After days of relentlessly questioning Merrill about his role in the Korean War, the North Korean "investigator" suddenly switched subjects.
"They started in on why I came," Newman recalled. "I said it was because I wanted to find out what was really going on in North Korea. Then they began to focus on my asking our guides to help me locate old soldiers or their relations or descendants if we got to Kuwol Mountain.
"They tried to make it into the main reason for my visit. I tried to get across that the business of me contacting people was just an aside. It was just incidental. It wasn't the main thing."
The investigator erupted. "You're lying! You're guilty of espionage. You've got to be honest with us."
"I apologized for trying to reconnect. I continued to maintain that the purpose was just to get a better understanding of North Korea. But that was the 'crime' in their eyes—illegally using the tour as a cover."
Wartime contacts
The North Koreans were particularly interested in an email that Newman had sent before his trip to his elderly wartime contacts in Seoul. The "investigator" asked about the "Kuwol comrades." Did they have an office? How big was it? How much time had Merrill spent with them?
"I was not completely forthcoming," Newman said. He sought to downplay the group and his connection to it, describing the Seoul office as small and nondescript, and lying about how much time he'd spent with the former guerrillas.
He was worried that his interrogators would realize that he wasn't telling the whole truth, but they never did.
The "investigator" also accused Merrill of "criticizing" the DPRK, referring specifically to his conversation with fellow tourist Bob Hamdrla in which he noted the resources North Korea's government wasted on monuments in such an impoverished country. Clearly, their guide Hyon-yi, who always seemed to be listening in to their conversations from her seat in the back of their minivan, had reported that comment to security officials.
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