A Strange Correspondence

Don't worry about me, because I am being treated well by the Korean people. It is no news by now that the Pueblo was captured in the act of collecting intelligence in the territorial waters of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The penalty for espionage in this country is death. The only condition that we will be returned home on is for the U.S. Government to admit its crime, apologize and give assurance that it will not happen again. If these conditions are not met, then we will be executed for the acts. I love you both so much that even as a grown man I have broken into tears many times.

With all my love, Stephen Robert Harris

Enclosed in a plain envelope with a neatly typed address, that letter arrived last week at the home of the writer's mother, Mrs. Robert S. Harris, m Melrose, Mass. Written by the Pueblos research officer and intended also for his wife Esther, it was among the latest of 102 letters that the 82 captured Americans have sent to President Johnson to U.S. Senators and to their own families and sweethearts since their ship was seized off North Korea in January. Having failed at the diplomatic level to extract an apology from the U.S. for the Pueblo's activities, the North Koreans are now playing on the understandable fears of the captive Navymen to launch a propaganda campaign and to try to force the U.S. into some sort of an admission of wrongdoing.

Subtle Brainwashing. The letters began-arriving about a month ago. They are on a variety of types of paper, mostly written in longhand, a few typewritten. The North Koreans send them by diplomatic pouch to Communist embassies in Western Europe, where they are then airmailed to the U.S. Some have been postmarked in the U.S.

Full of political jargon and stilted phrases, the letters are not the sort of thing a Navyman would normally write. Each letter invariably recites the North Korean propaganda line that the U.S. must admit its transgressions, apologize and promise to sin no more. They also ask the recipients to organize support to bring pressure to bear on the Government for an apology. Many of the letter writers, including Commander Lloyd Bucher, the Pueblo's skipper, mention the fact that they have confessed their own wrongdoings against North Korea and have so far been spared any punishment.

Mindful of the Communist success in brainwashing American prisoners during the Korean War, U.S. intelligence experts fear that the Navymen have been subjected to a subtle variation of the same technique. Somehow, the Communist indoctrinators have drilled into Pueblo men that they violated North Korean waters and can save their lives only by doing exactly what their captors require of them. U.S. experts do not believe that the letters are necessarily copied from drafts prepared by the North Koreans. The more likely explanation is that the Communists insist that certain points be included in the letters and that the Americans simply regurgitate phrases they have often heard. The Communists try to make the Navymen think that they are performing a patriotic service by helping the U.S. get the facts straight about the Pueblo incident. As Lieutenant Edward R. Murphy, the ship's navigator, wrote to his family, "I wish I could personally show this evidence [the Pueblo's log] because I'm positive it would erase any doubt as to our guilt of the crime of espionage for which we are detained."

Cat & Mouse. The letters indicate that the prisoners so far have been treated relatively humanely. The Americans are not interned in a regular prison camp but are quartered in fairly comfortable buildings; they also are being well fed. In fact, South Korean intelligence believes that Pueblo men are housed in a Pyongyang suburb and given the same rations that are served to members of Soviet military missions in North Korea. The prisoners have written that they are allowed to go outside twice a day and play football, basketball and volleyball. At night they play cards and watch movies. A few have received letters from their families.

But a part of the Communist cat-and-mouse game is that the captives never know how long that tolerable life will last. There are hints that the North Koreans may be unable to resist the temptation of scoring a few more propaganda points by putting some on trial.

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