How have you been since we last spoke? Oh, very good, thank you. A little angry, but very good.
We are the best! In 1962, a US soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea undertook an extraordinary journey. At the height of the Cold War, he deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on Earth and defected to an alien communist state. North Korea. The existence of an American defector living in the heart of the Cold War enemy was denied for decades by both the U.S. and North Korean governments.
I've been an orphan all my life. I wanted to run away and get something to do. And once I made up my mind to do something, I did it.
Coveted star of the propaganda machine, this man has ingratiated himself in a system that perpetuates hatred of the U.S. and subordinates the individual to the state and the leader. Who was this man? Where had he come from? What had possibly possessed him to turn his back on America, defect to the North Korean communists, and live under their protection to this day?
You gentlemen, I believe you because you come here and you want the truth. I want you to have the truth. You just ask the questions and I'll follow it.
I'm gonna start a cigarette. I'm about to blow up the door. Yes, thank you. This story, I'm telling you now, I just want to put a little stress. I'm telling you, I've never told no one.
Anyone. I have never regretted coming to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. I feel at home. I really feel at home.
I'm just a regular soldier. And I give it up. It came over. I wouldn't trade it for nothing.
I think you know the Workers'Party mark. The hammer represents the worker, the brush represents the intellectual, and the sickle represents the farmer. James Joseph Dresnok, or Joe as he prefers to be called, has spent twice as long in North Korea as he has in America.
Korean is the language he uses most in his daily life. Once in a great while I come in and look around. Otherwise, just sit in the bus and let my wife do the shopping.
I don't have a wife who can do all the shopping. I have a wife who is a good wife. I have a wife who is a good wife. It has a great meaning for the people, of the people, and by the people.
Everything would be built and done in the city under the teachings of the great leader. It was 1962 when Dresnok was last in America. Kennedy was president, gas was 31 cents a gallon, and man was seven years away from landing on the moon. What school does your son go to? American, college, third grade.
What language does he learn? English. He doesn't seem to be a big fan of Korean.
Well, I'm not sure. I'm a little uncomfortable. This is simple. Is it simple?
Of course. Everyone has to adapt themselves to their life. There's no difference than a man in society, a young man.
He goes in the military. But in the military, you don't have no freedom. You're on duty 24 hours a day, and you have to adapt yourself to the organizational life.
So it's the same with leaving one country and going to another country. One has to adapt himself. At first you might find it rather difficult, but as little time has passed, it's not so hard a thing to do.
Korea is the Cold War's final frontier. Panmunjom, its most visible symbol of continued division. Here, along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, nearly two million soldiers still face each other, ready for war at any time.
The DMZ was described by President Clinton as the scariest place on Earth. BANG! In 1950, Korea experienced at first hand the brutal realities of the Cold War, a clash of ideologies that would devastate the peninsula and divide it to this day. The Korean War was one of the most vicious of the 20th century. An estimated 4 million people, many of them civilians, were killed in three years of fighting.
The U.S. led the support for the South, whilst the North was backed by the Red Alliance of the Soviet Union and newly communist China. Hostilities ended with Korea still split along the 38th parallel, but a peace treaty has never been signed. The Korean War became known in the West as the Forgotten War.
In North Korea, it is the victorious fatherland liberation war. The war left an indelible stain on the psyche of both sides. In North Korea, the indiscriminate bombing and tales of atrocities by the U.S. were seen as examples of the aggressive and criminal nature of U.S. imperialism. In the West, counter stories of atrocities on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners of war was proof of the evils of communism. The gruesome experience of Korea confirmed to many in the U.S. that the spread of communism was to be prevented at all costs.
The End Throughout the 1950s, the inherent duty of every honorable American was to be anti-communist. This is Signed Views on the News. Stories of the unusual and the commonplace.
At the present time, I'm in the home of Mr. C.T. Overstreet, who is the foster father of James Joseph Dresnok, the 20-year-old PFC who reportedly, or we probably should say allegedly, has defected to the North Korean communists. What can you say after 43 years? I remember it very well.
What kind of a boy was he growing up? He was a normal boy, average boy. Sometimes he was mischievous, but you could always find a tear of repentance in his eye. He was the son of a worker's family.
My father was a worker, my mother was a housewife, and they fought like cats and dogs. She wanted to be free. So, we left. She stayed in the bars and on the streets day and night. We slept, eat and drank everything in the backseat of the car.
They found her in Atlanta, Georgia. We returned back to Richmond. My father had to find a wife to take care of two children.
So he sent my brother to my grandfather's house. He went there and I went to my aunt's house. They didn't really want me.
So I kept running away. I wanted to go home. They told my aunt, there's no need for you to take care of him anymore. You will take him home this Sunday. I walked in the house.
This new wife hollered, oh, you have but one son. Where did this one come from? They have an old folks home in the city itself and they took me there. My father told me he would be back but I never saw him again.
Never laid my eyes on him. And then my orphan life began which was living hell. I learned one thing, wherever I went it was still the same. I wanted to run away.
I wanted to go far. So I stole about $20 and a bison. I was taken to court. I was on parole for six years. But juvenile delinquency school was not considered suitable for me.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is Glen Island, Virginia. Old Man Overstreets House.
Joe was not an adopted child. But you raised him for a number of years. Yes, as we have many others.
He came into the home and I was appointed his buddy. And he went upstairs showing where his bed would be, where he could put his clothes. And we just hit it off.
I don't know, I really don't know yet why we hit it off so well. That's Sonny Jeter. How people can change.
Mr. Overstreet told me that he was affectionately known to his foster children as Big Papa, and I think we can certainly appreciate that. Big Papa was a Presbyterian preacher. He opened his home to these kids, and we really had no way else to go.
He was fair, stern. If you did wrong, you got punished. But back in the 50s, everybody got punished.
That's hard to explain to people. To be young and have absolutely nothing. Nothing. He had nothing other than to call his own with what was on his back. And he may have just taken them off some of his clothesline.
Just to have some on his back. Joe has been carefully raised to be a full-fledged American. He was bitter against communism and that as long as he lived, he wanted to fight communism. Dresnok was not only a child of the Cold War, but also a child of the South. He enlisted for military service on his 17th birthday.
The Army at that point was the only option for a kid with little or no education living in the circumstances in which he found himself. The military in general is a place in which an awful lot of kids in Dresden situation have found their salvation, have found their their way. It provides a father figure for kids who lack that.
I thought I'd be a freer man but really you're not. It's tighter. As of Joe, it's gonna get straightened out.
At least in the military he could get some training, some education. I thought he was really on the way. I think he did today. One champion, two champion, three champion. On leave from basic training, Dresnok proposed to a girl he recently met in church.
Marriage would help erase the memories of his childhood abandonment. Getting married, good idea. So I went out to the home and got married in the little room, big time married.
Joe in his army uniform, he'd be proud of the Mass of Sermon. Yes, that's where I married Kathleen Marie Ringwood. I thought it was the marriage.
Okay, Joe's got that mate. He's got what he needs. I sure wish I had of him.
Dresnok soon received orders to his posting in West Germany. By the time he returned, he discovered that two years serving his country overseas had taken its toll on his marriage. Sorry, Joe.
I got me a new lover. I was clean for two years. Two years I didn't put my hands on a prostitute or any girl. But the simple fact that I loved her... She ran off.
I think she took his heart with him. I think he was just totally brokenhearted. I'm only glad of one thing. She didn't become pregnant. Why have I swore in my life?
I'd never leave my children. With his marriage over, Dresnok immediately re-enlisted. In May 1962, he was posted to South Korea.
The time I left regiment, I was fed up. I didn't... If I died or lived, I didn't care. The Korean War, still fresh in everyone's memories, had to all intents and purposes never ended.
The armistice had established the Demilitarized Zone, the DMZ, a 2.5-mile deep buffer filled with landmines that ran the 150-mile width of Korea, cutting off north from south. But the peace remained fragile and mutual hatred continued to exist along the 38th parallel. It seemed inevitable that sooner or later one side would invade and enforce its system and ideology on the other.
Long before Vietnam, Korea was the Cold War's front line flash point in Asia and America's most visible commitment in the war on communism. I had always thought that the fighting had stopped, but I found out on the DMZ it didn't. They were still going at it. The DMZ was a war zone.
I mean, there were regular incursions across that line by the North Koreans, and people were getting killed. At the time the Drosnik was there, the hazards to someone walking the line were very real. We were being attacked at night by North Koreans, throw hand grenades at us and so forth.
The forage in the DMZ made it very difficult because the bad guys were coming from within grenade range. You never know they were there. Until the grenade went off.
This was what it was, engineer tape, a little wider, that said, okay, you're on this side, you're on the south, you're on that side, you're on the north. And that's all we had. And that's how you walked your patrols. When the North Koreans felt in a bad mood or they If they wanted to see if they could inflict any punishment, they would change it. They would take the tape and move it back, or maybe even move it forward.
In that way, if they shot you, they could say, hey, he was on our side, he was here. He lived, slept, ate, and trained and everything in the DMZ himself. During your A week, you'd be on ambush patrols.
We'd run about 55 to 60 ambush patrols during that week. During B week, we'd man about six outposts, 24 hours a day. Today, we packed up with the reaction force.
During C-Week, we'd train. Had one day off, then we'd start all over again. South Korea was a desperately poor country, struggling to rebuild after the devastation of war.
For G.I.s, there was little variety during non-duty hours. Most invariably spent their time in local villages, where the entertainment was aimed at Americans with dollars to spend. They all had a...
A girlfriend down in the village and these little ladies of the night would entertain them at any time. So their big thing was get off duty and get down to the village. You're gonna live good, you gotta live it up. And that's where all my money went.
After being divorced, I tried to make up every minute and every second that I didn't spend with my wife. In Last Chance Village across the river there were more women than we had men in our entire battalion. There were more prostitutes. The commanding general in our welcoming speech from him said, look at the man on your left now and look at the man on your right. He says those two men are going to have VD before they leave Korea.
It was about right, that's about what the VD rate was running. I'd been serving on the stakeout posts for two weeks without any rest, and they decided to let us go to the village and have some fun. According to the company commander, it was only the stakeout NCO to go on pass. Dresnok needed to talk to me. He was in love with the young woman down in the village.
There was one girl very nice. good looking and just the average relations. I said, well, whatever it is, Dresnok, you can't go.
I'm not going to replace you. You've got these guys depending on you. Well, he gave me the hard lip. He's an officer.
I just went down and made my own slip again, signed my post sergeant's signature, forgery, and I went on pass. The next morning, about 7, the 1st Sergeant came in and said, Dresnok was in the village last night. So I said, have Dresnok in my office at 8 o'clock.
Dresnok comes in, and, you know, he was a nice-looking big guy. boyish grin. He looks at me and he says, you know, sir, you can't do anything to me.
I said, pardon me? He said, no, you can't touch me. He said, I had a pass.
I said, Dresnok, be back here at three o'clock. We're going to read the charge sheets. And I fully intended to court-martial him. Hey, there's the orphan, the poor boy.
You ain't shit. What am I? Am I a slave? To hell with this. I was fed up with my childhood, my marriage, my military life.
Everything, I was finished. There's only one place to go. On August 15th at noon, in broad daylight, when everybody was eating lunch, I hit the road.
Yes, I was afraid. Am I gonna live or die? Everybody wants to live.
If I say I did not, lying. But at that time, life wasn't so precious. And when I stepped into the minefield and I seen it with my own eyes, I started sweating.
I crossed over. Looking for my new life. Best not come back.
Go to hell. Son of a bitch is another one round fly, but it wouldn't go that far no how. But it scared the shit out of him because he hit the ground.
I got a call from battle group. They said there was a big guy in fatigue uniforms. He was carrying a shotgun and he was going along and he picked this up and he'd fire. And I said, was he a real big guy?
He said, yeah. I walked at a very fast speed, and I moved right on through. And then, with the high-rises of the Sechobat, it was reported that the U.N. was coming towards us.
It started to come in. I think I wanted to be a soldier on the street. I'm a man who lost his parents and his children. I don't know if I should kill them or not.
I was arrested and told to stop. I was feeling that way. Blindfolded me right then, tied me right then, the hill we went. Well, I figured he was, at some time, he was gonna come back and he was gonna claim that he was hunting and got in the wrong side of the tape and they captured him.
So I thought, if he comes back with that lame excuse, I'm gonna hang him. I'm gonna court-martial that guy when he comes back. Well, how long's that been now?
43 years? They put me in a room, I don't know what it was. I couldn't see.
I was there for one day. Then I come to Pinyon. Of course, under guard.
At that stage I was a POW. I went into interrogation immediately. I hadn't been in South Korea long enough to know that much. The only thing I could tell them, which they already knew, was the position of the company, or administration, or personnel.
I could tell them that. Atomic weapons and where... I know they're there, but where they're at, I didn't know.
The interrogation went for quite a while. Then they realized, oh, it's true. He wasn't there long enough to know it. As hellish as North Korea looks from the outside to folks now, the demonization of the place back then was so complete that to make that leap was just, it's inconceivable.
North Korea was viewed by the U.S. as a puppet of the Soviet Union. The country was led by a revolutionary who was committed to reunifying Korea, by force if necessary. Here he was known and revered as Comrade Kim Il-sung, the great leader. His presence was everywhere. Kim Il-sung declared that the U.S. was the illegal occupier of South Korea and the sworn enemy of the Korean people.
Dresnok was isolated and in the hands of a people unswerving in their hatred of the U.S. He was surrounded by anti-American imagery. Nothing here resembled the life he had left behind. Dresnok? Dresnok?
Who the hell's calling me? I didn't believe myself. I shut them again.
I must be dreaming. I opened them again and looked and, who in the hell are you? He says, I'm Absher.
Absher? I don't know no Absher. He says, Larry Allen Absher. You didn't see in the newspapers? Oh, yes, now I remember.
Absher grew up with family problems, Simmered now. But the older people that were taking care of him supported him very good. He had a little trouble in South Korea with marijuana. He was caught on it five or six times. He always had VD.
They were gonna court-martial him or kick him out of the army. He was fed up with the social life too, I guess. Instead of going back to his old life, he'd just come over to DPRK.
Private Absher's defection in May 1962 was the first by an American since the Korean War. Three months later, he was joined by Private First Class Dresnok. Embarrassingly for the U.S.
Army, the two men became minor celebrities in North Korea. But even worse was to follow in December 1963 when specialist for Jerry Wayne Parrish from Henderson, Kentucky simply disappeared from a routine border patrol. Parrish, he had family problems too. He had a stepfather which was an alcoholic.
He always beat the mother and the children. And the stepfather thought he was having sexual relation with his stepsister. Which was, he said, a lie. And he told me if I ever come home he'd kill him. I figure he got the information on Absher and myself crossing over.
And he said, well if they're happy, I guess he could be happy too. Three GIs had now defected to the communists in 18 months. Publicly, the US Army absolved itself of responsibility for these defections. These men were low-ranking soldiers from poor backgrounds and broken homes who had been unable to adapt to life in the military. But the North Koreans saw an opportunity.
With each defection, they had acquired a higher rank. Their military council now raised the stakes, proclaiming that financial rewards awaited those willing to bring weapons and information over. In January 1965, Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins, a non-commissioned officer from Rich Square, North Carolina, abandoned the nighttime patrol he was leading and took his M14 rifle to North Korea. The North Koreans could never have imagined that four soldiers of the hated imperialist enemy would voluntarily, and separately, cross to their side in such a short period of time. The defection of an officer was presented to the North Korean population as proof of communism's superiority over U.S. imperialism.
The U.S. military has highly evaluated the U.S. military's military operations. The U.S. military has publicly declared that the U.S. military has a strong point in the South Korean war. When I seen Jenkins in the newspaper the first time, I said, now why does an old sergeant like him come to North Korea? He looked like a grandfather.
His wrinkles were deep from the time he was young. And come to find out, he wasn't but a year older than myself. By deserting the army, all four men had, whether they intended to or not, signed up to the communist cause. Their decision to defect may have been taken spontaneously, but the act was irreversible. But what could these Americans, who had all dropped out of high school, possibly contribute to the socialist revolution?
These were people that were golden gifts to the North Koreans. By blowing them up as if, you know, these were people who saw the light and wanted to live under the mantle of Kim Il-sung's leadership, the U.S. government, I think, was very sensitive about this. They did not want publicity on these guys, and they still don't. I mean, I don't think now it's a conscious thing, but in the 60s, I think it was quite conscious to play down and hide these defections because they were more embarrassing to the United States than you might think. North, we're being...
We could hear the loudspeakers with Dresdnoff talking. It was absolutely appalling that he would do this and turn on the whole United States Army. Good morning, Nathan, 9th Cav. Come over to North Korea, we'll give you everything.
We'll give you money, we'll give you women, you'll have everything. Every day or every week we would hear him. He was telling us, you know, he had a lot of girls, you know, and they were treating him like Raleigh.
We knew it was the lies. But the younger kids that just got out of basic and they were 18 really took it for heart. And we were afraid that some of them might actually say, hey, this is a good life.
Let's go over. The defectors became integral cogs in a propaganda machine, producing a barrage of anti-US material that was sent across the DMZ to GIs in the South. It was obvious that somebody had written that script for him. He was putting out a real line of shit. He found La La Land.
The communists, the North Koreans, would use people for what they could get out of them. I'm no smarter than any other soldier, but I was smart enough to know going there wasn't the answer. All you're going to do is be a slave.
We took great pride in it. If the people look at it with the sunshades off, they say, oh, that's really true. The propaganda campaign may have seemed an innocuous offense to the defectors, but if they returned to the U.S., they faced lengthy prison terms for desertion and aiding the enemy. The four men soon began to wonder whether they had made the biggest mistake of their lives. Could they really stay in North Korea, this alien, communist land, indefinitely?
Was their way of life simply incompatible? I was a little uncomfortable. A different race, a different color, different customs, a different ideology. I was afraid they wouldn't let me say what I really wanted to say. The uneasiness of the way people look at me when I walk down the street.
Ah, there goes that American bastard. And it'd give me the ass. They hated Americans for the bombing campaigns, for atrocities that were carried out in the North. And they hated them on a racial basis.
They have a unique homogeneous population, namely they're Koreans and they're the best people in the world. And everyone else is judged by the fact that they're not Korean. And I can imagine in the 60s that these defectors were surprised to find out the level of hatred of Americans. On the other hand, here are these prized defectors that the North Koreans make a huge propaganda campaign out of.
You would think they would treat them like kings. I didn't want to stay. I didn't think I could adapt.
In 1966, four Americans tried to escape North Korea, and at enormous risk, collectively sought asylum at the Soviet embassy. If the Soviets accepted them, they hoped to be sent to Russia. If they refused, the consequences were too dire to contemplate.
We thought because they were white people too, they would accept. The Russians didn't treat us good. What the hell you come here for?
And they tried to persuade us to stay in North Korea. They notified the Korean government. The personnel came and the Russians can take a that. I didn't believe the Korean government would punish us for that. They'd educate me more.
The great leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung said, we will take them along with us to communism. There might be a different race, there might be a different color, but... Goddammit, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna learn their way of life.
I did everything I could. learning the language, learning the customs, learning their greetings, their life. I gotta think like this, I gotta act like this. I've studied their Juche ideal, their revolutionary history, their lofty virtues about the great leader. I've studied their Juche ideal, their revolutionary history, their lofty virtues about the great leader.
I studied most of the working party's policies. Regular studies the same as a career. They would be completely responsible for our life.
But the one thing I really accepted was, man is the master of his life. I agreed with this version of the Juche ideal. This was rather touching. Little by little, I've begun to understand the Korean people.
Although at the time economically ahead of the South, North Korea remained a developing country, and living conditions lagged far behind America. All involvement in propaganda was suspended following the incident at the Soviet embassy. Confined to their own private world, they began to wonder if they had outlived their usefulness, and if they had no value, they had no future.
Several minders from the Korean People's Army were assigned to them. These political guides could verify their continued education. As far as living the life like a Korean at that time, it was rather ridiculous.
They told us the best thing in personal safety right now until the people begin to understand you and you be able to understand our people, is to live a rather restricted type of life. We didn't live in barbed wire fences and we didn't have guards. Our guides would come and leave.
You can say actually he was like a servant. Of course he's the party servant. He always tell us anything you feel you need or you want to do just let me. In the first years we didn't do nothing.
The standard was fishing and drinking parties. But we passed time. We read some books, novels, the works of the great leader.
We go out in the river and take our swims. Lay in the sun and smoke our cigarettes. We always talk about home.
It's funny, everyone leaves home, the first thing they sit down and talk about is home. When we go out, we're gentlemen. Dress like a gentleman, act like a gentleman, there were no joking or laughing. We kept our mouths shut.
Listening to foreign broadcasts is infiltration of foreign culture. I might ask one of the guides what's going on in the outside world. If he wanted to tell me, he would tell me.
If he didn't, then it didn't disturb me, not at all. The world they had left behind was changing beyond recognition. But the Americans were cut off, with little to do but study the works of Kim Il-sung and government policy.
From this isolation emerged the inherent flaws in their friendship. Everyone got along good until in 1965 when chickens come over everything went to his click. He tried to push everyone around like he's pulling rank in the army.
Absher and Parrish they liked that. They become friends with him immediately. I don't go through that.
I'd taken my uniform off when I crossed the line. I didn't consider myself military no more. And nobody, I don't care who he was, he's not coming up to me and tell me I'll do this and I'll do that.
I didn't kiss nobody's ass. And I wasn't kissing his. They threw me out for Jenkins. Let them be like they are.
I told them that the future gonna realize. They only didn't live long enough to realize the truth. One day he tried to push me around with his so-called rank. There was two blows.
I hit him and he hit the ground. He wanted to attack me back. But I think the slap on the face was enough to settle him down. I'd rather not make any more statements on Jiggins. The more I think about him, the more I get the ass.
By 1972, the Americans're-education was considered advanced enough to be granted North Korean citizenship. In return for the state allocating them housing, food rations, and transportation, they would now go into society and work for the revolution. Their biggest contribution came in 1978 with their starring roles in a propaganda film epic set in the Korean War, which would transform their standing in North Korea from hated Americans to national heroes. I never thought of ever playing in a movie. First of all, I thought I didn't have the talent.
Though, I found out I could meet the demands of the director. I could do 자신i a good thing you put a 자기 to the full young you can see the movie John Johnson's a city to be really young my yes alone as a so you did a good job you The general was Kim Jong Il. Sung's son and future successor who took a particular interest in movies. According to Kim Jong-il's published guidance, cinematic art could only be created if it developed revolutionary consciousness among the people. Nameless Heroes was a prime example of Kim Jong-il's cinematic art.
Released over a three-year period and 20 parts long, this iconic film depicts Americans as evil schemers, South Koreans as their puppets, And the North Korean agents as heroes, battling against them all towards the ultimate victory. I don't consider it a propaganda movie. Why?
It's based on the main facts. ...of a man who carried out his espionage activities in South Korea. So, in order to catch this man, every means possible were used.
The enemy is over there! I took great honor in doing it. Mr. Udom, you've got the...
The four Americans were each assigned a character. Absher was Carl, a subordinate to two evil Americans. Parrish was Lewis, a British officer who detested the imperialist occupation of his native Northern Ireland.
Jenkins was Kelton, the evil mastermind. And Dresnok was Arthur Cockstud, the brutal commander of a POW camp. Another Cox thought it was one that had to be done, and I was willing to do it. I'm pleased to meet you all here.
I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here.
I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here.
I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here.
I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here. I'm pleased to meet you all here.
I'm pleased to meet you all here. Parrish and myself are the best two. Absher, he freezes a little.
He's a little stiff in his acting. That's... Jenkins, he did a good job in that last part. Is that so?
They picked the right man, a cunning son of a bitch. That way he carried out the role perfectly. I don't believe I could do. Many more acting roles followed for the defectors. Typecast as evil Americans, they became stars of the North Korean silver screen.
To this day, Dresnok is known in North Korea as Arthur, his nameless hero's character's name. Absher would not share in the success. In 1983, he died. died of a heart attack.
He was just 40 years old. Despite their common backgrounds, the three remaining defectors were growing apart. Dresnok and Parrish could converse in Korean, but Jenkins could rarely make himself understood. Their friendship was fraught, especially because Jenkins, having brought an M-14, was a very good friend. to North Korea was entitled to more rations.
But the popularity of nameless heroes had changed their lives. By playing evil Americans, they had adhered to the cinematic art demanded by Kim Jong-il. They'd established their revolutionary credentials.
The hardest part is so much wonder. Always wondering. Where are you Joe?
I do this rambling to myself a lot when I'm alone. If I cut the grass or something, I get to think about Joe, and I'll ramble just like this to myself, still wondering why. Thinking I know why, but until he tells me, I'll never know why.
But Joe, I miss him always. He'd come and talk to me. I really do. Happy birthday dear Tony, happy birthday to you.
Woo, Tony! What are you eating? Happy birthday, Ching Ching.
Okay, good boy you are. Drink up boys. We like a simple birthday.
We don't believe in rushing to restaurants and trying to make something fancy. We're simple people and we like a simple life. The birthday is not the very important thing in life. The most important thing is for people to be satisfied with their life and to lead a happy life. I was taught in a foreign language college in 1986. I poured all my knowledge and effort to help them, to teach them.
Some other places in the educational fields, they invite me to give a lecture once in a while. I'm not very educated so This is Pingan University of Foreign Studies. And foreign language to someone who would like to study foreign countries is like a weapon to a soldier.
70 or 80% of all the information stored in the electronic media is stored in English. So for scientists and for those people who want to keep up with the latest change, it is essential to have a good command of the English language. In America, none of the defectors had graduated high school.
In North Korea, their children were enrolled in Pyongyang's elite foreign language college. I take great pride in having my son in college because I know if I was in America. I don't believe if I was a worker I could afford it.
And everyone dreams of, oh if I could only, only send my children to college and have them develop better than me. And this has been solved. I know he will work in a field where he will be using his language. Brazil government sent army lieutenant to arbitrate boundary dispute between French and Dutch Guyana.
I start to learn English to become a diplomat. I'd like to make the world which has no war at all and no terror at all. He told me and I said, what? Really? Wow, I love you.
My father is American and... I've got American blood, but as I born here, I consider myself as Korean. The children of the Americans may regard themselves as Korean.
They study revolutionary history and the exploits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, but their official papers identify them as American. In the 1990s, North Korea experienced severe food shortages and a famine in which hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, died from starvation. Perhaps surprisingly to an outsider, the Americans fared better than most during this period, which is known in North Korea as the arduous march.
But the country continues to experience electricity shortages, blackouts, and a reliance on aid. These Americans accept the official line that the blame for their situation lies with the American government's imperialist policies. But how had these western-looking kids become children of the revolution?
You know, Jenkins was married to a Japanese. Parrish was married to a Lebanese. Ah, Apsley was married to a Korean, and I was married to I don't know what.
I thought I was the happiest man in the world when I met her. I walked into the foreigner section of the only restaurant. This brunette was sitting at the table. I went completely crazy.
But I thought, come on. I'm lonely, you're lonely. Let's make a pair.
I had two sons by her. Ted Dreslack and James Dreslack. Ah, what a woman.
She made me 20 years older than I really was. Then one day, in five months... One day later, she passed away.
Dresnok's current wife was born out of a relationship between a Korean and a Togolese diplomat, who promptly returned to Africa. I didn't have any idea for another marriage. I figured that the children were big enough I could raise them, but it's not that easy. But one day I just happened to pop up in the Ong Yu restaurant and it was a little difficult she's not a very talkative woman Ma-ra. As you can see, it's very good.
And you see, we had a beautiful little son. And we're, we get along very good. What? No. It's just the beginning.
During the course of filming this project, allegations came to the fore that all the Americans were married to women who had been brought to North Korea against their will, and that Dresnok's first wife in North Korea was a Romanian kidnapped from Italy. Dresnok was reluctant to discuss his first wife in North Korea. He refused to confirm where she was from and never volunteered a photograph of her.
I can say she was a European. I'd get her drunk and ask her. Shut up.
Don't ask no questions. After so many times I quit, I didn't care. Stories emerged that Absher's wife was from Thailand and not Korean as Dresnok insisted. and that Parrish had married a woman kidnapped from the Middle East. No.
His wife was living in Lebanon, huh? She come here on a tour, and then they met. But he got too tight and made her pregnant.
So they got married. And she was pregnant the first time she went home. Her grandfather went crazy. And her mother said, well, if you're pregnant, go on back to the man. However implausible her story seems to a Westerner, Parrish's wife maintains that she initially came to North Korea from Lebanon as a tourist.
I don't see why it was so strange. Because I believe that people, the world thinks I'm a kidnapped girl. I'm not.
My family and my government, they all know I'm in Korea. I'm not secret in Korea. And I'm free in Korea.
I come here on my own. I wasn't forced. I wasn't kidnapped.
I did all on my own. My thinking, my desire. Parrish's wife still lives in Pyongyang. All three of their sons have attended the foreign language university. The eldest has served in the Korean People's Army.
Parrish's children had never seen photographs of their father as a young boy. They had no concept of the country where he had grown up. Having suffered kidney disease for 20 years, Parrish died in 1998. He was 54 years old. After Parrish died, Shaken's Eye was a little closer. Not that I really appreciated him, but we were the only two Americans left here and we were living next door to each other.
And yes, to tell the truth, I visited his house to listen to him. stories, which I have heard so, so many times. And I let the fool talk. In 1980, Jenkins was asked to teach English to a Japanese woman.
Six weeks later, they were married. She was 21. He was 40. Unlike Jenkins, she had not voluntarily come to North Korea. Jenkins'wife. Yes, I knew.
When she had complete faith in us, she told us, you know you just don't go around and broadcast, I was kidnapped from Japan. And now I hear the whole world knows it. It's true, she was kidnapped from Japan, put in a bag, put in a small motorboat, motorboat went out to another boat, and she was carried from there to Kibayaki. Her and Jenkins, they got along good.
Hay-Yoon was the kind of woman that could adapt herself. Her biggest problem was her husband got old and she wasn't satisfied. And he's too stupid to know it. But nobody ever told me. I think you know what I mean.
One night we were dancing. Jenkins, he seen me run my fingers into her pants. And from then on we were... You had to look out.
Only my fingers were about that far down. Till that time, she'd come to our house and visit and we'd talk and we'd drink coffee and play cards, listen to music, drink wine. But after that, no, no, no, no, no. 24 years after her abduction, Jenkins'wife was allowed to return to Japan.
She refused to go back to North Korea. It transpired that she had been kidnapped in a bizarre plot to have North Korean spies trained in Japanese. language and customs. As a deserter from the U.S.
Army, Jenkins faced extradition and prosecution if he ever set foot in Japan. He remained in Pyongyang with their daughters. He only had one thing in his mind.
I've got to get there. How am I going to get there? The family separation became a major political issue in Japan. During this time, Dresnok introduced Jenkins to our film crew. This is my friend, Charles Robert Jenkins.
I've known him for a very long time. This is my friend, James Joseph Dresnok, and I've known him for 39 years. This was Jenkins'first contact with Westerners since his defection in 1965. He had no idea when, or even if, he would see his wife again.
The North Korean authorities considered this initial meeting too sensitive to be filmed. But he was also keen to tell his story. If it don't work as good, I am going to put this in newspapers all over the world.
I'm happy the way I am. I am retired. 60 years old, have a big party, hung up and nothing. But once you ignore Korea, they didn't even cut my money.
And they give me more rations. It's true. Privately, the Americans admitted they were not close friends.
I don't like him when he's drinking. He gets his mouth running and never stops. He sits there and he dreams up things about the government.
At first I say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not to say I agree with you. He told it to our guide. He said, Treznak has the same opinion I have. I told him, what?
And they believed him because he was so sincere in everything. He tried to shoot us down, make us look low. And build himself up.
The old American saying is sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. The governments of Japan and North Korea finally agreed for the Jenkins family to meet in Indonesia, which had no extradition treaty with the United States. They had been separated for two years.
He was already told if he stays in Korea, he stays in Korea. If he goes to Japan, he goes to Japan. The Korean government doesn't care. When he went to Indonesia, he promised the Korean government that he was going to retire.
Got there, stayed with her a few days, and he's going to Japan. Upon his arrival in Tokyo, Jenkins was immediately hospitalized, and Japanese public sympathy grew. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi personally urged President Bush to be lenient on Jenkins. But, with U.S. soldiers serving and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, leniency for a deserter was considered unlikely.
Bye-bye, baby. Who cares? Before turning himself in, Jenkins played his final card, an exclusive interview with an American journalist.
The motivation for doing an interview was to say, here's what my life was like in North Korea. He wanted them to know what I was like. to be lenient on him in a criminal case. Dresnok was interviewed one week after the article was published and had no idea of its content. Tell me exactly what the news is.
If he makes allegations against me that aren't true, then I must condemn him. This is beyond belief. No, I believe.
I believe he would say and act like this. When he would do something that the North Korean government would not like, he said Dresdak would beat him. He's big, you know, he's a beater, he likes to beat people.
Who here could dream of possibly tying up a man and beating him? I can count every fight on one hand, huh? Charles described this as more than 30 times over the course of those years.
He's a liar. He's trying to save his ass. I hope he gets as much time in prison as he claims I beat his ass.
He had a tattoo on his arm of two cross rifles with the words U.S. Army below it. And he said that the North Koreans cut the U.S.
Army out of his arm without anesthesia. Ain't nobody do nothing by force. The North Koreans allegedly held European and Middle Eastern people against their will and those people had had children and those children were going to be used in North Korea's spy program.
No, breed spies? No, this is ridiculous, quite ridiculous. Do you think the Korean government would make our children spies?
We can speculate having agents that don't look Korean but have allegiance to the regime would be of value. I'm truly sorry my friends who have passed away are not here to see this. You surrendered to the Korean People's Army, now you're surrendering back to the Americans. I don't have intentions of leaving. You don't give a shit if you put a billion damn dollars of gold on the table.
I'd like to kill a son of a bitch. The young lady's not so good. I was rather good. Not very good, but rather good. But now, my legs ache so much.
The older you get, the more you think. about your home place and your childhood. But you see, my childhood wasn't very pleasant. I never went to a movie.
I never went bowling. But now I enjoy my... my weekends and my holidays without no worries whatsoever. Very good. Want me to give you a level?
I was sitting here a while ago thinking about Jenkins. I've never seen a man that makes a mistake that doesn't think about his past. I kind of feel sorry for him, but he could be here with us. Now I think he's behind bars, not enjoying nothing.
His future is not so bright, and he'll think about here, no doubt in my mind. I'm sure his children would enjoy it very much today. I feel sorry for them more than anyone.
They have no future. Here they had a future. He won't forget us.
I'm ready to show the world at any time that it isn't what he says. I think you know Alice in Wonderland. Well, I just wonder if it's not Jenkins in Wonderland. I don't accept his statements whatsoever.
If you look at my arm, I have a scar here. I had a naked woman here. It showed the breasts and the hair on the... As you know, this is not suitable here in the socialist society. And I made my own decision.
I went to the hospital. I had it cut off. Here I have another American Army tattoo.
I had U.S. here, too. I run around in the Korean society with U.S. on my arm. No, my conscience didn't prevail this. And I decided.
No one decided for me. And no one decided for him. He did it himself. Upon his release from prison, Jenkins joined his wife on the Japanese island from where she had been kidnapped. It was a love story that had captivated the public in Japan.
His autobiography was published, but only in Japanese. The very left end. Jenkins continued to speak of his miserable life in North Korea, of beatings by Dresnok, of his children being groomed to be spies. Dresnok's sole source of knowledge of these allegations was through our film crew.
As far as Kim Jong-il's regime, could anybody say anything good about it other than a few stooges? It's a socialist country's system of exploiting and oppressing their people. Everyone has opinions, we say in America. Opinions are like assholes.
Everybody's got one. So, get the right opinion. Learn this man, and you'll find what I'm telling the world is the truth.
One, two, three. Tony! Hmm? What's this?
What's this? He lit for me. I go to the doctor when it's necessary. Right now, this doctor is necessary. Cheers up.
For your health. Sometimes you say like, Michael, Michael. You don't want me to live too long.
Get out of the way, huh? But, uh... It's impossible.
I'm planning on staying for quite a while yet. Mm-hmm. He makes me feel good, but I'm too old and wore out. I'm getting old quick.
I'm getting old quick. I'm getting old quick. Funny.
The heart has a while to go yet. I'm just worried mainly about the flow of blood in my legs because it's very black, the blood, and I have a lot of trouble with my legs, a lot of pain. Anyhow, I'll try to live to be 80 at least. I hear he has another wife and a child. I'm proud of him for that.
I just wish they'd have been here in America. I wonder if he's eating good. Healthy. I have no healthcare. I'm getting no healthcare.
Please don't film me now. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Thank you. I'm going to go in the bathroom. Yes. Yes. Yes.
I'm going to go in the bathroom. Dr. Lee's heart disease is a chronic heart disease. It's called myocardial infarction. Most of the patients with heart disease have a lot to do with their daily life.
So they smoke and drink. But Dr. Durejunakho likes to smoke. We tell him to quit smoking when he comes to our clinic. Okay.
Do you have any symptoms of sickly pain? Yes, I have. I have a stomachache. If you do a lot of business, it's like that. Yes.
If you stay still, it's like this. Yes. Currently, there is no big difference between using drugs and using alcohol. But if you don't take care of your student's interest and use drugs regularly, you can't guarantee that you will be able to get rid of it at some point. I learned fishing first with nets.
It's against the law. So you sneak around. But we being foreigners usually, at least when you close eyes look the other direction.
If you're a member of the fishing club, there's no problem you have a permit. If you don't have it, I heard it costs about 51. Fine. And they'll fine you and run you home.
Or you can pay the 51 and if you keep your mouth shut you can sit there and continue to fish. You can say my permit is my face. I listened to my teacher and studied and it would have been a little different I believe. But here I'm lucky.
I always tell my sons that if they're going to study, study. Study is their future. Knowledge is power. And I want them to be in good jobs, not to be an illiterate old man like me. I'm going to drink a cup of soju.
I drank too much last night. I'm going to drink a cup of soju. I drank too much last night. I drank too much last night.
I drank too much last night. I drank too much last night. I drank too much last night.
I should take him to the fair. Let's go. Sure. Let's go. Let's have another drink.
I'm thirsty. What's this? I Should Take the German TV. They're gonna be okay. We're gonna do it Till turn on You see my liver is full of fat.
He said that if I die, it's gonna be because of my liver. Okay! Not because of my heart.
Bring your children and your wife. I don't like it when they're noisy when I go to their house. Bring your wife and your wife together. Let's have a good time.
Feel good already. I still remember the Ardious March. Because of the sanctions and blockation of the American government and the Japanese. These thousands, I think are hundreds of thousands, of Korean people died from starvation. Now I know what you're going to ask me.
You're going to ask me, how was my life during that time? And I'm going to tell you the truth. My life has never changed since I've been in the DPRK. The Korean people starved to death, but I got my rice rations, 800 gram a day, every day the same. When I eat my rice, I think about the people who died, who starved to death, but yet they fed me.
I always thought if I could get over there, I could talk him into coming back. I always thought I could. I kind of just decided that he's gone. He's not going to come back. He's not going to be able to come back.
The people in the West, why? Why do they let their own people starve to death and feed an American? The great leader.
Has given us special solicitude. Like I said before, the government is going to take care of me until my dying day. North Korea's choice to free North Korea themselves, and its side, such workers always say they can do it.
The biggest thing is just why. Of all the things he did, why did he go to a communist country? Why didn't he just get off, come back where he was going to, switch planes and just fly away? In England or France, or not France.
Keep that.