duckkillerclyde wrote:what did you do with the defectors?
There's a place in Seoul where everyone goes. I don't know if the name is still classified or not, so I'll leave it alone. Everyone is kept there for a specified amount of time, until their stories check out (in the case of defectors), or until they're deemed no longer a threat (in the case of agents or infiltrators). It's run by the ROKs, and we have access. If certain people are deemed to be "unreformable" or "incorrigible", other things happen, that I'm not going to go into here.
In all cases, they are all assigned a minder for life, and they are never without this person, just in case. (some defectors are free to live their lives without minders, but they have to check in from time to time) I've had many NKPA guys who refused to believe Seoul was real- they thought it was some sort of elaborate movie set, designed to get them to talk. A few had complete nervous breakdowns due to the sensory overload. It's hard enough understanding the North Korean dialect- it's even harder when they become a babbling idiot. They have been convinced that one meal a day is normal, and that TVs and radios only have one station, because "that's all there is and we know because we're the only ones who have them. Dear Leader invented them and have them to his people". I've talked to people who escaped from the reeducation camps as recently as 1996, and the stories sound like 1930, complete with ox carts, wooden farm tools, and rats and pine needle soup for dinner (although this is also a pretty standard diet for those NOT in reeducation camps). If you're at all interested, I'd highly recommend a book called The Fishbowls of Pyongyang. True story. Frightening story.
Jehler wasn't too far off. I used to take mine out to lunch quite often, and have "talks". They didn't want to "talk" about what I wanted to "talk" about, they could go back to their cell, and I'd take the afternoon off. No skin off my ass. I should note that this was on the strategic level, where we weren't really after time sensitive information, more the "big picture" stuff. Tactical
Interrogations were done in the field, down and dirty. No wining and dining there. Just more "expedient" measures.
I could talk about this stuff all day. It was a pretty fun period in my life, and eye-opening at times.