Joseph T. White

Who was Joseph T. White?

Joseph T. White was a United States Army private who defected from a U.S. border site, which monitored DMZ movement to North Korea on August 28, 1982. A member of 1/31st Infantry, he shot the lock off one of the gates leading into the Korean Demilitarized Zone and was witnessed by fellow soldiers walking through the DMZ with a duffle bag full of documents he stole from the site to include the layout of mines which were buried on the South Korean side of the DMZ. He surrendered to North Korean troops. He was the last of the six known Americans to defect after the end of the Korean War.

North Korean authorities refused a request by UNC representatives to meet White and ask him about the reasons for his defection. North Korean authorities released a video in which White, looking uncomfortable, denounced the United States' "corruptness, criminality, immorality, weakness, and hedonism," claiming he had defected to demonstrate how "unjustifiable [it was] for the U.S. to send troops to South Korea." As White's speech was written in stilted, unnatural-sounding English, it is widely considered that it was written by North Koreans and not by him.