Some Observations on Chinese Methods of Handling Prisoners of War

This paper discusses the Chinese indoctrination methods for Prisoners of War.' In the wars of the last fifty to one hundred years, American soldiers who fell into enemy hands experienced a variety of physical and emotional hardships, but the Chinese have made the first major attempt to produce defectors and collaborators among American POWs and to indoctrinate them in an alien political ideology. We do not propose to consider the Chinese aims in conducting this enterprise, nor will we discuss in any detail how the indoctrination program affected our men. Instead, in this paper we will present a brief account of the specific experiences of the POWs from the time they were captured until the time they were repatriated.2 To some extent, it will be possible to present a chronological account. It should be pointed out, however, that most of the significant experiences were occurring contemporaneously. Therefore, we have chosen to organize them into some social psychological categories rather than simply to recount them as they occurred. The broad social psychological categories that we have chosen will suggest to the reader that the Chinese were using certain fairly well known principles of propaganda in conducting their indoctrination program. But it is important to recognize that we are not thereby implying that the Chinese have an explicit understanding of these principles, nor that they were using them with any deliberate intent. It may be that they have, through practical experience, obtained a methodology that fits into a set of principles that are meaningful to us but that may not be explicitly verbalized or theoretically understood by them.