It began with great expectations, an eagerly-anticipated meeting with a reclusive leader, and a gift bag that included an Elton John CD.
It ended with a scuttled rendezvous, statements declaring disappointment and stalemate.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's overnight visit to Pyongyang last week failed to demonstrate any progress on denuclearization talks, leading one source with knowledge of the discussions to say the White House felt it went "as badly as it could have gone."
"The North Koreans were just messing around, not serious about moving forward," the source told CNN's Michelle Kosinski, adding that Pompeo had been promised a meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and so not getting that meeting sent a big message.
"By now it's abundantly clear that this approach is a dead end," said Adam Mount, a senior fellow and director of the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists, where he covers US nuclear strategy, deterrence and North Korea.
One has to wonder if the Trump administration is about to do a "volte" (about-face) relative to North Korea, because it appears that what was promised by Kim Jung Un and his government at the Singapore Summit may well not be about to materialize, and definitely, at no point in time soon.
The timing of the release of these accusations is very interesting.