North Korea for the first time confirmed an American GI who deserted his Army post in South Korea in 1965 is living in the communist North.
"I have to believe them. Yes, I believe them," said Pat Harrell of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., whose brother, Charles Robert Jenkins, is among four U.S. soldiers reported to have defected to North Korea in the 1960s and is thought still to be alive.Harrell said that, in a private meeting Wednesday in New York, North Korean government officials assured her that her brother is in good health. She was told he has a North Korean wife and is a citizen of that country.
"They said he has children at the university there," she said in an interview.
Harrell said she asked permission to visit her brother and was told that would depend on the outcome of U.S.-North Korean talks on establishing diplomatic relations. The United States, which led U.N. forces fighting on the side of South Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War, has no formal relations with the North.
The Pentagon disclosed in January 1996 that it believed four soldiers were living in North Korea, but the Korean government had not confirmed it until now.
There has been no word from Jenkins since he was reported absent without leave from his 1st Cavalry Division unit in South Korea on Jan. 5, 1965, Harrell said.
The Army issued court-martial charges against Jenkins after determining that he had participated in North Korean propaganda broadcasts in the 1960s in which he said he enjoyed life in the North and urged U.S. soldiers in the South to desert.
An internal Defense Department report made public last year said a North Korean defector reported having met Jenkins in a coffee shop in the capital, Pyongyang, and that Jenkins said "he is now ready to return to America." The report did not say when the encounter took place.
The North Korean officials are attending meetings in New York this week with Defense Department officials on American efforts to account for servicemen missing from the Korean War. Harrell's meeting was separate from the official agenda.
Larry Greer, a Defense Department spokesman, said the North Koreans acknowledged in their meetings with Pentagon officials this week that "there are some American deserters living there." But he said they mentioned no names or numbers.
Greer said Pentagon officials asked the North Koreans for permission to interview the four men believed living in Pyongyang, but received no assurances.
When he dashed across the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea, Jenkins, 24 at the time, left behind a good-bye note in his barracks.
"Dear Mother: I am sorry for the trouble I will cause you," he wrote, according to Army records released to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. "I know what I will have to do. I am going to North Korea. Tell family I love them very much."