SEATTLE (TheBlaze/AP) — When Kenneth Bae arrived home after two years of imprisonment in North Korea, his sister said he had one stipulation for his first meal back on American soil: No Korean food.
"He said, 'I don't want Korean food, that's all I've been eating for the last two years,'" Terri Chung said Sunday outside her Seattle charge. "We had a late night eating pizza."
Bae after landing in the U.S. (Image source: U.S. Army photo by Capt. Peter Mrvos, 19th Public Affairs Detachment)
Bae and Matthew Miller, another American who had been held captive in North Korea, landed Saturday night at a Washington state military base after a top U.S. intelligence official secured their release.
"It's been an amazing two years, I learned a lot, I grew a lot, I lost a lot of weight," Bae, a Korean-American missionary with health problems, said at Joint Base-Lewis-McChord Saturday night. Asked how he was feeling, he said, "I'm recovering at this time."
His family has said Bae suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain.
Chung said Bae was in better shape when he arrived than his family expected. She said he had spent about six weeks in a North Korean hospital before he returned.
"That helped. As you know, he had gone back and forth between the labor camp and hospital," she said.
Members of Bae's family, who live near the sprawling military base south of Seattle, had met him when he landed. His mother hugged him after he got off the plane.
U.S. officials said Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Bae of Lynnwood, Washington, flew back with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. Clapper was the highest-ranking American to visit Pyongyang in more than a decade.
Their release was the latest twist in the fitful relationship between the Obama administration and the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, whose approach to the U.S. has shifted back and forth from defiance to occasional conciliation.
A senior Obama administration official said the president approved the mission last week and U.S. officials spent the next several days planning the trip. Clapper spent roughly a day on the ground and met with North Korean security officials — but not with Kim, the official said aboard Air Force One as Obama prepared to head to Beijing.
Clapper went with the sole purpose of bringing home the two detainees, although the U.S. anticipated that other issues of concern to the North would come up during Clapper's discussions, the official said.
"It was not to pursue any other diplomatic opening," said the official, who wasn't authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity.
The U.S. had considered sending someone from outside the government to retrieve the detainees, the official said, but suggested Clapper after the North Koreans indicated in recent weeks that they would release the detainees if the U.S. sent a high-level official from Obama's administration.
Analysts who study North Korea said the decision to free Bae and Miller now from long prison terms probably was a bid to ease pressure in connection with its human rights record. A recent U.N. report documented rape, torture, executions and forced labor in the North's network of prison camps, accusing the government of "widespread, systematic and gross" human rights violations.
North Korea seems worried that Kim could be accused in the International Criminal Court, said Sue Mi Terry, a former senior intelligence analyst now at Columbia University.
Bae was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-government activities. He was detained in 2012 while leading a tour group to a North Korea economic zone.
Miller was serving a six-year jail term on charges of espionage after he allegedly ripped up his tourist visa at Pyongyang's airport in April and demanded asylum. North Korea said Miller had wanted to experience prison life so he could secretly investigate the country's human rights situation.
Bae and Miller were the last two Americans held captive by the reclusive Communist country.
Last month, North Korea released Jeffrey Fowle of Miamisburg, Ohio, who was held for nearly six months. He had left a Bible in a nightclub in the hope that it would reach North Korea's underground Christian community.
This story has been updated.
