Summer–Fall 1997 — Washington D.C. & North Korea
In the summer of 1997, Dr. Kenneth Dupuy and Dr. John LaNoue traveled to Washington D.C. for a four-day trip that secured Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's and USAID Administrator J. Brian Atwood's approval for Amigos Internacionales to join a newly formed relief consortium bound for North Korea. The Private Voluntary Organization Consortium (PVOC) — Amigos, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and World Vision — deployed roughly 60,000 to 60,500 metric tons of cereals across ten of North Korea's twelve provinces between August and November 1997.
This chapter marks the institutional turning point of the North Korea arc: Amigos crosses from independent volunteer relief work into formal partnership with a USAID/USDA-funded, multi-agency consortium responding to the famine gripping the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Dr. Dupuy — a former deputy director of the Nixon-era Office of Management and Budget with three doctoral degrees — supplied the Washington relationships and logistical grounding that made Amigos's participation possible.
Chapter 20 is a founding document in the institutional history of Amigos Internacionales. It records the moment a small faith-based relief ministry gained credentialed standing beside CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and World Vision in a U.S. government-backed humanitarian consortium — a level of institutional trust that reshaped what Amigos could undertake in the years that followed.
The chapter also introduces Dr. Kenneth Dupuy, whose Washington relationships and three doctorates gave Amigos access to rooms and approvals it could not otherwise have reached. His partnership with Dr. John LaNoue becomes the connective tissue for the entire North Korea arc that follows in Chapters 21 through 23.
Dr. Kenneth Lee Dupuy (1928–2012) — Amigos Internacionales Vice President; former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Nixon; held three doctoral degrees. His Washington relationships secured the approvals that opened North Korea to Amigos.
Dr. John LaNoue Sr. — Traveled with Dupuy to Washington D.C.; led the eventual field deployment to North Korea documented in the chapters that follow.
Madeleine Albright — U.S. Secretary of State; approved the PVOC consortium's relief mission to North Korea.
J. Brian Atwood — USAID Administrator; co-approved the mission and the $4.5 million USAID/USDA grant funding it.
Bob Dixon — Texas Baptist Men Executive Director.
Warren Hart — Director of Missions, Red River Baptist Association; organized a 24-hour prayer chain during the deployment.
Michael Frank — Catholic Relief Services team leader on the ground PVOC team.
Don Gibson, John Bullock, Francis Jenkins — Maintained Texas Baptist Men office operations during Dr. John's deployment.
Kaywin LaNoue — Dr. John's wife, at home during the deployment.