Word: cowart
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...William Cowart, 22, Lewis Griggs, 22, and Otho Bell, 24, recently of Communist China, the grim homecoming was a portent of a grimmer future. They faced punishment (maximum penalty: death) for acts committed against their country and fellow Americans while they were prisoners of war in Korea. Each was accused of the gravest crimes under military law-aiding the enemy and ratting on their brothers-in-arms...
Though the Army's case against the three-compiled from the testimony of hundreds of loyal ex-P.W.s-looked substantial enough, there was some doubt about the Army's right to try them. Technically, Bell, Cowart and Griggs are civilians-dishonorably discharged from the Army at the time they, and 18 other American turncoats, turned their backs on their homeland and families and disappeared into Red China. But since 1950, the armed forces have claimed the right to seize and court-martial civilians for major crimes committed while in military service. The legality of that claim...
...three were captured in Korea and easily gave in to the Communists. While many other prisoners as young and as poorly equipped for an ideological war resisted or died, the three turned on their country, volunteered to make propaganda broadcasts. Cowart and Griggs turned on their buddies, became informers...
When they chose Communism, Cowart danced a jig of joy, but after seven months of stern indoctrination his joy turned to disillusion. Instead of getting the university courses the Communists promised, the three were sent to labor on collective farms in drought-scarred Honan Province. As Cowart tells it, they rebelled, refused to work, made trouble and thus earned their freedom...
Relieved to be out of Communist China at any cost, the three are reconciled to future trials. Said Cowart, with a political education born of bitter experience: "I would sooner have Hitler come back than have Communism. Hitler only destroyed the body, but Communism destroys the mind. The society of China is built on fear-fear of each man for the other...