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116 4 motherhood and male Autonomy during the Cold war in the fall of 1953 Portia howe became a minor cause célèbre and a shortlived media sensation when it was revealed that her son, Pvt. richard r. tenneson, was one of the twenty-three American Pows in Korea who planned to remain with his Communist captors and refuse repatriation to the united states. Part of the publicity was owing to tenneson’s age: he was only seventeen when he enlisted in the army in 1950 and was one of the youngest Americans to decide not to come home. But what really captured the public imagination was howe’s response to the news. instead of sitting idly by, she sprang into action. telling reporters that all she needed was ten minutes alone with her son to “make a dent in that kind of thinking,” she immediately recorded a message for him at a radio station in mankato, minnesota, and then arranged with the defense department to have the message sent to the repatriation Commission in Korea. in the message she told her son, “make up your own mind . . . as you’ve been brought up to do.”1 over the next several weeks howe began laying the groundwork for a face-to-face meeting with her son despite considerable roadblocks. By december she had obtained a passport to travel to Korea and had raised enough money for the flight through donations from her local church and by cashing in nearly seventeen hundred dollars’ worth of her son’s war bonds. on december 9, after telling members of the press she was “fighting for [her] son’s soul” and intended to bring him “back to his senses and back home,” she boarded a plane for tokyo.2 upon her arrival in Japan, howe was immediately escorted by military officers to a private conference with the commander in chief of the Far east Command, Gen. John. e. hull, who rejected her plan to see her son in Korea on the basis of the department of defense’s policy on Pows. Caught H H 117 Motherhood and Male Autonomy up in bureaucratic red tape, howe remained in tokyo for another week and a half, appealing to the public and Congress through foreign correspondents in Japan. ultimately, however, it was her son who persuaded howe to abandon the mission. After she wired him a telegram with details of her visit, he wrote her a letter stating that she could visit him if she wished but that she would never accomplish her goal of persuading him to return home. in the letter tenneson criticized u.s. authorities and defiantly told his mother he was staying with his Communist captors, writing, “i know that you want to take me home with you but i have made up my mind and i am not going.” he closed the letter by snidely recommending she “go over to GhQ and take a loyalty oath” before returning home. standing before assembled members of the press with tears in her eyes and a Bible in one hand, howe broke down, almost sobbing as she asked, “where did i fail?—i don’t know where i failed.” regaining her composure, she mocked her son’s naiveté: “he was only 17—what does he know of life in the united states? he was in combat seven weeks. what does he know of war? the whole argument falls apart.” she asked the reporters present to make the entire letter available to the public. “i think people should know how vicious a thing communism is,” she said. “if it can destroy a home, it can disintegrate a nation.”3 tenneson’s story was tailor-made for the press, and howe’s every move received intense media scrutiny for weeks. in the years after, every time tenneson wrote a letter home to his mother the press would revisit the entire story. in september 1955 howe received the first indication that tenneson was tiring of life in red China. two months later the Chinese government abruptly agreed to release him. on december 16, after being away from his hometown for nearly five years, tenneson returned to Alden, minnesota, where he was greeted with a warm family homecoming and a roast turkey dinner. the press made special note of the dessert at the dinner, a cake in the shape of an open Bible that was inscribed with two quotations from scripture. the first read, “Commit thy way unto...

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