Since at least the early 1980s North Korea has been working on nuclear weapons infrastructure. Braving international condemnation backed by ratcheting sanctions that have impoverished an already poor country, its leaders have steadfastly carried on building nuclear reactors, ostensibly for electricity generation, but which could also in theory create fission material for North Korean nuclear weapons. North Korea’s ideological enemy, South Korea, along with the U.S., have the most to fear from a nuclear DPRK, but American reactions have historically been much less steadfast.

On this day, October 21, in 1994, North Korea and the United States signed the “Agreed Framework,” and terms of which DPRK would halt construction of its heavy-water reactor, which could potentially created fission material, in exchange for American building of light-water reactors, and delivery of fuel oil until such time as the reactors are ready.

The deal was completed shortly before national “midterm” elections brought in to the U.S. Congress a Republican majority opposed to any kind of agreement with North Korea, seeing it as “appeasement.” Delays cropped up in the construction of the new reactors, and delivery of the oil supplies, and by the early 2000s by many accounts North Korea secretly restarted their development of nuclear weapons.