JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. President Bill Clinton is scheduled to hold talks Tuesday with the highest-ranking North Korean official ever to visit Washington. The meeting comes as communist North Korea celebrates the 55th anniversary of the founding of its ruling party. CNN's Mike Chinoy is in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, with the latest -- Mike.</s>MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Judy. Well, North Korea has been trying for years to improve relations with the United States. Pyongyang has long believed that only a rapprochement with Washington would enable it to ensure its own security and the survival of the regime here. The visit to the United States of Vice-Marshal Cho Myongrok, the second-highest figure in North Korea, is a major step in achieving that goal. Cho Myongrok is due in Washington within the hour after spending the first day of his U.S. trip in San Francisco. Meanwhile, here in Pyongyang they're gearing up for an enormous celebration of the 55th anniversary of the ruling party. It's early in the morning, and we passed hundreds of thousands of people flocking toward Kim Il-sung Square, where North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is expected to receive the accolades from his people -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: Mike, does all this going on in North Korea, is there a connection between that and the visit of the vice-marshal?</s>CHINOY: Absolutely. There's no coincidence that the vice- marshal will be meeting President Clinton on exactly the same day as the anniversary. All of this is designed to bolster the North Korean regime to elevate the status of the man the North Koreans call the "great leader" through a kind of display of mass political theater that we often see here that underpins the whole North Korean political system -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: All right, CNN's Mike Chinoy reporting. Thanks very much.
President Clinton to Meet with High-Ranking North Korean