own heartbeats, heard no other heartbeats as they waited out their days. What did Eliot call it, oh yeah, measured out their lives in coffee spoons. 

Wrote of alienated people too, not the Chicago intellectuals who were forever belly-aching about the de-humanization of man, about how we had built a mechanical world from which we had to run but the common clay, the ones who manned the conveyor belts, ran the damn rumbling subways, shoveled the snow, hell, shoveled shit day and night. Wrote of the night people, of the ones who would show up after midnight in some police precinct line-up, the winos, the jack-rollers, the drifters, the grifters, the midnight sifters, maybe a hooker who had not paid the paddy and thus was subject to the grill. Wrote of the  people who inhabit the Nighthawk Diner (artist Edward Hopper’s all shape angles, all dim lights outside, bright fluorescent no privacy, no hiding lights inside, all the lonely people eating their midnight hamburgers fresh off the greased grill, another grill that forlorn hooker knew well, or Tom Waits’ rummies, bummies, stumblers, street-walkers looking for respect all shadows left behind, take your pick), the restless, the sleepless, the shiftless, those who worked the late shift, those who drew the late shift of life, those who worked better under the cover of night in the dark alleyways and sullen doorways.

He wrote big time, big words, about the small-voiced people, big words for people who spoke in small words, spoke small words about small dreams, or no dreams, spoke only of the moment, the eternal moment. The next fix, how to get it, the next drink, how to get it, the next bet, how to con the barkeeper to put him on the sheet, the next john, how to take him, the next rent due, how to avoid the dun and who after all had time for anything beyond that one moment. Waiting eternally waiting to get well, waiting for the fixer man to walk up the stairs and get you well, well beyond what any doctor could prescript, better than any priest could absolve, to get some kicks. (Needle, whiskey, sex although that was far down the list by the time that needle was needed or that shot of low-shelf whiskey drove you to your need, again.) Waiting for the fixer man, waiting for the fixer man to fix what ailed them. Not for him the small voice pleasant Midwestern farmers providing breadbaskets to the world talking to kindred about prices of wheat and corn, the prosperous small town drugstore owners filling official drug prescriptions and selling the under-aged liquor as medicine or whatever the traffic would bear, or of Miss Millie’s beauty salon where the blue-haired ladies get ready for battle and gossip about how Mister so and so had an affair with Miss so and so from the office and how will Mildred who of course they would never tell do when the whole thing goes public (although one suspects that he could have written that stuff, written and hacked away his talent)who in the pull and push of the writing profession they had (have) their muses. Nor was he inclined to push the air out of the small town banker seeking a bigger voice (calling in checks at a moment’s notice), the newspaper publisher seeking to control the voices or the alderman or his or her equivalent who had their own apparatuses for getting their small voices heard (although again one suspects he could have, if so inclined, shilled for that set). No, he, Nelson Algren, he, to give him a name took dead aim at the refuge of society, the lumpen as he put it in the title of one short story, those sitting on the rim of the world.

And he did good, did good by his art, did good by his honest snarly look at the underside of society, and, damn, by making us think about that quarter turn of fate that separated the prosperous farmer (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not short-weighting the world), the drugstore owner (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not dispensing his wares, his potent drugs, out the back door to a craving market) , Miss Millie (assuming as we must that she, secretly, was not running a call girl service on the side), the banker (assuming as we must that he, maybe secretly maybe not, was not gouging rack rents and usurious interest), the newspaper editor (assuming as we must that he, very publicly, in fact was printing all the news fit to print), and the politician (assuming as we must that he, secretly, was not bought and paid for by all of the above, or others) from the denizens of his mean streets. The mean city streets, mainly of Chicago, but that is just detail, just names of streets and sections of town to balance his work where his characters eked out an existence, well, anyway they could, some to turn up face down in some muddy ravine, under some railroad trestle, in some dime flop house, other to sort of amble along in the urban wilderness purgatory.

Brother Algren gave us characters to chew on, plenty of characters, mostly men, mostly desperate (in the very broadest sense of that word), mostly with some jones to work off, mostly with some fixer man in the background to wreak havoc too. He gave us two classics of the seamy side genre, one, the misbegotten Frankie Machine, the man with the golden arm, the man with the chip on his shoulder, the mid-century(20th century, okay) man ill at ease in his world, ill at ease with the world and looking, looking for some relief, some kicks in that mid-century parlance, and, two, that hungry boy, that denizen of the great white trash night, Dove Linkhorn, who, perhaps more than Frankie spoke to that mid-century angst, spoke to that world gone wrong, for those who had just come up, come up for some place where time stood still to gain succor in the urban swirl, to feast at the table, come up from the back forty lots, the prairie golden harvest wheat fields, the Ozarks, all swamps and ooze, mountain wind hills and hollows, the infested bayous and were ready to howl, howl at the moon to get attention.

I remember reading somewhere, and I have forgotten where now, that someone had noted that Nelson Algren’s writing on Dove Linkhorn’s roots was the most evocative piece on the meaning of the okie–arkie out migration segment of that mid-century America ever written, the tale of the wandering boys, the railroad riders, the jungle camp jumpers, the skid row derelicts. Hell, call it by its right name, the white trash, that lumpen mush. And he or she was right, of course, after I went back and re-read that first section of Walk On The Wild Side where the Linkhorn genealogy back unto the transport ships that brought the first crop of that ilk from thrown out Europe are explored. All the pig thieves, cattle-rustlers, poachers, highwaymen, the -what did some sociologist call them?, oh yeah, “the master-less men,” those who could not or would not be tamed by the on-rushing wheels of free-form capitalism as the system relentlessly picked up steam, the whole damn lot transported. And good riddance.

The population of California after World War II was filled to the brim with such types, the feckless “hot rod” boys, boys mostly too young to have been though the bloodbaths of Europe and Asia building some powerful road machines out of baling wire and not much else, speeding up and down those ocean-flecked highways looking for the heart of Saturday night, looking for kicks just like those Chicago free-flow junkies, those twisted New Orleans whoremasters. Wandering hells angels riding two by two (four by four if they felt like it and who was to stop them) creating havoc for the good citizens of those small towns they descended on, descended on unannounced (and unwelcomed by those same good citizens). In and out of jail, Q, Folsom, not for stealing pigs now, but armed robberies or some egregious felony, but kindred to those lost boys kicked out of Europe long ago. Corner boys, tee-shirted, black leather jacket against cold nights, hanging out with time on their hands and permanent smirks, permanent hurts, permanent hatreds, paid to that Algren observation. All the kindred of the cutthroat world, or better “cut your throat” world, that Dove drifted into was just a microcosm of that small-voiced world.

He spoke of cities, even when his characters came fresh off the farm, abandoned for the bright lights of the city and useless to that short-weighting farmer who now is a prosperous sort, making serious dough as the breadbasket to the world. They, the off-hand hot rod king, the easy hell rider, the shiftless corner boy, had no existence, no outlets for their anger and angst, in small towns and hamlets for their vices, or their virtues, too small, too small for the kicks they were looking for. They needed the anonymous city rooming house, the cold-water flat, the skid- row flop house, the ten- cent beer hall, hell, the railroad jungle, any place where they could just let go with their addictions, their anxieties, and their hunger without having to explain, endlessly explain themselves, always, always a tough task for the small-voiced of this wicked old world. They identified with cities, with city 24/7/365 lights, with Algren’s blessed neon lights, city traffic (of all kinds), squalor, cops on the take, cops not on the take, plebeian entertainments, sweat, a little dried blood, marked veins, reefer madness, swilled drinks, white towers, all night diners (see it always comes back to that lonely, alienated Nighthawk Diner just ask Waits), the early editions (for race results, the number, who got dead that day, the stuff of that world), a true vision of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawk for a candid world.

He spoke of jazz and the blues, as if all the hell in this wicked old world could be held off for a minute while that sound sifted thought the night fog air reaching the rooming house, the flop, the ravine, the beer hall as it drifted out to the river and drowned. Music not upfront but as a backdrop to while the steamy summer nights away, and maybe the frigid lake front winter too. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, he spoke of a small-voiced white world, residents of white slums and pursuers of white- etched dreams and only stick character blacks but his beat, his writing rhythm made no sense without the heat of Trouble In Mind or that cool blast of Charlie Parker, Miles, Dizzie be-bopping, made absolutely no sense, and so it went.


He spoke of love too. Not big flamed love, big heroes taking big falls for some hopeless romance like in olden times but squeezed love, love squeezed out of a spoon, maybe, but love in all its raw places. A guy turning his woman into a whore to feed his endless habit love, and her into a junkie love. A woman taking her man through cold turkey love. A man letting his woman go love, ditto woman her man when the deal went wrong. When the next best thing came by. Not pretty love all wrapped in a bow, but love nevertheless. And sometimes in this perverse old world the love a man has for a woman when, failing cold turkey, he goes to get the fixer man and that fixer man get his woman well, almost saintly and sacramental. Brothers and sisters just read The Last Carousel if you want to know about love. Hard, hard love. Yah, Nelson Algren knew how to give voice, no holds barred, to the small-voiced people.
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Friday, November 10, 2017

11/12 The Journey To Social Justice-Then and Now with Mimi Jones

Charlie Welch
To  act-ma@act-ma.org  
Mimi will share her perspective and personal experience in the Movement for Social Justice as a youth is Southwest Georgia in the 60's and current day engagement.

Long time Roxbury resident and community activist, Mimi Jones, was on the front line as a “foot soldier” in the Civil Rights Movement as a youth in her native Albany (Southwest), Georgia. As a teenager during the height of the Movement in the 1960’s, she pursued and engaged in direct action to confront and challenge racism, segregation and discrimination with extraordinary valor and unwavering commitment.

She was involved in a myriad of grassroots organizing and social and political change campaigns waged by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Comm ittee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In many instances, her youthful engagement resulted in being jailed with extreme charges such as trespassing with malice, breaking of the peace, and conspiracy. This engagement has helped to inform and form the tapestry of her lifelong commitment to racial and social justice.

Music by Cindy & Jimmy Mapes

Sunday Nov. 12th -11 AM

Please Join Us For Lunch After The Program.

All Programs are held on the second floor in the Lothrop Auditorium.
Wheelchair accessible. CCB is located near the Orange line-Back Bay or the Green line-Copley T Stops. On Street Parking and at Back Bay Parking Garage, 199 Clarendon Street. Discount Vouchers available for parking in the garage.

Community Church of Boston is located at
565 Boylston Street, 2nd fl., Boston, MA 02116
www.communitychurchofbosto n.org

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https://www.facebook.com/events/189265204956020/?active_tab=about

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Help Fix, Fund & Fully Staff the VA Stop VA Privatization Legislative Alert Background on VA

Privatization There are 22 million veterans in America. Of those 22 million, 9 million are enrolled in VA care, and 7 million get some or all of their care in VA hospitals. In addition, there are 49,000 vacant positions at VA hospitals across America. Most are vacant doctor, nurse & mental health positions. As VA vacancies go up, vet care goes down. Since 2014, when the CHOICE program began, millions of vetsHelp Fix, Fund & Fully Staff the VA Stop VA Privatization Legislative Alert Background on VA 
 have been sent into the private healthcare sector, and nearly 40% of all outpatient doctor visits have been routed into private healthcare. Many vets are dissatisfied with CHOICE and wait times for some vets are as long or longer in the private sector than they are at the VA. Legislative proposals in Congress are threatening to drastically change how veterans receive healthcare. The Veterans Health Administration is under attack by groups who are encouraging the elimination of government programs and pushing the idea that only the private sector ‘works’. In surveys by Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) & Disabled Am. Veterans (DAV), a vast majority of vets say they don’t want private care – they want their VA doctors & nurses. Veterans For Peace are fighting back to “Stop VA Privatization, Fix, Fund & Fully Staff the VA.” And you can too. Take action now by calling your House Representative and Senators and encouraging them to pass S. 1723, and HR. 3459. What would these bills do? The American Federation of Government Workers (AFGE) website says this: “AFGE is urging Congress to pass S. 1723, which would allocate $5 billion to hire more medical professionals and narrow the staffing deficit at the VA, and HR. 3459, which would put new transparency requirements in place by requiring the VA to post on its website the total number of filled positions, the total number of vacancies by occupation, the total number of people who have entered and exited the workforce in the last month, and the total number of active job posting within the department. The Brown bill would also require the VA to submit a report to Congress detailing the progress they are making in hiring new employees as well as providing Congress with an explanation of the steps they are taking to achieve full staffing.” What YOU Can Do to Help Fix, Fund & Fully Staff the VA 1. Call your US representative & senators – tell them – Fill the 49,000 vacancies, fully fund, and don’t privatize the VA! • Call 1.833.480.1637 enter your zip code and you will be connected to your congressional office. Please leave a message for your US House representative and then call two more times and leave a message for your US Senators. • House Representative: Hello this is ____ and I am a veteran who lives in ____. I’m calling to ask you to fill the 49,000 vacancies at the VA. Please do NOT privatize the VA. Fully fund the VA in the 2018 budget. I urge you to support HR 3459. Thank you! • US Senators: Hello this is ____ and I am a veteran who lives in ____. I’m calling to urge you to fill the 49,000 vacancies at the VA. Please do NOT privatize the VA. Fully fund the VA in the 2018 budget. I urge you to support S. 1723. Thank you! The above telephone number and congressional contact system is sponsored by the American Federation of Government Workers (AFGE). This union represents over 220,000 VA workers and the VFP Work Group works with their members and staff. 2. Sign this petition to the President & Congress. 3. If you would like to join the “Stop VA Privatization, Fix, Fund and Fully Staff the VA” please email Buzz Davis at dbuzzdavis@aol.com or call 608-239-5354. Lastly, please check out: Fighting for Veterans Healthcare (FFVHC). Located in San Francisco this group of vets, nurses and others fights back! Their website has great information on the situation we face & what the solutions are to fixing, funding and fully staffing the VA. https://ffvhc.org/ or E-mail: info@ffvhc.org _______________________________________________________ Other wording they used but idk if it fits in there… This is a national disgrace! Our veterans didn’t serve our country just to come back to wait in line for care or fight with big hospital corporations in the private sector. Vets want high quality care from their local VA hospital. That’s what vets deserve for the sacrifices they have made.
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One year is enough!

Socialist Alternative
To  Al  
Friends,
Trump was elected nearly a year ago. In that time he has attacked immigrants, women, people of color, the environment, our health care, workers, and the LGBTQIA community.
Five billionaires now own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, and massive corporations hoard trillions in offshore tax-havens: enough to pay off everyone’s student debt with money to spare.
Trump’s disastrous new tax plan would make already historic levels of economic inequality even worse. Massive corporations and the super rich will profit more than ever before, while small businesses and working families will be squeezed further. Trump’s tax cuts to the super rich will mean deeper cuts to mass transit, housing, medical and social programs, which can undermine even the best conceived local policies.
The Twin Cities are home to 17 Fortune 500 corporations, the highest concentration in the country per capita, while a quarter of the city live below the poverty line. The political establishment says taxing the rich can’t be done, but they said the same thing about the $15 an hour minimum wage too before we built a movement and won. Rather than accepting the status quo agenda of corporate-friendly politicians, we need to tax the rich to fund the crucial services that working people need.
Minneapolis should follow cities like San Francisco and Seattle have and pass a “Millionaire’s Tax” on the super rich to fund mass transit, education, affordable housing and social services. In San Francisco, it raises enough to make community college tuition free for residents of the city! Under existing law, Minneapolis has the power to tax big developers and corporations through developer impact fees, a corporate “head tax,” an increased tax on commercial parking lot owners, and “excise taxes” on banks, big box retailers, and franchise businesses.
A corporate-funded PAC deceptively called “Minneapolis Works!” has sent three mailers attacking Ginger's campaign. Beyond calling ideas like taxing the super rich and corporations “dangerous” and “nuts,” they dishonestly claimed that Ginger will raise taxes on working people! We should be clear: Ginger opposes increasing taxes on working families or having them foot the bill for corporate handouts like US Bank Stadium. Instead of raising property taxes on working class families, as is proposed in this year’s budget, we should be increasing taxes on people who own mansions, big developers and corporation.
Minneapolis can’t afford four more years of politics as usual in City Hall. We need proven fighters for working people who are prepared not just to work in City Hall, but to fight for the interests of working families at all levels of government. With Trump in the White House, this is even more necessary. As Executive Director of 15 Now Minnesota, Ginger helped build the coalition that defeated the threat of state level pre-emption while fighting for the strongest possible ordinance for $15/hr in City Hall at the same time.
That movement led the region in making Minneapolis the first city to pass $15/hr in the Midwest. Now let's make Minneapolis a beacon of resistance to Trump and his billionaire-backed agenda.

Election day is this Tuesday! We need your help to send Ginger Jentzen, a proven fighter for working people, to City Hall? Can you donate $50 today?
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How Trump Should Talk to North Korea

How Trump Should Talk to North Korea

By SUZANNE DiMAGGIO and JOEL S. WIT NOV. 7, 2011
For the last several months, the United States and North Korea have been stuck in a mutually reinforcing cycle of escalation. The possibility of the confrontation spiraling into a horrific, full-scale war — either by design or by accident — has become increasingly likely.
President Trump has portrayed North Korea as uninterested in finding a peaceful way out of this standoff. On Tuesday, during a visit to South Korea, the president took a different tone, declining to reaffirm his previous statements that negotiations are “a waste of time.”
The approach he showed in Korea was certainly better than his past bluster, but it still falls far short of what is needed.
Over the last year, the two of us have been part of informal discussions with North Korean officials also attended by former American government officials, retired military officers and experts. While determined to pursue a nuclear arsenal to defend their country, the North Koreans say they are also open to discussing how to avoid a disastrous confrontation.
Even before Mr. Trump took office, North Korean government representatives sent signals that they were open to dialogue. In a meeting in Geneva shortly after the American presidential election, they expressed a willingness to consider resuming contacts that had been cut off the previous summer.
The North Koreans also raised the possibility of discussions to determine the agenda for formal talks that could tackle American concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs and North Korea’s concerns about “hostile American policy” — the term they frequently use to refer to what they perceive as the political, military and economic threats posed by the United States.
That message was reinforced during meetings in Pyongyang after Mr. Trump’s inauguration. North Korean officials acknowledged that the new administration offered the opportunity for a fresh start, and raised the idea of beginning talks without preconditions. In a session in Oslo a few months later, the North Koreans recognized the need to defuse tensions while reiterating their interest in an unconditional dialogue.
On the sidelines of that meeting, the State Department official in charge of dealing with North Korea, Ambassador Joseph Yun, quietly met with Choe Son-hui, the head of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s North America bureau — the first encounter between a Trump administration official and a North Korean official.
Throughout the unofficial talks, the North Koreans explained that the accelerated pace of their missile and nuclear programs over the last year reflected their belief that such weapons were the only way to forestall efforts by the United States to overthrow the government of Kim Jong-un.
For the North Koreans, who point to the fates of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein as cautionary tales, demonstrating that they can build a nuclear missile able to reach the continental United States is the highest priority. This was confirmed in Moscow a few weeks ago, when Ms. Choe said that North Korea would continue to develop these weapons until it reached a “balance of power” with the United States.
This dark cloud may have a silver lining.
In our talks, the North Koreans have maintained that they are not striving to be a nuclear state with a big arsenal, but rather to have enough weapons to defend themselves. Since early last summer, North Korean officials have publicly said that they have entered the last stage in the development of their nuclear force, implying that they have an endpoint in mind. A senior North Korean official privately told us: “If we feel we have enough, the primary emphasis will be on economic growth.”
This potential opening for dialogue needs to be explored. We believe the best way to proceed would be to first hold bilateral “talks about talks” without preconditions. The objective of these talks would be to clarify the policies of each country, discuss where there might be potential compromises and what each side considers nonnegotiable, and prepare the groundwork to move on to negotiations.
Ideally, this would be done through under-the-radar meetings by diplomats, similar to the initial contacts between American and Iranian officials that took months and eventually led to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. In the current atmosphere of crisis, we should accelerate this process by appointing a senior presidential envoy to work with the State Department and with top-ranking North Koreans.
A nuclear-free Korean Peninsula should remain the United States’ main priority. The Trump administration wants this to happen immediately, while some experts argue this objective should be dropped since it will be impossible to achieve.
We don’t agree with either position. The United States has to be realistic. Denuclearization cannot happen overnight. It must be framed as a long-term objective of any diplomacy, an approach the North Koreans have hinted they would accept.
In view of the mounting confrontation and the lack of mutual trust, the United States must pursue a step-by-step approach to reduce tensions and secure a path to formal negotiations.
An essential first step is an immediate moratorium on North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing, which aggravate tensions. In exchange, the United States and South Korea could meet North Korean concerns by adjusting the scale of their joint military exercises or perhaps offer some relief from economic sanctions. Other steps — such as assurances by North Korea that it will not transfer nuclear, chemical or biological weapons technology overseas — could follow.
But none of this can be achieved without the right political atmosphere. The North Koreans are bewildered by the lack of coherence in American policy. President Trump’s threatening tweets and personal attacks on Kim Jong-un have only added to the risks of misinterpretation. Even his recent statements in Tokyo and Seoul, hinting at a willingness to talk, are at risk of being drowned out by his bluster, which reinforces the North Koreans’ mind-set that they made the right decision by choosing a nuclear path.
Mr. Trump could begin reducing tensions by stating clearly that diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang is his administration’s first choice and that the United States is ready to proceed down this road, working with its allies and partners. Such a statement offers the best way to sway the Chinese to better enforce sanctions against Pyongyang and would serve him well in his coming meeting with President Xi Jinping of China.
The United States should understand that growing talk of military options will only strengthen Pyongyang’s resolve, not undermine it. Given the danger of a nuclear war, that would be a serious mistake.
Suzanne DiMaggio (@suzannedimaggio) is a senior fellow at New America. Joel S. Wit is a senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins University and the founder of its North Korea website, 38North.
____________________

Daryl G. Kimball,
Executive Director
Arms Control Association
1200 18th St. NW, Suite 1175,
Washington, DC 20036
202-463-8270 x107
202-277-3478 (mobile)
@DarylGKimball and @armscontrolnow

Recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions
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"Not one step back"

Cole Harrison
Executive Director
Massachusetts Peace Action - the Commonwealth's largest grassroots peace organization
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In Boston-IMAGINE! An Evening of Encouragement.Inspiration.Radical Imagination by Black Lives Matter Boston, Union United Methodist Church, The Dignity Project

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IMAGINE! An Evening of Encouragement.Inspiration.Radical Imagination

by Black Lives Matter Boston, Union United Methodist Church, The Dignity Project



We have been working. We have been organizing. We have been marching. We have been resisting. We have been fighting back! Now let us come together for a time of refreshing, an evening of soulful, intimate conversation. Encouragement. Inspiration. Radical Imagination! We need it...
Ticketed Event: $35.00 (additional donation to sponsor another attendee). No one turned away due to funds.
Doors open at 6:30

DATE AND TIME

Union Church
485 Columbus Avenue
Boston, MA 02118

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