NPR

Charles Jenkins, Cold War Defector To North Korea, Dies At 77

Stationed at the DMZ, the sergeant made a fateful decision in 1965 to cross over to North Korea. He spent the next four decades as a trophy of Pyongyang.
Hitomi Soga embraces her husband, U.S. Army defector Charles Robert Jenkins, as the two are reunited at the airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2004, after Jenkins' release.

In 1965, Charles Jenkins, a young U.S. Army sergeant stationed at the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea, made what he described decades later as the biggest mistake of his life: he got drunk, deserted his post and crossed over to North Korea.

Jenkins spent the next four decades as a Cold War trophy of

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