By Richard Halloran

Two separate events on the Korean peninsula this past week were revealing, the first for what didn't happen, the second for a message crafted with care and delivered with subtlety.

In the first instance, a delegation of six U.S. Congressmen, led by Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania and second ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, visited North Korea in a waste of time and the taxpayer's money. The delegation did not see the one person who counts, the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il.

In contrast, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, traveled to South Korea to shore up the faltering alliance between the United States and South Korea by urging Koreans to respect American soldiers stationed there, to realize that Korean anti-Americanism was eroding U.S. support for Korea, and to shuck obsolete concepts of security.

In Pyongyang, the congressmen met with the North Korean foreign minister, the vice foreign minister, and the chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly. The diplomats are not in Kim's inner circle and the chairman is the figurehead of a powerless legislature. From them, the Americans learned nothing new.

Beyond that, said the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), they were shunted around to Mangyongdae, the birthplace of the late "Great Leader," Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father, and to the Kum Song School, the Tower of the Juche (Self-Reliance) Idea, the Korean Film Studio, and the Pyongyang Information Center. Illuminating. Not only did the visiting Americans, supposedly on a "fact finding mission," not see Kim Jong Il during their two days in Pyongyang, they met none of the communist party's leaders nor any of North Korea's military leaders.

The message: North Korea is not seriously interested in negotiating with the United States except on its own terms despite the assertion of Rep. Eliot Engel, Democrat of New York and a member of the International Relations Committee, who told Agence France Presse: "They are certainly ready to deal." KCNA immediately contradicted that with a blistering dispatch: "The U.S. adamant insistence on the North's scrapping of 'its nuclear program' first and the multilateral talks is aimed to increase the international pressure on the DPRK by dubbing it a 'nuclear criminal' in a bid to force it to disarm itself and conquer it like Iraq."

DPRK is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the country's official name.

In Seoul, Wolfowitz delivered a rare but pointed defense of 37,000 American military people serving there. Amid rising anti-Americanism often directed at U.S. forces, Wolfowitz said: "We are immensely proud of these young Americans who volunteered to serve their country."

"These strong, smart, dedicated, and disciplined Americans who have come to Korea, have come to Korea to ensure the peace," Wolfowitz said. "They know why they are here and they know what is expected of them by America and by Korea. They are prepared to do the hard work and take the real risks to defend our common security."

"I know that you understand and that you value their commitment just as much as we do," Wolfowitz told the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It was unusual for a senior U.S. official to feel compelled to tell the Koreans that U.S. troops in Korea are good American young men and women.

The deputy secretary also cautioned his Korean audience that the anti-Americanism expressed in demonstrations outside U.S. posts in Korea was having a backlash in the United States: "The citizens of the United States will best support the commitment of their sons and daughters to Korea's defense only if they are confident that our plans are sound."

Turning to the Bush administration's plans to shift the deployment and perhaps reduce the size of U.S. forces in Korea, Wolfowitz said: "This is a time to move beyond outmoded concepts or catch phrases such as the term 'trip wire.' It is wrong to think that the trip wire for our commitment in Korea has anything to do with how many U.S. troops are arranged in any particular location on the peninsula."

With a nod toward North Korea, Wolfowitz concluded: "Our response to aggression will be one with yours — united, immediate, and devastatingly effective. The real trip wire is the letter and spirit of our mutual defense treaty, backed up by the substance of our alliance and our strong military forces."

Asked at a press conference if calling North Korea an "enemy," didn't add to their paranoia and fear of a U.S. attack, Wolfowitz was equally firm: "I think that the beginning of solving problems is to recognize them, not to hide from them."

Richard Halloran is a former New York Times correspondent in Asia and Washington. Reach him at oranhall@hawaii.rr.com.