WASHINGTON -- Nearly eight years after the first summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Lee Yun-hyang, Trump's former interpreter, vividly recalls the tense ambience when the reclusive ruler made the first major appearance on the world stage.
During the landmark meeting in Singapore in 2018, the seasoned Korean American interpreter said that she went beyond her primary role of facilitating communication, using her tone and delivery to help foster a positive mood for the historic rendezvous.
About a month after retiring from nearly 17 years of service at the State Department, Lee, former director at the Office of Language Services, sat down with reporters, fielding questions on various topics, including the Trump-Kim tete-a-tete, South Korea-U.S. summits and her overall life as an interpreter.
"I think Chairman Kim Jong-un handled (the summit with Trump) very well given that Kim came to the summit without that much (diplomatic) experience," she said.
"As it was a summit at the center of the world's attention, both the leaders and I, myself, were nervous. I, in my own way, tried to help foster a comfortable, positive and calm atmosphere (in the summit room)," she added, noting that she could not afford to let her voice shake out of nervousness.
Lee joined all three in-person meetings between Trump and Kim, including their second summit in Hanoi in February 2019 and the third meeting at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom in June 2019. Previously, she also interpreted for former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
She portrayed the atmosphere of the Trump-Kim meetings as "warm and friendly."
"I felt that at the time, the two leaders appeared to have the determination and will to address (pending issues)," she said. "They made efforts for sincere dialogue. The mood (there) showed that both engaged in a candid conversation."
She, moreover, noted the complexities of the issues, including the North's nuclear conundrum, which the two leaders sought to address at their high-stakes summits.
"(Making a deal) wasn't just a matter that concerns only the two leaders. There were various complex elements associated with it," she said.
Asked about Trump's repeated claim that he maintains a good relationship with Kim, Lee said that she thought it was true.
For Lee, a daughter of a mother who was born in North Korea, her engagement in the U.S.-North Korean summit as an interpreter carried a special meaning, she recalled.
"Interpreting the U.S.-North Korea dialogue carried considerable meaning for me. In fact, I did not have much expectation that the leaders of the two countries would meet," she said.
"The meeting was possible because of President Trump, who approached it with a shift in thinking. It's not easy to carry (such a meeting) out on short notice."
Looking back on delicate diplomatic conversations that she interpreted, Lee shared some of the challenging moments that she experienced.
During a meeting with then South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Seoul in 2013, then Vice President Biden told Park, "It's never been a good bet to bet against America." Her concern was that the direct translation of that could sound too strong to the South Korean audience given the geopolitical sensitivities.
"I tried to tone it down a little bit, but later, I realized that there was confusion about it with Seoul's foreign ministry saying (my) interpretation was wrong," she said. "I was taken aback."
When asked which presidents were hard to interpret for, she picked Obama and Trump.
"President Obama is a former lawyer. So his sentences are like a legal document," she said, noting that an interpreter needs to have a good memory span to follow his speaking.
"President Trump has various thoughts in his mind, and has a very fast thought process," she explained, noting the importance of finding logical connections when Trump shifts from one topic to another in a speech.
Commenting on the Seoul-Washington relations, Lee struck a sanguine note.
"It has always been very robust," she said.
On the future of the interpretation profession in the era of artificial intelligence, Lee underscored the need to take a careful approach in using the technology because of errors.
"There are still many errors -- a reason why human translators have to proofread them," she said. "While using the technology, we need to be very careful and caution against errors."
Lee joined the State Department in 2009 after serving as a professor at the Ewha Womans University Graduate School of Interpretation. In late February, she retired from the chief post of the department's language service office that oversees some 70 full-time employees and 1,000 contract interpreters and translators covering more than 60 languages.
She learned English when she, as a teenager, studied at an English-speaking school in Iran, where her father served as a defense attache.
She has a master's degree from Hankook University of Foreign Studies and a doctor's degree from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
