Last US defector in NKorea has no plans to leave

Washington, Jan 29: A US Army deserter who defected to North Korea in 1962 said a billion dollars could not entice him to leave the isolated communist country that is locked in a nuclear standoff with the United States.

Joe Dresnok, the last American defector still living in North Korea, broke 44 years of silence since he slipped across South Korea's heavily mined border to begin a new life that included appearances in anti-American propaganda films.

''I don't have intentions of leaving, could give a shit if you put a billion damn dollars of gold on the table,'' Dresnok said in an interview with British filmmakers broadcast by the CBS television network's ''60 Minutes'' program yesterday.

''I really feel at home. I wouldn't trade it for nothing.'' Dresnok's story was made into a documentary called ''Crossing the Line'' by Dan Gordon and Nick Bonner, who appeared on the news program.

Fed up with his life after his wife left him and he was in line for a court martial, the 21-year-old private from Norfolk, Virginia crossed into North Korea in August 1962, nine years after the Korean war ended in a tense truce.

''When I stepped into the minefield and I seen (North Korea) with my own eyes, I started sweating,'' recalled Dresnok.

He said he met three other American deserters and they all took part in North Korean propaganda activities, including films that depicted the U.S. as evil.

The Americans sought asylum at the Soviet embassy in the mid-1960s but were handed back to the North Koreans.

Dresnok's fate came to light after one of the three other Americans he met in North Korea, Charles Jenkins, was permitted to leave the country in 2004 to join his Japanese wife.

Jenkins told interviewers he was beaten up by Dresnok at least 30 times between 1965 and 1980 on the orders of North Korean authorities.

''He's a liar,'' Dresnok said of the accusations.

Dresnok, 65 and in poor health, lives in a small apartment in the capital Pyongyang on a government stipend. He has a blond-haired son who considers himself Korean and attends university, the documentary revealed.

Reuters