[2] Two months after his disappearance in Europe, North Korea's international broadcasting service Radio Pyongyang (now Voice of Korea) announced his defection, stating that he "could no longer endure the disgraceful life of national insult and maltreatment he had to lead in the U.S. imperialist aggressor Army.

"[2] The other five men who disappeared into North Korea did so by directly crossing the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

[3] In 2004, filmmaker Nicholas Bonner (co-creator of the documentary Crossing the Line) reported that he heard Chung had died of natural causes.

They compared his disappearance to several documented abductions by North Korean agents, most notably the kidnapping of actress Choi Eun-hee.

They made no major inquiries into the matter because Chung had no access to classified information and was not a security threat.