When Secretary of State Colin Powell stepped out of the Oval Office after a summit between President George W. Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in March 2001, he had a humiliating task ahead of him: explaining to reporters that comments he’d made earlier suggesting that talks with North Korea would proceed were wrong.

President Bush had taken a much harder line on North Korea in his meeting with Kim, it turned out.

“Sometimes you get a little too far forward in your skis,” Powell quipped a few months later.

Stark divisions on North Korea policy within the U.S.