In 1962 audiences lined up to see The Manchurian Candidate, the story of a war hero turned programmed assassin by his Chinese captors. The story - and American fears of sinister Communist "brainwashing" tactics - was largely inspired by the "turncoat GIs," 21 American POWs who in 1953 refused to return home and instead went to Communist China. Although largely forgotten by modern-day historians, their defections sparked widespread outrage and debate in the United States.
According to the Geneva Convention, all prisoners of war should be repatriated after hostilities cease. President Truman balked at this, pushing instead for "voluntary repatriation. Some 47,000 Chinese and Korean prisoners - many of whom had been drafted into service forcibly and who had little affection for the Communists - chose to stay in South Korea instead of returning to Communist territory. The Americans were elated at this propaganda opportunity… until 23 American POWs showed up in the "neutral zone" at Panmunjom with their fists raised and singing the "Internationale," the Communist anthem.
The idea that any red-blooded American could willingly choose Communism over freedom and democracy was unthinkable… and so the press began whispering that they had been "brainwashed" by their Chinese captors. The Americans called for a 90-day "cooling-off" period for the GIs to think about their decision. Two of them responded to family entreaties and returned to the US … where they were immediately imprisoned as traitors and received dishonorable discharges. As the deadline neared, the others were asked if they would return. Defector Sgt. Richard Corden, then 25, of Rhode Island, shouted to his fellows "Do any Americans want to go home?" "No!" the others replied.
Various media outlets tried to "explain" these defections. Rarely did they consider the explanations given by the defectors. Clarence Adams, an African-American from Memphis, insisted that discrimination and Jim Crow laws were the reason why he chose to stay in China: this was dismissed as "propaganda." Trumpeting the fact that only three Black GIs switched sides, the Saturday Evening Post proclaimed "[T]he commies drew the worst blank of their ideological warfare among the American Negroes held in the POW cages." Journalist Virginia Pasley began each chapter of her 1955 book 21 Stayed by listing the IQ of each GI. Low IQs were blamed for "malleability," while high IQs were blamed for "rebelliousness." Another defection was blamed on the GI's upbringing in a city slum, and on a sister who had been blinded by syphilis. There were also suggestions of sexual impropriety: many reporters suggested that the defectors had been seduced by Chinese women. Childhood poverty was blamed for some defections, permissive mothering for others.
The defections fueled rumors of widespread collaboration by Korean POWs. Conditions in the Chinese POW camps were notoriously bad: 38% of all captives died before they were repatriated. The Chinese also held regular "political education classes," montonous sessions which featured endless rounds of self-criticism as well as "political trainers" willing to lend a sympathetic ear at the proper moment. Those who cooperated with the enemy received rewards like additional rations: by some estimates, as many as 1/3 of the surviving POWs had collaborated with their captors to a greater or lesser degree. (To be fair, many of these estimates were fueled by "Yellow Peril"-era beliefs about the "secrets of the inscrutable Chinese" and hysteria about the "many-tentactled Communist menace" which could break down any soldier's resistance. More level-headed scholars have suggested that there was far less collaboration by American POWs in Korea than had originally been feared).
The Chinese shipped some of the "Turncoat GIs" off to the People's University to study language and politics. Others found themselves on collective farms. Back in America, the CIA tried to learn the "brainwashing" secrets of the Communists, dosing unwitting soldiers with LSD in the notorious "MK Ultra" experiments. Had they waited a bit, they would have found that the purported "brainwashing" didn't take very well. Most of the GIs who went to China ultimately became disillusioned when they realized how far China was from a Communist Utopia. Within two years, the "turncoats" began returning to the United States. The first ones to return were arrested … only to be released when U.S. courts found that military tribunals had no more power to punish them, since they had already been dishonorably discharged. Others stayed longer, returning only when the "Cultural Revolution" led to widespread mistrust of foreigners. Ultimately only two of the original 21 would remain in China.
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