Claude Batchelor (born December 14, 1929) is a former United States Army soldier convicted by court martial of collaborating with China during the Korean War.
While interned at the Pyok-Dong POW camp, he evangelized a communist worldview to fellow prisoners and penned a letter calling for the United States to withdraw from the Korean Peninsula.
[2] Batchelor was part of a group of 15 soldiers detached from his company who, on the evening of October 31, 1950, were tasked with making contact with a remote outpost.
[3] While serving on the committee, Batchelor urged American POWs to sign a letter requesting the United States withdraw from the Korean Peninsula and to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.
[3] Batchelor also penned a letter to Kermit's newspaper, the Winkler County News, in which he denounced capitalism and American biological warfare; he led lectures to fellow POWs in which he described the injustices of Jim Crow laws and the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
[6] Batchelor himself, however, said he had decided to leave after reading an article about communism by Whittaker Chambers which appeared in a copy of the Reader's Digest he had acquired while a POW.
[8] Psychiatrist Leon Freedman testified for the defense, stating that Batchelor suffered from "induced political psychosis" and had been led to believe that he was "a potential savior of humanity".
[2] Batchelor was convicted on September 30 of several charges of communicating with the enemy without proper authority and of promoting disloyalty and disaffection among the civilian populace of the United States.
[11] After being paroled, Batchelor settled in San Antonio, Texas, and went to work, first, for an accountant and, next, as a clerk for Remco Corporation, a manufacturer of air conditioner parts.