S. Koreans Shrug Off Nuclear Threat

SEOUL — When Lee Jin Ju pauses to think about the nuclear crisis brewing over the Korean peninsula, she knows exactly whom she fears.

"George Bush," replies the 22-year-old accounting student without missing a beat. "He's a war maniac."

Lee doesn't like North Korea's Kim Jong Il much, either. "But we're not afraid of him. He's a Korean like us. Even if he does get the bomb, he's not going to use it against us."

This is a sentiment echoed by many Koreans -- even some conservatives -- and it is complicating U.S. efforts to forge a consensus on North Korea among its allies. There is a tendency, particularly among the young, to shrug off the current situation as the creation of a hysterical White House. Many South Koreans see their estranged brethren to the north more as objects of pity than of fear, and the Americans less as saviors who defended them against communism than as potential troublemakers.

The news that North Korea was removing surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities got smaller headlines in Monday's newspapers in South Korea than in the United States. Several major papers here played the story below the news of a political party reshuffle. The stock market actually went up in mid-October when it was revealed that North Korea was violating its international agreements on its nuclear program. Only in the last two days have the markets here shown any jitters, and those were mostly attributed to Iraq.

In one more step, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported today that the North Koreans were moving fresh fuel rods into a small, 5-megawatt reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, which had been closed under a 1994 agreement with the United States. The agency also said workers were moving freely in and out of the facility, apparently in preparation to restart it.

Despite North Korea's actions since October to restart its nuclear program, there is no sense of impending crisis in Seoul.

The streets of the South Korean capital throb with neon advertising, the jangle of ringing cell phones, Christmas carols and throngs of people bent on spending money. Stop almost anyone to ask about the North Korean nuclear program, and the response will be a quizzical stare.

"We don't seriously fear there will be a war, and if there will be, the Americans will start it," said Hyun Ho Sang, a 19-year-old college freshman.