National Affairs: Letters & Life

Corporal Claude J. Batchelor, 22, one of the 23 “progressive” prisoners who decided to stay with the Communists in Korea, changed his mind and came back—partly because of letters from his Japanese wife. But he still boasted of the Reds’ “high regard for me.” He deserved their esteem. According to witnesses, he played the Communist game, informed on one American fellow prisoner and recommended that another be shot. Last week in San Antonio, an Army court-martial gave Batchelor the stiffest sentence yet imposed on any American collaborationist: life imprisonment. In Tokyo his wife, still writing letters, said she would “wait . . . no matter how long.”

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The Army has decided to decorate 57 Americans (out of 1,400 praised by fellow prisoners) for exceptional patriotism and courage in resisting Red demands, organizing camp undergrounds, and otherwise defying their Communist captors.