The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea

Written by Charles Robert Jenkins and Jim Frederick

Narrated by John McLain

In January of 1965, twenty-four-year-old U.S. Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins abandoned his post in South Korea, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to communist North Korean soldiers standing sentry along the world's most heavily militarized border. He believed his action would get him back to the States and a short jail sentence. Instead he found himself in another sort of prison, where for forty years he suffered under one of the most brutal and repressive regimes the world has known. This fast-paced, harrowing tale, told plainly and simply by Jenkins (with journalist Jim Frederick), takes the listener behind the North Korean curtain and reveals the inner workings of its isolated society while offering a powerful testament to the human spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Mar 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781977377265

Charles Robert Jenkins

Charles Robert Jenkins is a former United States Army soldier who lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004. He now lives in Japan. Jim Frederick was Time magazine's Tokyo bureau chief from 2002 to 2006 and is now a Time senior editor stationed in London.

Reviews for The Reluctant Communist

[chris_el-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If you want an understanding of what it must be like living under the communist regime in North Korea this book will give you a glimpse.

It follows an American soldier on his third assignment (second in South Korea) who was worried about doing combat patrols there. He was afraid of the possible violence. He doesn't go in depth as to what about combat made him afraid. He also knew that his unit back in the USA was being activated to be sent to Vietnam (a conflict in it's opening phases of US involvement). He was afraid he was going to be sent home eventually to be sent right back out again and into combat. Again, no information as to why someone what had been in the Army the length of time he had was so uncomfortable about going into combat. Fear is natural but just finishing several other books about WWII veterans part of doing your duty is engaging the enemy in spite of your fear. SSgt Jenkins did know how/did not want to do this.

He thought if he slipped over the border into North Korea they would turn him over to the Russians and they would trade him back the USA where he would be court-martialed out of the Army and avoid combat. Easy peezy right? His plan failed to work. North Korea captured him as he planned but refused to let him go. They thrust North Korean citizenship on him and worked to indoctrinate him into the communist society with a couple other soldiers they had either captured or had defected. SSgt Jenkins would be a prisoner for 40 years.

One of the interesting things about the North Korean communist culture was the attitude of self critisism that was required. Every day SSgt Jenkins was required to write in a diary about his failure in some way to follow the teachings of the beloved leader of the country. Perhaps how he failed to maintain some piece of property and as a result it broke. How this did not live up the standards of communism and honor the dear leader and how he would change his life to do better. Perhaps he told a lie but he realized this did not honor the dear leader. Perhaps he wasted food or some other resource. Public confession in small groups was constantly required.

While acknowledging that you commited an error is sometimes appropriate and a sign of maturity here it was used to create a feeling that the individual under this system were never good enough. That they must constantly strive (but never achieve) to honor the leader of the communist nation. Constant pressure, constant review, and constant confession and promises to do better. The person leading the small groups would constantly change so no relationship could be built where advantage or slacking could take place.

Eventually the Noth Koreans complained that SSgt Jenkins was not having sex with his cook like he was supposed to. (They didn't get along) and then one of the Americans got the cook in his area pregenant. The cooks were supposed to be infertile and the North Koreans did not want the Americans creating racially impure children. So they found people from other races to marry them. In SSgt Jenkins' case this was a young Japanese woman the North Koreans had kidnapped. The Koreans wanted to have some control over every aspect of every citizen's lives.

To SSgt Jenkins credit he did not force himself on her like the Koreans told him too but over time by his kindness and their simularity of circumstance of being strangers in a strange land she fell in love with him and they married and had a couple of daughters (and a son that died not long after birth).

One of the things the North Koreans required SSgt Jenkins do was star in government produced films as the evil white man.

During a diplimatic meeting with Japan the North Koreans let slip that they had abducted Japanese citizens. Japan demanded their return and eventually SSgt Jenkins's wife was sent to Japan to "vist". However, she refused to return and finally the North Korean governement allowed SSgt Jenkins and their children to also go visit his wife in a neutral country. They gave him girft and money and tried to convince SSgt Jenkins to talk his wife into coming back and promising them a new house and car if he was successful. Instead, while deeply concerned about his punishment from the Army SSgt Jenkins agreed to go to Japan with his wife.

The Army assigned him a defense attorney (who was excellent accourding the book and the results he got) who worked with SSgt Jenkins as he turned himself in with the Army. He was court-martialed and sentenced to 30 days confinement. After 40 years trapped in North Korea this was probably a reasonable sentence.

SSgt Jenkins settled with his family in Japan but was able to visit his family in America and reunite with siblings and his mother.

[hereandthere_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a quick and fascinating read. Jenkins condemns himself for deserting, and acknowledges how serious a crime it was to abandon in the field the men he led one cold night in 1965 when he walked over the South Korean border into North Korea. He argues, however, that he has served a 40 year prison sentence, and when you read this account there can be little doubt of that. It is mind boggling for us (and it is for him too) to contemplate the naivete that led him to imagine that he could escape his troubles in the US military by defecting to North Korea, but there you have it.

The details of life inside North Korea, privation, self-criticism sessions, boredom, and utterly controlled lives, told from the perspective of an ordinary American soldier, make this well worth reading. Remarkably, however, Jenkins found (or, was assigned) a wife in the person of a kidnapped Japanese woman. The story of how they came to love each other, and finally made it out, together with their two daughters, who were on a path to become spies for the North Korean government, is gripping and brought a tear to my eye. On his return he was convicted by the U.S. military, but negotiated and received a nominal sentence, and is living out the remainder of his life in his wife's home town in Japan. This is a great portrait of life in North Korea over the last 40 years from a unique perspective.

[paperloverevolution · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There's plenty of tragedy in Jenkins' story, but the truly compelling part is how he not only survived, but carved out a kind of peaceful haven in the midst of North Korea. It's a testament to the ingenuity and resilience of the spirit. How to make a fishing net that will last forever (you will need one dead pig for this), how to break into the black market, how to build a self-heating floor from scraps or rig up your own plumbing: it's all in here, part of the way in which people adapt to repression and scarcity. Though his account of his dealings with the state are fairly toneless, his descriptions of the human element - family, neighbors, and fellow American defectors - brings the narrative alive, and gives the reader an amazing look at what daily life is like inside North Korea.

[matthew254 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Former U.S. Army Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins' shocking story of dishonorable defection, perpetual hardship, and an unlikely romance unfold in this ghostwritten memoir told now decades after his "release" from North Korea. TIME magazine correspondent Jim Frederick assists in crafting a regret-filled attempt of rectifying Jenkins' 1965 defection and subsequent life across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into hostile territory. His life in North Korea was indeed extraordinary but is everything what it seems on the surface?Jenkins' originally published his memoir in Japanese in 2005 and was then translated into Korean in 2006; this English language edition tells his unbelievable story from his unlikely desertion while leading a patrol, to his discovery of three other American defectors, to his adjustment to new life in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Because of his unique willingness to cross over, Jenkins and the other defectors occupied a unique position in North Korean society; not fully trusted yet strangely revered as "Cold War trophies". Some even rose to celebrity status after portraying despicable foreigners in popular propaganda films.Although Jenkins mostly lived in rather spartan conditions, he's quick to point out that others in the North Korean countryside were not as fortunate during times of famine. His apparent ineffective brainwashing sessions were constant and government-assigned minders persistently dictated his day-to-day life. His residence changed often as did his assigned jobs; sometimes making fish nets other times teaching English. However regimented his life was, he still found himself in a situation to fall in love with a Japanese abductee. What happens when Jenkins leaves North Korea I'll leave for the reader to discover.His narration is seductively easy to follow and makes appropriate detours when explanations are necessary to clarify context. The reader is cautiously drawn in to empathize with Jenkins and his plight. His story is told simply with few obvious embellishments. However, I'm still not fully convinced that the whole story is being fully disclosed. Jenkins' relationship with the other Americans is of particular interest, partly because some of the accounts conflict with what fellow defector Joe Dresnok recalls in the 2006 documentary Crossing the Line.What concludes is a peculiar tale of almost Hollywood caliber. Reportedly, American film producer Brett Ratner has secured the rights to make a film adaption of Jenkins' story. One can only hope it's better than Tower Heist. That's not asking for much.

[lpearson_16 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found myself strangely sympathetic to the plight of the rather unlikable Robert Jenkins. A young, poor, uneducated, American soldier deserts his post at the DMZ separating North Korea and South Korea and finds himself in an almost other-worldly land with new rules to learn and a new reality to accept. The story explores the dire consequences of young Robert's poor decision to defect to North Korea.