If there was any doubt that Donald Trump fully intended to meet one on one with Kim Jong Un, the US president dispelled it yesterday with his confirmation that he had dispatched one of his shrewdest and most trusted advisers to meet the North Korean leader.
The talks in Pyongyang between Mike Pompeo, the former Kansas congressman turned CIA director, and Mr Kim are the highest level contact between the US and the North since Madeleine Albright, secretary of state, spoke to the supreme leader’s father in 2000.
They reflect an intensive effort by the Trump administration to determine whether a deal to deliver verifiable North Korean de-nuclearisation might be possible, despite long-running scepticism in the intelligence community.