Pentagon Names 4 GIs Who Defected to N. Korea

The Defense Department on Tuesday disclosed the identities of four U.S. military defectors who it said have been living in North Korea for three decades.

But Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon again denied a South Korean newspaper report that the United States knows of possible surviving U.S. prisoners of war in the Communist North.

The four defectors, who fled U.S. forces in the 1960s and are believed to be teaching English in North Korea, were identified as Sgt. Robert Jenkins, Cpl. Jerry W. Parrish and Pvts. James Dresnok and Larry Abshier. Other details, including ages and hometowns, were not immediately released.

A South Korean newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, on Monday cited an unnamed South Korean official as saying the United States has confirmed that it believes about 10 Americans are still being held captive in North Korea from the 1950-53 Korean War.

“We have no evidence that these reports are correct,” Bacon told reporters.

He said two other U.S. servicemen, Ryan Sup Chung and Joseph White, defected to North Korea in 1979 and 1982 respectively but are now believed to be dead.

He would not say how the United States knows that the four earlier defectors are still alive except to say that two of them appear in the North Korean propaganda film “Unknown Heroes,” which apparently portrays North Korean counterintelligence efforts during the war.

Air Force Maj. Bruce Fitch, another Pentagon spokesman, said Monday night that the United States is continuing to investigate “a limited number of reports that contain information alleging POWs [have been held] since the war.”

The South Korean report coincided with talks last week between North Korea and the United States on recovering the remains of about 8,100 Americans still listed as missing in action during the Korean conflict. The Pentagon indicated that the talks broke up without progress.