To Charles Robert Jenkins, five decades of his life were all a mistake. That’s because when at age 20 as a sergeant serving in Korea, he thought if he could just jump over to the North Korean side, they would pick him up and send him back home to North Carolina. But instead, Jenkins has emerged as the world’s longest-held captive, and finally tells his bittersweet story in a new book written with Jim Frederick.
Titled “The Reluctant Communist” the book, that was reviewed in yesterday’s WSJ by Gabriel Schoenfeld, is the story of a man who just didn’t know what he was getting into when he crossed that mine-laden border. “A giant, demented prison,” is how he describes North Korea, where “once someone goes there, they almost never get out.”
The communists thought that they’d make life better for Jenkins and two other Americans by forcing young kidnapped Japanese girls to watch over them and give them comfort by offering sexual favors. Though the woman were thought of as a way to boost the prisoner’s morale, Jenkins treated his forced Japanese companion with kindness and respect. They fell in love and had three children who grew up Korean.
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