CLASSIC: The American Soldiers Who Defected to North Korea and Became Movie Stars

Summary

Ridiculous History – CLASSIC: The American Soldiers Who Defected to North Korea and Became Movie Stars

Host: Ben Bowlin (with Noel Brown)
Date: November 1, 2025
Podcast: Ridiculous History by iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this classic episode, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown explore one of the strangest, most cinematic stories of Cold War history: the handful of American soldiers who defected to North Korea—and subsequently became movie stars in the Hermit Kingdom’s propaganda films. The episode unpacks the bizarre chain of events that took these men from the US military to Pyongyang’s silver screens, explores North Korea’s unique obsession with film (especially under Kim Jong Il), and discusses the consequences and aftermath for these unlikely celebrities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why American Soldiers Defected to North Korea

• The hosts discuss how, while most news about North Korea focuses on desperate escapes from the regime, “what we don’t talk about as often is the number of people who have attempted to escape into North Korea, including American soldiers” (Ben, 02:08).
• The episode centers on several notable defectors: Charles Robert Jenkins, Larry Allen Abshier, James Joseph Dresnok, Jerry Wayne Parrish, and Joseph T. White, with Ben and Noel detailing their backgrounds and motives, which ranged from disillusionment with the US military to personal crises.

2. The Surreal Act of Defection

• The story of Charles Robert Jenkins is highlighted for its sheer absurdity—after a night of heavy drinking, he “walked alone across a minefield” into North Korea in 1965 (Ben, 10:12; Noel, 10:38).
• Jenkins' trek is described by the hosts with bemused disbelief:

  “Walked drunkenly across a minefield.” (Noel, 10:38)
  “He did, like, drunk boxing parkour across the minefields.” (Ben, 10:53)

3. Life Under the Regime: Indoctrination and Forced Labor

• Defectors, upon arrival, were subjected to intense indoctrination, including forced study of the Juche philosophy for “almost 12 hours every day” (Ben, 12:50), under constant surveillance.
• After indoctrination, some like Jenkins were “put to work as an English translator and teacher,” and—most bizarrely—forced to act in North Korean propaganda films (Noel, 14:19).

4. Propaganda Stardom

• Kim Jong Il's passion for cinema led to the conscription of the defectors as on-screen “evil Americans” in war movies:

  “They needed someone to be depicted as agents of chaos from the American side. And they said, oh, look, we’ve got this guy. We've got this Sergeant Jenkins here.” (Ben, 21:17)

• These men became local celebrities—albeit under watchful eyes and perpetual suspicion.

5. North Korea’s Obsession with Film

• Kim Jong Il, an “enormous film buff,” built a massive personal bootleg collection and even kidnapped South Korean directors to build up the North’s domestic movie industry (Ben, 20:12; Noel, 40:05).
• The hosts recount the story of Shin Sang-ok, a kidnapped director forced to make “a ripoff of Godzilla called Ghassari,” about “a small doll made of rice that becomes a mythical creature and helps the peasants overthrow a monarchy” (Noel, 40:05).

6. Enforced Marriages and Symbolism

• Jenkins (and likely others) was “forced to marry a Japanese citizen who had been kidnapped by North Korea” for the purpose of training spies.
• Children from such unions were valued as potential spies because of their “ethnically ambiguous” appearance (Ben, 27:41).

7. Celebrity Status and Its Odd Aftermath

• In North Korea, defectors were showcased in films and magazines as proof of American inferiority and the superiority of Juche.
• Jenkins was later able to leave North Korea (2004), but others—like James Dresnok—remained loyal, even unto death:

  “He died happily in North Korea in 2016 … He professed support for communism. … He was the last living American defector in North Korea.” (Ben, 28:23)

8. Reflections & Regrets

• Charles Jenkins, contrary to official DPRK portrayals, described the defectors as “young, dumb soldiers from poor backgrounds” who “would have left in a second if they could have. What a sorry ass little foursome we were.” (Noel quoting Jenkins, 29:47)

9. Propaganda Films and Other Weird Tales

• A tour through North Korean propaganda cinema, including Unsung Heroes and other films, which depicted the exploits of defectors and the supposed evils of Americans.
• Mention of “Eternal Comrades,” dramatizing a Soviet officer’s heroics to save Kim Il Sung (Ben, 42:15).

10. Bonus: Kim Jong Un’s Obsession with Basketball

• In a wild tangent, Ben recounts North Korea’s later campaign to make the country a “basketball powerhouse,” leading to the bizarre diplomatic friendship with Dennis Rodman (Ben, 43:56).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Most of the news you hear about North Korea involves the oppressed members of the North Korean public attempting to escape … but what we don’t talk about as often is the number of people who have attempted to escape into North Korea, including American soldiers.”
  — Ben (02:08)

• “Walked drunkenly across a minefield.”
  — Noel (10:38)

• “He did, like, drunk boxing parkour across the minefields.”
  — Ben (10:53)

• “Jenkins is forced to do homework, forced to study Juche philosophy for 11 hours every day.”
  — Ben (12:50)

• “He was also forced to marry a Japanese citizen who had been kidnapped by North Korea … The strange thing about this is that Jenkins … became an actor, but he became an actor in propaganda films.”
  — Ben (14:48)

• “They needed someone to be depicted as agents of chaos ... They said, oh, look, we’ve got this guy. We've got this Sergeant Jenkins here.”
  — Ben (21:17)

• On their unlikely on-screen fame:

  “After several films, they became local celebrities in North Korea.” — Ben (23:31)

• Jenkins’ blunt summary:

  “We were all young, dumb soldiers from poor backgrounds. ... What a sorry ass little foursome we were.”
  — Noel reading Jenkins, (29:47)

• “Kim Jong Il was so interested in film that he … thought … kidnapping was the way you hired people.”
  — Ben (41:52)

• “There are gross and ongoing human rights abuses in the country. … Today’s episode examined the very strange story of the people who went in the other direction.”
  — Ben (45:23)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:08] – Framing the episode: American defectors to North Korea
• [10:12–11:19] – Charles Jenkins’ drunken defection across the DMZ
• [12:50–14:19] – Life upon arrival: indoctrination, forced study, forced marriage
• [20:12–21:17] – Kim Jong Il’s cinema obsession and casting of defectors in movies
• [23:31–24:17] – Becoming minor celebrities; magazine propaganda
• [27:41] – Forced marriages and the use of offspring as spies
• [28:23–29:29] – Dresnok’s unrepentant life (dies in North Korea); Jenkins escapes
• [29:47] – Jenkins’ scathing reflection on himself and the others
• [40:05–41:07] – Kim Jong Il’s kidnapping of filmmakers, the Godzilla ripoff, Ghassari
• [43:56–45:18] – Kim Jong Un, Dennis Rodman, and North Korea’s basketball dreams
• [45:23] – Reflection on the rarity and consequences of defecting this direction

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Conclusion and Reflections

In their classic irreverent style, Ben and Noel mix sober history, bizarre details, and sharp wit to illuminate the jaw-dropping tale of American soldiers who traded one authoritarian system for another and unexpectedly found themselves starring in propaganda movies. The episode closes by reflecting on the surreal calculus of defection and its lasting impact, and invites listeners to share their own North Korea stories or thoughts (“Would you ever defect to a distant, maybe not US-friendly country if it meant you could live as a king?” — Ben, 46:15).

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Bonus Facts & Easter Eggs

• The recurring North Korean propaganda magazine Fortune’s Favorites included “Letters from Abshear and Dresnok,” which were clearly ghostwritten to serve regime narratives (25:43).
• In Japan, Jenkins’ improbable romance with his kidnapped wife is apparently celebrated as a “great modern romance” (Ben, 32:18).

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For Further Reference

• The US Soldier Who Defected to North Korea by Graham Wood, The Atlantic (2013)
• Documentary: Crossing the Line (about James Joseph Dresnok)
• Ben and Noel recommend the “Ridiculous Historians” Facebook community for more odd history tidbits.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. We've got a classic episode that is near and dear to my heart. Oh, my name is Ben Bolan. My co host Noel is on Adventures. We're joined, as always, with our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Max, how we doing?

[B]

You know what we're doing? Well, I'm not a movie star yet, but, you know, maybe a minor podcast star.

[A]

Hey, I was going to ask you if you ever thought of gracing the big screen.

[B]

When I was younger, I had dreams of being a director.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a.

[B]

It's a Williamsborough curse, I guess.

[C]

Right?

[A]

That's a shout out to our composer, the legendary Alex Williams, Max's biological brother. Well, you know, I did a lot of acting back in the day, and I still get. I still feel the call of the stage occasionally, Max. However, a lot of people don't make it to what we call a list. Movie stardom. Hollywood is a very difficult system from its beginning to the modern day. And it's a matter of having opportunity, talent, drive, and honestly, no matter how good you are, a lot of luck, right? Nepotism also plays a role, but as we're going to see in this classic episode, way back in the day, there was a guy who figured out a shortcut to becoming a movie star, and it's a shortcut you might be able to use today. Caveat. Caveat. Asterisk. Folks, the. This classic episode is about American soldiers who defected to North Korea and then became movie stars. Now, they weren't the best movies. They weren't exactly, you know, Ghostbusters 2 or Vibes or Police Academy 4 or the other. What are the other classics?

[B]

Oh, the Phantom Menace, sure.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Return of Skywalker. I actually had never even finished that one. I only made it 45 minutes into it. Whatever most recent Marvel movie came out, sure gonna assume it's bad.

[A]

It's Fantastic Four.

[B]

Oh, I heard that one's actually supposed to be pretty good.

[A]

Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, it's very family centric, but. Yes. So these. Look, most of the news you hear about North Korea involves the oppressed members of the North Korean public attempting to escape the country at great risk. Right. And with profound and terrible consequences for their families. But what we don't talk about as often is the number of people who have attempted to escape into North Korea, including American soldiers. So this classic episode is about a handful of American soldiers who bought into North Korea's message. The pitch they were selling. They got over the border across the dmz. They became members of North Korean society. And the first thing the North Korean government started to do after they brainwashed them was to cast them as evil guys in propaganda films. Yep, that's it. Here's the show.

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Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio Foreign. Oh man, oh man, oh man. It's our second episode of 2019 and we are off to a great start because today we get to talk about one of my favorite places, one of the places I find most fascinating in the world, the Democratic people's Republic of Korea. Welcome to Ridiculous History. My name is Ben.

[B]

My name is Noah, and Ben, you got me a pretty dope hat from there.

[A]

It's true, it's true, it's true. But I hope that I don't make our super producer Casey Pegram envious. It's just I saw the hat and thought of you and I was like, it's not special if I get everybody the same hat.

[B]

Casey only wears that one hat that says movies.

[A]

It's true.

[B]

It's a hat that says movies.

[A]

Casey on the case. Yes, I did go to. I think we mentioned this on the show previously. In August of 2018, I spent some time in Korea. It was amazing. It was my first time. There's a lot of history there. And I was able to visit the dmz. This is not an episode about the dmz. This is more, I think, about the strange things that can happen when a country is under tyrannical authoritarian rule and is largely isolated from the rest of the world. We've talked about this before in various podcasts. There are some universal human desires. You know what I mean? People love to be entertained. People love to have delicious food. People love to feel influential in their circle and stuff. But when it comes to certain industries, it's very difficult for every single country to make its own domestic version of that industry. Like, it's really difficult to start a car industry. That's why there's a relatively small number of car companies that make cars for the rest of the world. It's also pretty difficult, or it was for some time, to start a film industry. You know what I mean?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So today's story touches on so many things. It touches on the film industry. It takes place in North Korea. It touches on the US Military.

[B]

It touches on the idea of defecting to another country, which I think is fascinating.

[A]

Have you ever thought of defecting? Were you one of those people who said, sometime over the past few years, I'm gonna go to Canada?

[B]

Is it called defecting?

[A]

That would just be. I think that would just be being a refugee. Because to defect, at least in the way we're talking, you would have to be an active military service member.

[B]

And here's a question, too. Don't you have to kind of have, like, a real good reason to be a refugee or to seek asylum or something like that, right?

[A]

Yeah. That your life is in danger for maybe your religious beliefs or maybe because of your sexual orientation, stuff like that.

[B]

That you're suffering under some kind of totalitarian regime or if you are forced.

[A]

To return to the country, you will be murdered.

[B]

Yeah. And, I mean, I'm low be it unto us to get political on ridiculous history, but starting to feel like that could be the case for our country one of these days.

[A]

So, in the minds of most people outside of the DPRK or North Korea, it's an enigmatic country. We, for a long time, didn't know a ton about what happened there. We just knew that it was ruled by the Kim family. Right. And that the Kim family and their inner circle, the military cadre, ran the entire country, literally ran it. And people. People had to publicly adhere to a very rigid ideology. Right. One that elevated members of the Kim family to the status of deities or demigods. It seems like a weird place to move to. I mean, anybody who's ever moved in their lives, any of us who have maybe relocated to a different town or a different state or a different country, you can realize how disorienting that is. So imagine if you are U.S. army Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins. You don't speak Korean, Right. You don't particularly enjoy being in the military, but you do love drinking.

[B]

You like knocking back a couple of cold ones with your buds.

[A]

Yeah, approximately.

[B]

A couple buds with buds.

[A]

Buds with buds. Well put. Approximately. In this case, 10. On January 4th of 1965, Sergeant Jenkins deserted his infantry company at the edge of the demilitarized zone, walked alone across a minefield, did not blow up, and defected to North Korea.

[B]

Yeah, man. The part that really got me there among the multiple bonkers layers of the story is walked drunkenly across a minefield.

[A]

Yeah. So after 10 beers, walked is probably a charitable description.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Which means he wasn't even being careful.

[A]

He did, like, drunk boxing parkour across the minefields.

[B]

Maybe it's one of those things sort of like in the in Spectre Gadget cartoons where he just kind of bumbles his way and doesn't get killed by all these various pitfalls that could kill him, but by sheer luck, he happens to dodge every single one of them in some kind of physical comedy pratfall, screwball kind of way. Are you picturing this?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, exactly.

[B]

Whoa. But da. Da folk bears him.

[E]

I missed.

[A]

The people are still scouting for active mines in the DMZ today.

[B]

You were saying that, right?

[A]

Yeah. So the fact that he made it is a stroke of brilliant luck. What happens, though, when he does finally get into North Korea? Do they welcome him with open arms?

[B]

Well, not exactly. Yeah, this is a theme that you see pop up because we're Going to talk about a handful of defectors. There weren't a lot, but there were a few, and they all shared a similar kind of result. They were 4. To hole up in some pretty inhospitable housing and spend copious amounts of time studying the writings or the principles of Kim Il Sung, who is the patriarch of this Korean dynasty. This North Korean dynasty.

[A]

Yeah. The first Supreme Leader of North Korea, from its establishment in 1948 until he died in 1994. And he's also known as the Great Leader. He was declared the eternal President of the Republic in 1998. So technically, he still holds a governmental position after his death. So Jenkins is forced to do homework, forced to study Juche philosophy for 11 hours every day.

[B]

Tell me a little bit about Juche philosophy, Ben.

[A]

Juche. It's interesting because it's somewhat controversial. It's considered in the dprk, Kim Il Sung's his ideology, a revolutionary theory that was originally thought to be a variety of Marxist Leninist thought. While it incorporated these different ideas that were uniquely Korean in character. What eventually happened is that the North Korean government adopted this concept of Juche into a set of principles to justify policy decisions from the 1950s to today. It's got an emphasis on agricultural independence, lack of international dependencies. You know what I mean? This. It's controversial, however, because this Korean style socialism, the thing that it is on paper, rarely makes it to what happens on the ground. You know what I mean? It's better in theory than it is in practice.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So a lot of the stuff, and this might just be an issue of translation, a lot of the stuff in English is very, very dry and very process oriented. It's like a dusty philosophical tome and somewhat redundant. And Jenkins has to read this for almost 12 hours every day until he can recite the primary principles of Juche in Korean.

[B]

That's right. And then he wasn't even offered a choice at this point. He was forced to become a North Korean citizen and was put to work as an English translator and teacher. And he also. You're gonna hear about this part a little later, along with some of these other folks, was an actor. But every move he made, as the police would say, every move you make, every step you take, Supreme Leader is watching you. I'm paraphrasing here a little bit.

[A]

I thought that was well done.

[B]

The words of Sting.

[A]

He was also forced to marry a Japanese citizen who had been kidnapped by North Korea. Her name was Hitomi Soga. She was kidnapped in 1978 to be a slave Teacher of Japanese language and customs for North Korean spies. The strange thing about this is that Jenkins, as you mentioned, no, Jenkins became an actor, but he became an actor in propaganda films.

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[A]

So it turns out that Jenkins found his strange career in propaganda films because the ruler, the son of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, was a huge film buff, like huge Casey. More of a film buff than any of our mutual friends. Yeah, he has apparently like just a.

[B]

Huge collection of physical media and I read that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 pieces and most of them are bootleg because they, they did not have a trade relationship with the United States, so they would have had to be smuggled or some kind of weird bootleg versions.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah. And it's Strange, because North Korea actually does have a thriving animation industry now, and it's pretty solid stuff. But back then, they wanted to make their own uniquely North Korean feature films. And one of the first things they did when they started making feature films is they started making war stories. Inspirational, nationalistic narratives.

[B]

Propaganda.

[A]

Right, propaganda. And for that they needed convincing enemies. They needed someone to be depicted as agents of chaos from the American side. And they said, oh, look, we've got this guy. We've got this Sergeant Jenkins here. And then they also realized that they had a couple of other defectors.

[B]

That's right. We have a guy by the name of Larry Abshear who crossed the DMZ on May 28th at 19 years old. Then we have Private James Joseph Dresnok, who followed Abshir's lead. I think it was three months later. And who else do we have? Ben?

[A]

Then we also have Joseph White, who slipped into North Korea in 1982. And we have Jerry Parish, who left for North Korea in 1963. These men gave different explanations for their motivation. Right. There were some who said they were sold on the communist lifestyle. Some just wanted to get away from their problems in the West. And some just didn't know what they were doing. You know what I mean? And it's not a situation you could undo easily.

[B]

Yeah. Jerry Parish didn't really give too many details other than to say that if he ever returned home, his father in law would kill him. So I guess a reasonable solution to that is to, you know, defect from your country.

[A]

Right. He seemed like he had a legitimate fear of his life, which go off the grid. Goes back to the UN idea of pleading asylum or refugee status.

[B]

Yeah, but this is not the same as that. Right. I mean, this is very much like I am abandoning my country, I am leaving my post, which would, you know, result in like court martial or like treason charges, I would think, wouldn't you?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it would. And this will bring us back to Charles Jenkins in a little bit. But we've got to tell you, these guys, when they were cast in these propaganda films, they were playing evil Americans. And one thing that was amazing about this is over time, after several films, they became local celebrities in North Korea. Yeah.

[B]

Because it's a very insular country. So, I mean, they didn't really have that much access to any. To anything other than what was produced by the government. So they would have been absolutely front and center, especially considering that they were like the only Americans around. So, you know, they would have made an impression.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And we Also have to say, without impinging their character too much, none of these guys who defected from the US army were paragons of military virtue. You know what I mean? There was one guy, Absher, that we mentioned who was notorious for being a pothead. He got caught multiple times getting high.

[B]

No shade on potheads. Sure. I mean, you don't do it willy nilly while you're on your post, while.

[A]

You'Re at your job.

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

Unless your job is, like, you work for High Times or something that's still around. Or Vice magazine. It's true.

[B]

It is true.

[A]

So these guys are quickly involved in the most surreal sort of life. They're not just movie stars. Right. They're also icons that can be used to antagonize other members of the U.S. military or South Korean military. They were Absher and Dresnok. And then later, Parrish and Jenkins were featured in propaganda magazines. They had put out a magazine called Fortune's Favorites that depicted the American smiling ear to ear, marveling at the joyous benefits of life at the dprk. And they had things. They had different segments or columns. One was called Letters from Abshear and Dresnik titled To the American soldiers south of the dmz. And we've got a quick quotation here. Dear old fellow friends enjoying warm welcome from the North Korean people. I put off the disgusting GI uniform and visited Pyongyang and other cities and villages. To tell the truth, the people in North Korea are enjoying freedom and happiness inaccessible to the working people of the United States. Now, please don't be a victim for the Wall street, but fight for your withdrawal from Southwest.

[B]

Now, I mean, it sure sounds like we mentioned this a little bit, but all of these gentlemen experienced a very similar degree of indoctrination. And they were forced to, like, they weren't fed properly. They were basically just forced to memorize these core principles and, I don't know enough time isolated and alone. And I think weren't some of them forced to live together and kind of pitted against each other in some kind of weird Hunger Gamesy kind of scenario?

[A]

Yeah, Abshear and Parrish had to live together. Jenkins and Dresnok also had to share a home while they were teaching English at a military academy. And this. That excerpt. That excerpt I just read is clearly not written by these guys. It's not written by Dresden.

[B]

But your accent was so convincing, Ben.

[A]

Thank you. That's because he did have an accent. He was. He still, I think, up to until his death, had a trace of his rural North Carolinian accent. But what we see when we look at the way North Korea treated. Treated these defectors is very similar to what we see when people are indoctrinated in cults. One of the big things that every cult does is to bombard people with information. It can be senseless. It can have its own internal logic. The point is to remove the possibility of asking questions. Just make people memorize and recite things. And then what's very clever about culture, putting them in homes and kind of pitting them against each other is it makes it much more likely for them to accept their forced marriages. Because when they were forced to marry other kidnapped people, often from Japan or something, it was entirely assumed by the government that these couples would reproduce. And then they could use the quote, unquote. This is not a phrase we're using. They could use the quote unquote. Ethnic. Ethnically ambiguous. Children as spies. They could blend in. You know what I mean?

[B]

Absolutely, Ben. And I think it's interesting that you talk about the kidnapping aspect of this, because this is a really interesting gray area to me, kind of where it's like they are submitting themselves to this. They made the choice, either drunkenly or with some ideological kind of bent to cross that DMZ into this other country and, you know, toss off their. The trappings of being an American. But they also probably didn't fully know what they were signing up for. And then they were basically thrown into this indoctrination factory, you know, and forced to live in sub human conditions and turned into something that they were not when they made that choice. So, you know what I mean? It's like sort of like a weird. It's almost like a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing, you know?

[A]

I mean, yeah, absolutely. And some, like in the case of James Dresnok, he died happily in North Korea in 2016. He was unrepentant. He professed support for communism. He was the last living American defector in North Korea. He's also got the nickname Comrade Joe in DPRK because again, he's a celebrity. He was featured in a film called Crossing the Line at South Korea's Busan International Film Festival. And he says he feels at home in the film. He never regretted going to Korea. He seems very sincere about it. He says his life is better because he defected. And by North Korean standards, his life was pretty good. But you can tell the lack of medical and dental care took a toll on him. Like his front teeth are missing. Is that something that he acquired from North Korea, like from violence or did they just fall out? He also had a heavy drinking and smoking habit, so it took a toll on him.

[B]

Well, get this, Ben. That perspective is one side of the coin. Our boy Charles Robert Jenkins, who was kind of the. He sort of spearheaded this whole thing, you could say he actually escaped or was able to leave in 2004 quite.

[A]

Recently to visit his mother.

[B]

That's right. And he had some slightly less sympathetic words or kind words to characterize the experience of these four men. If I. If I may. Oh, please quote. We were all young, dumb soldiers from poor backgrounds. I had a pretty good military record, while the other three were pretty much total ups as soldiers. The three of them also, like me, walked across the DMZ without really thinking about the huge consequences of what they were doing and without understanding what North Korea was really like. They were trapped there in North Korea. All of them quickly grew to hate the country and would have left in a second if they could have. What a sorry ass little foursome we were. So, according to Jenkins, any expression to the contrary from any of these guys who he was intimately familiar with was either forced or a product of some kind of brainwashing.

[A]

Yeah, and it makes sense. Also, North Korea is a very homogenous, racist environment. I believe it was Jenkins who says that he had only once been in the same room with the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung. And Kim snorted disapproval at Jenkins Korean clothing and ordered him and all other Westerners to never again sully Korean clothing. So he wore a suit and tie afterwards. It's great detail on that story from the Atlantic. There's an article from 2013 called the US soldier who defected to North Korea by Graham Wood. Would highly recommend checking that out. But as you said, Noel Jenkins is a little bit different because after he spent nearly 40 years in North Korea, he got out. When he left North Korea in 2004, he was 64 years old. The army threw him in the stockade for 24 days. He got a dishonorable discharge, and then eventually he and his wife moved to Japan where he sold crackers. Yep. Full circle.

[B]

No, not really.

[A]

Not really?

[B]

No.

[A]

It's weird, though, because he's still sort of an exotic icon. Right. First in North Korea, now in Japan, apparently. Did you hear this? In Japanese culture, he and Hitomi Soga's story about how they met and how they married and, you know, became a family is considered one of the great modern romances.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I want to see a. You know, this is such a bonkers story. Wouldn't this make a fun like kind of screwball Coen brothers. Y. I knew you were gonna say film.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Cause like these two people find love under these really weird 1984esque Big Brother Orwellian conditions. And then. And they stick together and they eventually win their freedom. Apparently when people walk into the shop, they start whispering to each other and they stare at Jenkins until he caves and says, all right, come on, you can take a picture with me. Photo is one of the only words he knows in Japanese.

[B]

Interesting.

[E]

I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her.

[A]

Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader?

[E]

Well, Dakota, let's Luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I tried to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult.

[A]

Hold up, Sophia. A real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue.

[E]

But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to to find out what's going on with her ceiling and her neighbors are not happy.

[A]

Well, she needs to report them asap.

[E]

She did. And now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time.

[A]

So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not?

[E]

To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

All I know is what I've been told.

[A]

And that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[D]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[A]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[D]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[A]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[D]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[A]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said. They literally made me say that I.

[D]

Took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[A]

They made me say that I poured.

[B]

Gas on her.

[D]

From Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[B]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[D]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava For Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[C]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years.

[A]

That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years.

[C]

I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve so, we all too often make suffering worse.

[D]

He would say to himself, turn to.

[B]

The right, to the victim's family and apologize.

[D]

Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice.

[A]

To the right.

[D]

I'm sorry.

[B]

To the left.

[D]

I love you.

[C]

From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[F]

Michael Lewis here. My book the Big Short tells the story of the buildup and birth of the US housing market back in 2008. It follows a few unlikely but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding, yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just happened. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release and a decade after it became an Academy Award winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short story, what it means when people start betting against the market and who really pays for an unchecked financial system is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. Get the Big Short now at Pushkin fm Audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.

[A]

There's another soldier who was thought to have possibly defected to North Korea, a guy named Roy Chung. His story is pretty controversial. He was born in South Korea, Chung Ryu, and he moved to the US with his parents in 73. He joined the army when he needed college money. And here's the strange thing, Noel. He was nowhere near Korea when he disappeared in 1979, he vanished from his unit in Germany. And three months later, the North Korean State Radio announced that he had defected. The Pentagon and State Department say that's probably true, but his parents are still convinced he was kidnapped. Wow. No one knows what happened to him. He just disappeared.

[B]

Well, Ben, this has been a pretty incredible ride. I think we have some pretty neat other kind of side stories about some other interesting film related North Korean tales that we could probably rap with if you wanted to. I don't know that there's much more to say about these particular defectors.

[A]

Well, nothing that's been made public yet. Right. The last defector that you will hear brought up in these sorts of lists is a guy named Joseph White, who was considered the sixth and possibly final US soldier to defect to the DPRK. He came aboard on August 28, 1982. He shot a lock off a gate at the Korean DMZ and started walking through the minefields. His mom didn't believe it first off, she said, he loved this country, loved that uniform and everything about it. He was nothing but a gung ho army and gung ho Reagan guy. But back at his barracks, investigators found all these pro North Korean leaflets and propaganda. His buddies were dumbfounded and no one heard of him until 1986 when White's parents got a letter from someone in North Korea who said that they were friends with the soldier and that he had drowned in a river while enjoying leisure time outing. So don't know what happened to him. We do know that North Korea produced a number of propaganda films, not just unsung Heroes, not just that 1978 banger. We have a little bit of a list. What really stuck out to you on this list of propaganda films?

[B]

Well, maybe this is necessarily a propaganda film, but I think this is a fantastic story that apparently Kim Jong Il had some directors, very popular North Korean film directors who escaped to Hong Kong, kidnapped and brought back to North Korea and forced to make a. A ripoff of Godzilla called Ghassari. And the plot of this is incomprehensible to me, but I love it. There must be some cultural thing that I'm missing here. But apparently it's the story of a small doll made of rice that becomes a mythical creature and helps the peasants, the proletariat, overthrow a monarchy that is corrupting their land. So that's Interesting that they would cast it from the perspective of the proletariat. Right. Like the peasants doing an uprising kind of. Right. Like how does that serve the regime?

[A]

You know, that's a. That's a complex question.

[B]

That's fair.

[A]

That's a complex question. It's a matter of perspective and zeitgeist, isn't it? But you're right. Kim Jong Il was so interested in film that he. Oh, do we mention his book on the art of the cinema?

[C]

No.

[A]

So he describes his tactics of using movies as educational tools to spread his ideals to the nation. Sort of the way Saddam Hussein wrote those historical fiction romance novels, which is also really weird.

[B]

It's true. And I believe if you. If you want to get a little bit deeper, dive into that, you can check out our pal Robert Evans show Behind the Bastards, where he does an episode specifically on those romance novels of Saddam Hussein.

[A]

I did. Yeah, that's true. And we'll probably have Robert on the show again sometime soon.

[B]

I would love that.

[A]

So Kim Jong Il's would be film industry was entirely fueled by the kidnapping of directors, actors, other artists from South Korea, from Japan, these various places. It seems like he didn't understand that it was wrong to kidnap people. He just thought that was the way you hired people.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

So there's also souls, protests. There's Eternal Comrades, which is. It's based on this situation. In 1946, a terrorist group tried to kill Kim Il Sung. A Soviet officer named Yakov Nevichenko saw the grenade and sacrificed himself by throwing his body on top of it. And it saved Kim Jong Il's life. And then this guy, the Russian Nevachenko, had a large book strapped to the front of his chest as a kind of body armor. It saved his life, too. And then that made him, I think, the first Russian to receive the title of North Korean national hero. And Eternal Comrades reenacts the events of that day.

[B]

Genius.

[A]

Is it?

[B]

Well, you know, in terms of it being just wild.

[A]

Yeah. And it's weird because you can't see. You can see clips of these on YouTube and if you want to watch them, but it's very difficult to find the full copy of these in, you know, entirely English forms or at least I looked around a little. I was having a tough time. So if you find a clip of a good North Korean propaganda film, send it our way, post it on ridiculous historians. And I have a surprise for you, Noel.

[B]

Give it to me, Ben.

[A]

So we know that the Kim Dynasty is able to exert tremendous influence on the country. And that means that, let's say, if Kim Jong Il really wants a movie industry, then he can make the entire country help support him in this endeavor.

[B]

Of course, he can do whatever he wants.

[A]

There's a new leader in town, Kim Jong Un. And Kim Jong Un has an obsession of his own. In fact, just recently, North Korea officially urged all of its citizens to make the country a basketball powerhouse. North Korean state media has declared basketball to be a critical part of the state's ideology and called on all workers and soldiers to turn the nation into a global leader in the sport of basketball.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

It's no coincidence, perhaps, that Kim Jong Un is himself a huge fan of basketball. A situation so surreal that it led to Dennis Rodman essentially functioning as a diplomat. Do you remember that when it popped up in the news?

[B]

Very, very much so, I believe. Isn't there a documentary or at least a short about Dennis Rodman's behavior and the way he went to Korea? I think there is.

[A]

Yes, that's correct. So far, I think as of December 2018, he's paid five visits to the capital of North Korea and even serenaded Kim Jong Un with a rendition of Happy Birthday during a basketball game. So am I saying that if you are good at basketball, watch out because you might be kidnapped by North Korea? No.

[B]

But you're not not saying it.

[A]

I'm not not saying it is the point.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So let us know. Look, North Korea is a fascinating country. Luckily, it's much less isolated now due to the rise of technology, you know, the increasing access people have to the Internet through mobile phones and things like that. There are gross and ongoing human rights abuses in the country. And in many ways, it is a black hole. And much of what we know about North Korea comes from people who have left the country who have defected for one reason or another. Today's episode examined the very strange story of the people who went in the other direction. Would you ever do it, Casey Noel? Would you ever defect to a distant, maybe not US friendly country? If it meant you could live as a king, why not?

[B]

You know, yolo.

[A]

All right, well, tell us which country we should defect to. Thank you so much for tuning in. We would like to hear your North Korea facts, the strange trivia that you have found about it. You can share that with us and your fellow listeners on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. We also recommend Ridiculous Historians, our community page, which is just chock full of ridiculous, scrumptious history.

[B]

Chock a block. It's yes, it's history nuggets is What.

[A]

I like to call them. There we go. There we go. It's chock full of good old history nuggets.

[B]

Big thanks to our super producer, Casey Pegram. Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme.

[A]

And of course thanks to Gabe, our research associate. And you know what, as we always say, thanks.

[B]

Thanks to you, Noel, Ben. I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. And I whip that right across this net, that this non existent net, this imaginary net that's in the middle of our podcasting table. Right back at you, buddy.

[A]

Man, if we didn't spend so much money on that quizzed or grandfather clock, we could have an actual net. We could be playing ping pong while we're doing the show.

[B]

That's a lot of multitasking, Ben.

[A]

That's a lot of multitasking.

[B]

I know.

[A]

I have to learn how to work this puppet before tonight, so I gotta get out of here.

[B]

You were really working that puppet a little while ago, weren't you, Ben?

[A]

We'll post it. We'll post it somewhere on social. But we do actually have a puppet in the studio with us.

[B]

Yeah, and it's weird when you see a puppet that does not benefiting from the hand of the puppeteer, it's just kind of slumped over in a chair. It's a little bit unnerving.

[A]

It's a little bit unnerving. But maybe we'll even make a propaganda video for ridiculous history with this puppet. Maybe we can kidnap other podcasters to get them to help us out. This is getting crazy. We should probably just call it a day.

[B]

I agree. See you next time, folks.

[A]

Limu Emu and Doug. Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.

[B]

Is that guy with the binoculars watching us?

[A]

Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty.

[B]

Liberty Savings Fairy underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. Hello, America's sweetheart. Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist from Smartless Media, Campside Media and big money Players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash hype. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for.

[A]

The part where he steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

[B]

I'm not that generous. It's a damn near inspiring true story. For anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing.

[A]

They stole $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape.

[B]

So we're saying like, oh God, what do we do?

[A]

What do we do?

[B]

That was dumb. People. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[E]

I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her.

[A]

Wait a minute, Sophia, how do you know she's a cult leader?

[E]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a Scary Story week on the OK Storytime Podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I tried to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult.

[A]

Hold up a real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual?

[E]

No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[D]

The Big Take Podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day.

[A]

My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day.

[D]

Stories that move markets.

[A]

Chair Powell opened the door to this.

[D]

First interest rate, cut impact politics, change businesses. This is a really stunning development for the AI world and how you think about your bottom line. Listen to the Big Take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

This is an iHeart podcast.