THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 15, 1996 TAG: 9606150358
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 47 lines
Ten to 15 American servicemen apparently taken prisoner during the Korean War may still be alive in North Korea and seeking to return home, according to an internal Defense Department report.
The report, stamped ``For Official Use Only,'' also says Sgt. Charles Robert Jenkins of Rich Square, N.C., one of four U.S. soldiers who defected to North Korea in the 1960s, may want to come back.
In January, the Pentagon confirmed that Jenkins and three other U.S. deserters were alive in North Korea, but it dismissed as false a South Korean news report that U.S. officials had confirmed that some U.S. POWs were alive there.
But in a March 26 internal report assessing recent sightings of Americans in North Korea, a Pentagon analyst wrote that the Defense Department's POW-MIA Office ``concludes that there are two groups of Americans in North Korea: a small group of defectors and a larger group of 10-15 possible POWs.''
The two-page internal report also said without further explanation: ``According to escorts, many POWs desired to return to U.S.''
The term ``escorts'' may refer to North Koreans who controlled the POWs' movements.
The internal report, which was prepared by In Sung Lee, a Pentagon specialist in Korean War POW issues, based its conclusion on a variety of intelligence reports.
When it confirmed in January that the four were still alive in North Korea, Pentagon officials indicated there had been no communications with the four.
In Lee's March 26 report, however, he wrote that one North Korean defector met Jenkins in a coffee shop in the capital, Pyongyang, and that Jenkins said ``he is now ready to return to America.''
Jenkins grew up in Rich Square, a hamlet of 1,000 people in Northampton County 80 miles southwest of Norfolk. A high school dropout, he washed cars at the local Ford dealership before joining the Army.
Many who knew him were shocked at reports of his defection. But Wayne Pope, a childhood friend, wasn't surprised. Pope spoke to The Virginian-Pilot in January after a photo of Jenkins from a 1980s North Korean propaganda film was published by a South Korean newspaper.
``He told me the last time he came home, which was probably late '64 or early '65, that when he left this time he wasn't coming back,'' Pope said. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The Associated Press and
staff writer Bill Sizemore. by CNB