Merrill Newman: I didn't realise North Korea was still at war

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/15/-sp-north-korea-merrill-newman

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The Last POW is the story of Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old American tourist and Korean war veteran who was removed from the plane at the end of an otherwise uneventful trip to North Korea in October 2013, and held for almost two months in Pyongyang.

During the Korean war, Newman had served with the White Tigers, a precursor of today’s US Special Forces, as an adviser to a group of anti-communist Koreans known as the Kuwol Comrades who operated behind North Korean lines.

Before his trip Newman believed that, 60 years later, his wartime role would not be an issue on his travels. But he discovered that for North Korea, the war had never ended. He found himself accused of being a spy and threatened with indefinite detention because of his interest in visiting the Mt Kuwol area – now a tourist attraction – where the partisans he trained had operated.

The American went to ground after his release a year ago, refusing to talk to reporters – until now. This is an extract from the first detailed account of his ordeal, available to read in full as a Kindle Single.

The Last POW

Completely unaware that he was a household name in the United States, Merrill Newman passed his days in isolation on the 36th floor of the Yanggakdo Hotel in Pyongyang. Apart from the “investigator” who conducted the interrogations, his only other human contact came from his guards, the interpreter, and a doctor and nurse.

Four times a day – at 9am, noon, 4pm, and 9pm – the doctor and nurse appeared to take his blood pressure, check his pulse, and measure his heartbeat.

The North Koreans appeared to realise how much trouble they would face if something happened to him.

“The interrogations were stressful beyond anything that was reasonable. The investigator was saying, The most important thing is for you to be healthy. I would say, The most important thing is for me to be able to be home. Then I’ll be healthy. I was saying every day, My wife needs me at home. She is an old lady and she needs me. I talked to the doctors about this. I talked to the guards. I talked to the interpreter. Finally, the investigator said, Stop saying that. You sound like a three-year-old. It’s just going to make you stay here longer. So I stopped.”

One day, the “investigator” opened a window and said, “You need some fresh air.”

Merrill told him the guards would not let him keep the window open. From that day on, he was allowed to do so.

The “investigator” had urged that he get some exercise, so after about a month in detention, he was taken out of the hotel for several walks on the island where the Yanggakdo was located.

“There were 81 steps down to the river,” Newman said, “and we would walk either to the left or the right. Going up and down the steps, the nurse and doctor each held one arm to be sure I wouldn’t fall.”

But days would go by when the “investigator” did not appear. There was no explanation. The interpreter would say he had no idea what might have happened, and no influence on the process. Some days even the interpreter was absent.

“I’d get really low when nobody came. They were just feeding me and checking my blood pressure and the rest of the time I was just sitting. What in the world is going on? The days are slipping by. I’m not supposed to be here anymore. They’ve got all the information they’re ever going to get. Why are they just ignoring me? I thought, Are they holding me here as trading material for something? It was really uncomfortable.”

On Friday, November 29, the North Koreans told Newman he would have a meeting with Swedish ambassador Karl-Olof Andersson the following day. The “investigator” and the interpreter instructed Merrill as to what to say to explain why he was being held. Merrill made notes and was then forced to rehearse, five times on Friday, and three more times on Saturday. But he was having trouble, because it was their English, not his, and they wanted him to do it without notes.

“I told them, I can’t. You are going to have to let me say it in my words, not yours. If you let me use my words, I can manage. If you want me to use your words, I have a real problem.”

“Indelible”—a word that was used repeatedly in a videotaped confession Newman had been forced to record two weeks earlier—was one to which he had particular objections. Eventually, the North Koreans agreed to let him sound more like himself, but a senior official of higher rank than the “investigator” came by to listen and make sure Merrill said only what he was supposed to.

“It was very serious. It was all choreographed. They didn’t want me to say another word.”

Andersson arrived and gave Merrill some snacks, two bottles of beer, and a Coca-Cola. He also brought letters from his family. The North Koreans, presumably wanting to read them first, did not give to Newman until the middle of the following week.

Sitting across from Andersson, Merrill awkwardly recited his lines. As he finished, the “investigator” walked behind the ambassador, looked at Merrill, and flashed a broad smile.

“It was a human gesture. It was completely out of character.”

Yet in the days that followed, nothing happened.

“I kept thinking, How many other steps are there? How high does it have to go? Does it have to go to Kim Jong Un?”

Merrill was eventually released and returned to America. There was, however, a final sting in the tail:

A month after his return, Merrill got a call from the State Department. The North Koreans had given a document to the Swedish ambassador to send to him. Merrill wondered: What on earth could it be?

In a gesture of astonishing chutzpah, the North Koreans were submitting a bill of $3,241 for his enforced stay at the Yanggakdo Hotel. They’d even broken the room rate down, with six days at the “tourist season” rate of $75/day, and 36 days at the “ordinary season” rate of $60/day. Plus $591 for meals, $14 for dessert, and $23 for the phone call to Lee. And, as a final insult, there was a $3 fee for “a lost plate.”

Merrill asked the State Department whether paying might help the other Americans detained in North Korea, and was told no.

The bill remains unpaid.

Mike Chinoy is a long-time North Korea expert and former Asia correspondent for CNN, currently a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute. He is the author of Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis and has visited North Korea 17 times