<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SERIF" FACE="Times New Roman" LANG="0">Michael Harrold, whose memoir of his seven years<BR>
in Pyongyang as an English-language reviser comes<BR>
out from Wiley in a few days (Amazon URL below),<BR>
mentions meeting three GI defectors on a film shoot.<BR>
They weren't talkative, and he doesn't name the others.<BR>
<BR>
Although Pyongyang today has an expat community of<BR>
diplomats, aid workers and so on, it must also still be <BR>
dotted with tiny secret foreign ghettoes of the dodgy.<BR>
<BR>
Besides the GI trio, these include maybe two kinds of<BR>
Japanese: the 1970 Red Army hijackers, supposedly <BR>
soon to go home at last; plus any Japanese abductees<BR>
not yet acknowledged and still alive.<BR>
<BR>
And I seem to recall that Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee's<BR>
memoir mentions her meeting a mysterious Lebanese or<BR>
Jordanian. But I think that was at Myohyang-san.<BR>
<BR>
Does anyone know what happens to South Korean defectors?<BR>
I spotted a couple once, but was forbidden to approach them.<BR>
<BR>
Larger and less fortunate categories - thousands of Japanese<BR>
wives, and of S. Korean abductees and retained POWs and<BR>
their families (mainly from the 1950-53 period) - are, by contrast,<BR>
probably anywhere but in Pyongyang. The trickle of old ROK<BR>
soldiers who manage to escape to Seoul (with scant help from Seoul)<BR>
seem mostly to have spent a lifetime down the mines of Hamgyong.<BR>
<BR>
Any living US MIAs? Fantasy, I suspect. <BR>
But in North Korea, you never know. <BR>
<BR>
Aidan FC<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Michael Harrold's book:<BR>
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0470869755/qid=1090251943/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2311125-6334366?v=glance&s=books#product-details<BR>
<BR>
In a message dated 19/07/2004 15:48:55 GMT Standard Time, kimcheegi@gmail.com writes:<BR>
<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Subj:<B>Re: [KS] US North Korea GI Defector </B><BR>
Date:19/07/2004 15:48:55 GMT Standard Time<BR>
From:<A HREF="mailto:kimcheegi@gmail.com">kimcheegi@gmail.com</A><BR>
Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws</A><BR>
To:<A HREF="mailto:koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws">koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws</A><BR>
<I>Sent from the Internet </I><BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 03:35:18 +0000, Michael Breen<BR>
<mikebreen46@hotmail.com> wrote:<BR>
<BR>
> As far as I know, 5 GIs have gone North since the end of the Korean War. Four were in the early 60s, including Jenkins. Did you ever hear anything about the others? The last was a Private Joe White in 1982, I think. White reportedly drowned in a swimming accident and his belongings were sent to his parents in the US.<BR>
> <BR>
> Mike Breen<BR>
<BR>
Mike,<BR>
<BR>
There's a site with the November 1982 Life Magazine Article covering<BR>
White's story at (begin quote)<BR>
<BR>
<http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/life/905W-000-020.html> <BR>
<BR>
A MOTHER WEEPS FOR HER G.I. SON WHO DEFECTED TO NORTH KOREA<BR>
WHAT MADE JOE JUMP?<BR>
November 1982<BR>
Reporting: David Friend<BR>
<BR>
At first the puzzled U.S. Army simply called him AWOL. Facts were<BR>
scarce. Around two a.m., August 28, Pfc. Joseph White, 20, walked away<BR>
from Guard Post Oullette on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized<BR>
Zone, shot off the lock of a gate and disappeared into no-man's-land.<BR>
Within the day, North Korean broadcasts were exulting that an American<BR>
soldier had "requested political asylum." If true, it was the first<BR>
U.S. defection to North Korea in 17 years, the fifth since the DMZ was<BR>
established in 1953 dividing South Korea from the Communist North. The<BR>
previous GIs were used briefly for propaganda and were never heard<BR>
from again. Back in Joseph White's hometown of St. Louis, his father,<BR>
Norval, 52, a painter on a General Motors assembly line, insisted that<BR>
his son had been captured. His wife, Kathleen, said through her tears,<BR>
"It just doesn't make any sense. Why would Joey want to leave his ice<BR>
cream, his chocolate syrup, his money?" But by the end of the week, a<BR>
videotape of the young soldier shattered his family's hopes. Speaking<BR>
in the Pyongyang People's Cultural Palace, Pfc. White, still in<BR>
uniform, condemned U.S. militarism and then led a chant in homage to<BR>
North Korean dictator Kim Ilsung. Joe White was a strange defector to<BR>
Communism. He had been the arch-conservative in a family of<BR>
blue-collar Democrats, a cold warrior who, at 13, wrote to his senator<BR>
to warn of the Communist menace. Turned down by West Point, Joe<BR>
enrolled in Missouri's Kemper Military School and College, where he<BR>
was regarded as a loner. A fair student but a poor athlete, he dropped<BR>
out and enlisted in the Army after deciding Kemper was full of<BR>
"losers." In letters home from Korea, samples of which appear on the<BR>
following pages, White gave no hint that his political ideas were<BR>
shifting. If anything, he seemed only more fanatical. "It was drummed<BR>
into him," Norval White recalls, " Hey, buddy. When you cross that<BR>
line, you're gone forever." (end quote)<BR>
<BR>
<http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/life/905W-000-020.html> <BR>
<BR>
Apparently Mary Ellen Mark was the photographer for the story, and has<BR>
been kind enough to host both the photos and the story over at her<BR>
website.<BR>
<BR>
Regards,<BR>
Charlie,<BR>
The KimcheeGI<BR>
<BR>
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