There’s a scene in Kim Jong-dae’s Roh Moo-hyun: Across the Threshold of an Era, when former President Roh’s Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young’s frustration boils over.

In the book Chung, who also served as Roh National Security Council Chairman, reacts to then-foreign minister (and current UN Secretary General) Ban Ki-moon’s skepticism toward a peace treaty with North Korea – on the grounds that it might undermine the South Korea-U.S. alliance – by shouting at Ban and banging on a desk.

Though he calls the scene “more or less exaggerated,” Chung is a stalwart proponent of more engagement with the North.