North Korea‎'‎s development of nuclear weapons raises fears of nuclear war on the peninsula and the specter of terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction‎.‎ It also represents a dangerous and disturbing breakdown in U‎.‎S‎.‎ foreign policy‎.‎ Failed Diplomacy‎:‎ The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb offers an insider‎'‎s view of what went wrong and allowed this isolated nation ‎-‎-a charter member of the Axis of Evil ‎-‎-to develop nuclear weapons‎.‎ Charles L‎.‎ "Jack" Pritchard was intimately involved in developing America‎'‎s North Korea policy under Presidents Clinton and Bush‎.‎ Here‎,‎ he offers an authoritative analysis of recent developments on the Korean peninsula and reveals how the Bush administration‎'‎s mistakes damaged the prospects of controlling nuclear proliferation‎.‎ Although multilateral negotiations continue‎,‎ Pritchard proclaims the Six‎-Party Talks as a failure‎.‎ His chronicle begins with the suspicions over North Korea‎'‎s uranium enrichment program in 2002 that led to the demise of the Clinton‎-era Agreed Framework‎.‎ Subsequently‎,‎ Pyongyang kicked out international monitors and restarted its nuclear weapons program‎.‎ Pritchard provides a first‎-hand account of how the Six‎-Party Talks were initiated and offers a play‎-by‎-play account of each round of negotiations‎,‎ detailing the national interests of the key players ‎-‎-China‎,‎ Japan‎,‎ Russia‎,‎ both Koreas‎,‎ and the United States‎.‎ The author believes the failure to prevent Kim Jong Il from "going nuclear" points to the need for a permanent security forum in Northeast Asia that would serve as a formal mechanism for dialogue in the region‎.‎ Hard‎-hitting and insightful‎,‎ Failed Diplomacy offers a stinging critique of the Bush administration‎'‎s manner and policy in dealing with North Korea‎.‎ More hopefully‎,‎ it suggests what can be learned from missed opportunities‎.‎