James Joseph Dresnok is an American defector to North Korea, one of six
American soldiers to defect after the Korean War.
After defecting, Dresnok worked as an actor and as an English teacher in
Pyongyang. He was featured on the CBS magazine program 60 Minutes on January
28th, 2007, as the last United States defector alive in North Korea, and was
the subject of a documentary film entitled Crossing the Line.
He calls himself Joe Dresnok and has been called both James Dresnok and Joe
Dresnok in news reports, sometimes both in the same report.
Early life Dresnok was born in Richmond, Virginia.
His father was Joseph Dresnok I. His parents divorced when he was ten years
old, and he was briefly raised by his father in Pennsylvania; his mother and
younger brother Joseph Dresnok II never again came into contact with them.
Dresnok was placed in a foster home, dropped out of high school, and joined
the Army the day after his 17th birthday.
Career Defection
Dresnok's first military service was two years spent in West Germany. After
returning to the United States and finding out that his wife had left him
for another man, he reenlisted and was sent to South Korea. He was a Private
First Class with a U.S. Army unit along the Korean Demilitarized Zone between
North and South Korea in the early 1960s. Soon after his arrival, he found
himself facing a court martial for forging signatures on paperwork that
gave him permission to leave the base which, ultimately, led to his going
AWOL. Unwilling to face punishment, on August
15th 1962, while his fellow soldiers were eating lunch, he ran across a
minefield in broad daylight into North Korean territory, where he was quickly
apprehended by North Korean soldiers. Dresnok was taken by train to Pyongyang,
the North Korean capital, and interrogated.
Life in North Korea "I was fed up with my childhood, my
marriage, my military life, everything. I was a goon. There's only one place to
go," Dresnok said in an interview. "On August 15th, at noon in broad daylight
when everybody was eating lunch, I hit the road. Yes I was afraid. Am I gonna
live or die? And when I stepped into the minefield and I seen it with my own
eyes, I started sweating. I crossed over, looking for my new life.”
Dresnok met Larry Allen Abshier, another American defector, soon after his
arrival. Eventually there were four of them: Abshier, Jerry Parrish, Charles
Robert Jenkins, and Dresnok. The men lived together and participated in
several propaganda efforts on behalf of the North Korean government. They
appeared on magazine covers and used loudspeakers to try to persuade more
American soldiers at the border to defect. But they did not wish to remain
in North Korea indefinitely at first. In 1966, the four men tried to leave North
Korea by seeking asylum at the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang, but the embassy
immediately turned them over to North Korean authorities. After that, Dresnok
decided to settle in North Korea. Beginning in 1978, he was cast in
several North Korean films, including the 20-part series Unsung Heroes, and
became a celebrity in the country as a result. He is called "Arthur" by his
Korean friends, after the character he played in the series. He also translated
some of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung’s writings into English.
According to Jenkins's book The Reluctant Communist, Dresnok was
something of a bully, betraying the other Americans' confidences to the
North Koreans, and enthusiastically beat up Jenkins 30 or more times on the
orders of their Korean handlers. In the documentary Crossing the Line, Dresnok
vehemently denies these allegations. Dresnock asserts that, during the North
Korean famine of the 1990s, he was always given his full food ration by the
government.“Why? Why do they let their own people starve to death to feed an
American?," he asks. “The Great Leader has given us a special solicitude. The
government is going to take care of me until my dying day.”
Personal life In the United States
In Crossing the Line Dresnok explains that after marrying an American woman at
a young age, he was deployed in West Germany for two years while she remained
in the U.S. He prided himself on "truly loving her and being loyal to her". But
when he returned, he found out that she was already in another relationship. He
was quoted as saying, "The good thing was that she did not get pregnant by me
because I had promised that I would never abandon my children."
In North Korea He has been married twice more since
defecting to North Korea. The first was to a Romanian woman, Doina Bumbea, with
whom he had two sons, Theodore "Ted" Ricardo Dresnok and James Gabriel
Dresnok. Bumbea supposedly worked at the Romanian Embassy, but some accounts
claim that she never worked there and was in fact an abductee taken by the
North Korean secret service. Jenkins's book also mentions this, but
claims that she was abducted in order to be the wife of one of the American
deserters. The Romanian Foreign Office's website says that in 2007 Romania asked
North Korea to explain Bumbea's abduction but it did not receive an
answer. Bumbea died of lung cancer. After Bumbea's death, Dresnok married
his third wife, the daughter of a North Korean woman and a Togolese diplomat.
They had a son in 2001. The family lives in a small apartment in Pyongyang,
provided along with a monthly stipend by the North Korean government. Dresnok is
in failing health, with a bad heart and liver, which he attributes to smoking
and drinking too much. His elder son from his second marriage,
James Dresnok, was a student at Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies,
where his father taught English in the 1980s. James speaks English with a
Korean accent and considers himself Korean but reportedly does not wish to
marry a Korean woman. James intends to enter the diplomatic service.
Dresnok has stated that he intends to spend the rest of his life in North
Korea, and that no amount of money could entice him back to the West. Now
retired, Dresnok occasionally gives lectures in North Korea and goes fishing
“just to pass the time.” In popular culture
Dresnok is the subject of the documentary film Crossing the Line by
British filmmakers Daniel Gordon and Nicholas Bonner, which was shown at the
2007 Sundance Film Festival. He was also featured in "An American in
North Korea", a 2007 segment on 60 Minutes by Robert G. Anderson and Casey
Morgan. Filmography
Unsung Heroes Crossing The Line
"From 5pm to 5am" References
See also Americans in North Korea
List of American and British defectors in the Korean War
North Korean defectors Other defectors to North Korea
List of American and British defectors in the Korean War: the 21 Americans and
1 Briton who refused repatriation during Operation Big Switch in 1953
Larry Allen Abshier of Urbana, Illinois, deserted in May 1962 at age 19
Jerry Wayne Parrish of Morganfield, Kentucky, deserted in December 1963 at
age 19 Charles Robert Jenkins in Rich Square,
North Carolina, deserted on January 5, 1965 at age 24
Roy Chung, deserted in June 1979 Joseph T. White of St Louis, Missouri,
deserted in August 1982 at age 20. External links
The World: Crossing the line audio report
Telegraph: US defector says he is happier in North Korea
CBS: Defector Won’t Leave N. Korea For $1B
CBS: N. Korea’s Last U.S. Defector Review of Crossing the Line
[1] Doina Bumbea EN [2] Doina Bumbea EN
[3] Doina Bumbea RO "The Dear Leader Takes Care of Me"
9-9-2008