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3 Joseph White's walk
in the dark By Robert Neff
thinking as I watched it how
stiffly and uncomfortably White spoke. The
vocabulary seemed almost alien to his tongue, as
if it had been orchestrated.
The UNC
evidently felt the same way: "The language is
stilted and totally unlike a Westerner's speaking
style, particularly that of a US Army soldier. It
should be noted also that the press conference
touched on every propaganda theme currently being
voiced by North Korea."
White's father concurred that he did not
believe it was his son's genuine beliefs: "He
never complained about the American policy in
Korea. His letters were very upbeat and factual
and described what was going on in Korea."
But they weren't all upbeat. On July 20,
1982, in a letter to his parents White described
the eeriness of lying in ambush along the DMZ
listening to the voice of a communist woman
"quivering with hate - hate for the US and for
South Korea". About a month later he wrote to a
friend informing him of having almost been killed
twice - once when his patrol inadvertently strayed
into one of its own ambush sites and the second
when his patrol became "misoriented" in the dark.
On September 18, White's parents were
extremely upset as the evidence continued to mount
that their son had defected. Kathleen White
confessed to being "totally confused" and unable
to sleep for three nights, asking herself over and
over how this could have happened.
"The
kid I knew was a straight arrow, proud of being
American and proud of being in the army." He had
even begun saving up a large sum of money to be
used after his scheduled discharge the following
March.
Even the Whites' neighbors couldn't
believe that their son had defected entirely of
his own free will. "Something must have happened
to him. Something must have clicked. He wouldn't
do anything like that unless they brainwashed
him," insisted a close friend of the family.
But on September 19, a US military
spokesman announced that the investigation into
the incident had ended - White had willingly
defected to North Korea.
Shortly after the
military's finding, the Whites received what was
described as "a warm, personal, supportive letter"
from Reagan - the facts were irrefutable.
"We asked for the truth and we got facts.
We accept these facts. I know it's hard but the
facts are there. I don't see how I can refute it,"
Norval White told the press. "We, his parents,
relatives and friends, do not know what ignited
this totally uncharacteristic action. We are all
deeply hurt."
Kathleen White, devastated
at the thought of never seeing her son again,
said: "I'll go to the grave with a thousand
questions without any peace until I talk to my son
Joe. We pray that someday Joe will be with us. If
my son had any faults, it was that Joe has such
strong feelings for the oppressed people of the
world."
Later, in another interview, she
insisted, "It just doesn't make any sense. Why
would Joey want to leave his ice cream, his
chocolate syrup, [and] his money?"
Why
did he defect? Joseph White was from St
Louis, Missouri, and lived in a middle-class
neighborhood of two-story, well-kept brick
bungalows with his parents and four siblings. An
examination of his early childhood portrays him as
an extremely loyal and patriotic American. At the
age of 13, he wrote to his senator warning him of
the communist threat that he felt the United
States was facing. He ensured that the family's US
flag was flown on all national holidays and was
"folded just right" at sunset. He was also a
volunteer with the Reagan presidential campaign.
But his personality was complicated and
filled with contradictions and the inability to
fit in or be satisfied with himself. He was
described as a nice enough boy who was never in
trouble at school or in public. Academically he
was an average student, he was a devout Roman
Catholic, and while in high school he volunteered
as a counselor for handicapped children and was an
active member of the Boy Scouts of America.
White was fascinated with the military and
after high school applied to the United States
Military Academy at West Point, New York, but was
turned down, so he enrolled instead in Missouri's
Kemper Military School and College, where he
maintained a B-plus average. However, because of
his lack of athletic ability and his shyness, he
kept pretty much to himself and was regarded as a
loner. Unable to fit in, he dropped out of school
- convincing himself that it was full of "losers"
- and enlisted in the military.
White
arrived in Korea in March 1982 and was assigned to
Camp Howze, just south of the DMZ. In July, he
rotated to the bases closest to the DMZ. White
looked down on many of his fellow soldiers, who he
felt had no knowledge of Korea save for what they
learned from the television program M*A*S*H
or in the small villages surrounding the military
camps that catered to the needs of the soldiers.
Soldiers in forward units spent most of their time
on base, but when they were granted passes to go
to the nearby "ville", many overindulged in
alcohol and spent their time with women of
questionable morals.
White, on the other
hand, read as much as he could on Korea and began
learning the language. He became sympathetic to
the Korean people and perhaps a little arrogant in
thinking that only he could see past the US
stereotypes and realize that the Koreans were
happy in their small, crowded hovels leading their
simple lives. And in a way he yearned for this
life. His mother would later wonder how he could
give up his life in the United States "for one
bowl of rice a day for the rest of his life" in
North Korea.
There were suggestions that
White may have defected because of troubles in his
unit. He was described as an "average soldier" and
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