American Prisoners of War in China! Part 4/5
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Transcript
00:00After about a year of courtship, we got married.
00:04The whole conversation on the mountain where the university was located was on what the baby would look like.
00:10Some said the baby would be checkered, some said it would be black on one side and white on the other,
00:15and some said it would look like a zebra.
00:18It was during the three hard years that they had in China where there was very little food to eat
00:24because they were paying back a huge Korean War debt to the Soviet Union.
00:29I had been offered extra ration, but I said, well, since I lived in China,
00:34I'll just live like the rest of the people, and I turned them down.
00:38But a lot of times when the fishermen called, they would steal a few fish and bring it to me
00:44so that I could make some soup for my daughter.
00:47Like this old farmer, for instance, that he had a huge family of his own,
00:52and he ended up laying an egg, and he wanted to get to the house so we could have that one egg for breakfast.
00:59And that's how the ordinary people treated.
01:02He managed to get in contact with the Beijing office of Voice of Hanoi.
01:14He made broadcast speeches to the black soldiers fighting in Vietnam,
01:24urging them to go back home and fight for racial equality and their own freedom.
01:35So I think he did his share toward world peace and international understanding.
01:46Turncoat Richard Tennyson, flanked by Red Cross officials and local police.
01:50He is one of 21 former American PWs who refused repatriation in Korea and chose to live in communist China.
01:57The 22-year-old turncoat takes his first steps of freedom en route home to Alden, Minnesota.
02:04Most of the former PWs left China before 1966, but found they were not welcome back in the USA.
02:14It was hard to find work, and two were committed to mental hospitals.
02:22The embassies, of course, were supplying me with whiskey and so forth,
02:26and I did a lot of little cooking there on my own, American food, soul food,
02:30and even the ambassadors, when they heard that I was cooking, they came around,
02:34and they'd supply the booze and I the food, and we had a nice time.
02:38However, the Chinese was noticing this sort of relationship, and they didn't particularly like it,
02:46so they asked me to cut down on it.
02:48The Chinese have a way of letting you know what they think about you.
02:52When we first went to China, they called us comrades,
02:58and after some years in China, they switched from comrades to calling us peace fighters,
03:06which means a step down.
03:08With comrades, we're one of them.
03:10When you become a peace fighter, you can be anybody fighting for peace.
03:14Then later on, the worst thing to be called in China is to be called a mister.
03:19Then they started addressing us as Mr. Adams, and then you know that you're completely out.
03:24When they start using that, when you become a mister, that's the worst thing to be.
03:30Shortly before the 1966 Cultural Revolution,
03:35Clarence Adams decided it would be wise for him to return with his family to Memphis, Tennessee.
03:44My wife at that point didn't want to come,
03:46because a picture of America had been painted to her as a very terrible place to live,
03:52and there's discrimination and the crime, which is basically true.
03:56So it took me a while to convince her that everything would be all right.
04:01When we got to San Francisco, every day, early in the morning,
04:05some men came and got my daddy, took him off.
04:09And later, of course, I found out it was the CIA and, you know, I don't know, maybe the FBI, something like that.
04:17At that time, 22 Americans were asked to stay, and some of them went back.
04:22Did you hesitate at that time? Did you think about it? Or did you just go back to America?
04:26I didn't hesitate to go back to America.
04:28I chose to come to China. I will never regret it.
04:35During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s,
04:39young Red Guards tried to arrest Venerese, accusing him of spying for America.
04:45His comrades at work protected him,
04:48and Premier Zhou Enlai declared Venerese an international peace fighter,
04:54and that he was not to be harmed.
05:16This is Lao Shan.
05:19This is Bonnie.
05:21This is Bonnie.
05:23This is Bao Biao.
05:37After his two years of studies in Beijing,
05:40Hawkins wanted to be a truck driver.
05:43And the Chinese Red Cross got him a job
05:46at a car parts factory in the city of Wuhan in southern China.
05:52Yeah, this is my work town.
05:54This is where I lived and worked for over a year.
05:59The name of the factory, Wuhan Qixue Paging Shop,
06:02was written on both sides.
06:05I used to stop my truck here, let all the rest of the workers off.
06:09Part of the foundry still has some of the machinery,
06:12and the lathes are here.
06:14I think this is one of the areas where Sullivan worked,
06:17in one of the machine shops.
06:40Long time, long time.
06:53This is the warehouse.
06:55Warehouse, yes, sir.
06:56This is the garage.
06:58Garage, yes.
06:59Garage.
07:00But the garage is destroyed.
07:02It's gone, yeah.
07:03And they rebuilt the building.
07:05You can keep this photo.
07:08Keep this photo, OK?
07:10David Hawkins explained to me why he decided to return to the USA
07:15in 1957 after a seven-year absence.
07:20Where I've been gone long enough,
07:23the climate here is not the same.
07:26It's changing rapidly as well.
07:29And I think it's time that I went back
07:31and I'll face whatever's there.
07:33And then I'll just face it as I come to it.
07:41Let's try to find out tonight, among other things,
07:44why he became a turncoat
07:46and why he returned home just four months ago.
07:50Personally, I went to China to compare what I'd heard
07:56with what they actually practiced in China.
07:59I went because I was very curious by nature.
08:02What did you hear?
08:04Well, only what our Chinese captors had told us,
08:08how great they were working toward socialism
08:11and the great strides that they were taking
08:13in bettering the life of the Chinese people
08:15who for so many thousands of years
08:17had lived a life of oppression under various governments
08:20and was backward.
08:22Well, why did you feel this sense of identification,
08:25of wanting to know about them,
08:26had you not been told by our own army?
08:29No.
08:31They'd never discussed the Chinese?
08:33No.
08:34They never told you what to expect?
08:36Were you to be captured?
08:37Yes, they said we'd be killed.
08:39Did you hear about the Soviet Russians
08:42and what they did in Hungary?
08:44That was the main thing that definitely made me
08:46take the step to return to the United States.
08:49And when you made up your mind
08:51to come back to the United States,
08:53did they stand in your way?
08:54Did they try to persuade you to stay?
08:56No.
08:57Can we be sure that you yourself
09:01have not been sent back here in some manner
09:03to work on behalf of the Red Chinese?
09:07You wouldn't know for sure.
09:10Do they believe in our freedoms?
09:12No.
09:14To them, it's much different.
09:17We have an aggressive government
09:18that's always hunting for war.
09:21Do you believe that the United States
09:24should recognize Red China?
09:27Personally, I think they should.
09:29Why?
09:32It's a very big thing.
09:34They have a very large land area.
09:36They have 650 million Chinese population.
09:40And it's like saying there's a...
09:45It's a big elephant in front of you
09:46and you say he's not there
09:48until he becomes powerful enough to step on you.
09:53Do you expect that they will become powerful enough
09:55to step on us?
09:56I have no doubt.