Confidential File

More Letters From a Badly Warped Mind

The hard way, Jet Simrell got what he wanted this week:

Headlines.

By
threatening to kill six superior judges and three other court
officials, he got his name and picture plastered on the front page of
every paper in town.

But the stories weren't written the way Jet Simrell wanted them to be.

I know, they weren't, because I know Jet Simrell.

Fifteen months ago, he came to my office and told me his "plan."

He was going to dedicate the rest of his life, he said, to curing what he considered the biggest ill of our nation.

He
was going to put us — the men — back in the driver's seat. And he was
going to depose the "un-female" American woman from what he considered
her position of power and authority in American society.

 Exactly how he'd conduct his one-man crusade he wasn't too sure, then. But publicity definitely would play a key part in it.

It
never occurred to me at the time to classify Simrell as a dangerous
fanatic. Much of his criticism, many of his arguments made a lot of
sense.

He was a man who obviously was deeply hurt when his wife
divorced him. He couldn't comprehend that the fault for failure of his
marriage had to be in some part his own.

"The more freedoms and privileges I gave my wife," he said, "the more she took."

Simrell
blamed his personal troubles on his wife, existing social conditions,
neighbors — but most of all the divorce courts of our state.

Only
a few weeks after I'd met him, Simrell pulled off his infamous "I
killed three kids and their mother" stunt, which sent police racing to
his home to find three kid goats and their nanny spread across a bed,
their throats slit.

He was picked up and put in the psychiatric ward at General Hospital for observation.

While there, he wrote me an apologetic letter about his "unusual caper," as he described it.

"I
need to attract public attention," he wrote. "I wanted to shock the
public into thinking strongly about the seriousness of our national
problem of divorce and its tremendously numerous devastating effects.

"The scheme backfired partly when the police confiscated the papers on the table that explained my reason for doing what I did.

"I must also make it clear that I expected only the more intelligent people to fully understand my bizarre action.

"I
did expect the press to headline the fact that a man, known to be
unorthodox but intelligent, had the guts to pull such a stunt for the
sake of a cause in which he sincerely believed…"

'I Must Injure No One'

The
10-page letter went on: "One paper called me a woman-hater. This, of
course, isn't true. I love woman, as nature intended her to be, with
all my heart."

Simrell said that his greatest concern was the
embarrassment which his actions caused his three daughters. "But I
know," he wrote, "that during their lifetime they will come to know
that I was in the right."

But most prophetic, I hope, are the words he used in describing his plan to "shock" the public into listening to him:

"I must injure no one, physically, and must stay within the law, or reasonably so."

A dramatic moment in "The Jackson Twins." 

Confidential File

Ex-POWs Tell of China Reds

I talked with two young men this week about some things they have in common:

Both
served with the U.S. Army in Korea. Both were captured by the enemy.
Both spent long months as prisoners of war under the Communist Chinese.

At one point, in fact, they were in the same POW camp.

But to hear their stories, you'd think they'd been at opposite ends of the earth.

One
of the former prisoners is Jack Gifford of Santa Monica. He's a
graduate history student, specializing in military affairs, at UCLA. He
was honorably discharged after being freed in August, 1953, along with
hundreds of other American GIs, in the voluntary prisoner repatriation program.

The second young man I talked with is Richard Corden,
now of Los Angeles. He's a sheet metal worker and occasionally lectures
to small groups. He was one of the 21 "turncoat" soldiers who declined
repatriation to go, instead, to Red China.

Separately, I put the same questions to the two men. Here are their answers:

QUESTION — Describe for me, generally, the treatment given American prisoners of war by the Chinese.

Gifford: There
wasn't too much of what we'd call brutality. There was some, however.
The worst part of it was the inadequate food and the lack of medical
care.

Corden: The Chinese soldiers were very friendly.
They used a "lenient policy" on all of us. The food wasn't very tasty,
but there was enough of it.

Q — Did you see any brutal treatment at all?

Gifford: The worst I saw was when I first got to camp. I saw them bring in several GIs who'd been bayoneted by the guards.

Corden:
None. They did execute two American soldiers once, but they had
murdered guards while trying to escape. They were given fair trials.

Q — How were you, personally, treated?

Gifford: I
was thrown in jail, or solitary, a few times. Usually on trumped-up
charges. They'd make us sit at attention on sharp pine poles or kneel
on them for an hour at a time. But worst was being tossed into a hole
in the ground in below-zero weather.

Corden: They treated
me very well. Once, a guard forced me to give him a valuable ring I
had. But when his superiors found out he was punished and I got my ring
back.

Q — Did you ever try to escape?

Gifford: Once, eight of us had it all planned. But someone informed on us. That's when I went to solitary.

Corden: Most everyone felt it was ridiculous to try. There was no way to make contact — no underground.

Q –– Did you ever co-operate with the Chinese?

Gifford: No. A few times they warned me to change my ways. Finally they sent me to a "reactionary" camp.

Corden: I read the literature they passed out. I was interested. I helped organize some games, too.

Q — Once you heard about he voluntary repatriation program, was there any question in your mind as to what you'd do?

Gifford: Are you kidding?

Corden: Right away, I decided to stay.

Q –– Why do you think the 21 "turncoats" decided to stay in Red China?

Gifford:
I think most of them were afraid of prosecution for the co-operation
they gave the enemy camp. They knew they'd done wrong — violated oaths
as soldiers.

Corden: In my personal case, curiosity. It
gave me a chance to see a socialist country. I'd say that was the main
reason why most of us stayed.

Q — In POW camp, were the "progressive" prisoners given special favors?

Gifford: Yes, but not too openly. The guards would call them in for "talks" and give them extra rations, food, cigarettes.

Corden: No. I know of no instances of progressive prisoners being given favored treatment.

You pays your money, ladies and gentlemen, and you takes you choice.