North Korea: A Strange Correspondence

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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.