A Small Price to Pay

The old man admitted that he was "very tired," but he walked unassisted across the heavily guarded Lo Wu bridge separating the China mainland from the British colony of Hong Kong. U.S. consular officials were soon en route to welcome the arrival: 79-year-old Bishop James E. Walsh of Baltimore. After twelve years of captivity in a Shanghai prison, the Roman Catholic prelate last week was given his freedom.

At almost the same moment, Peking's New China News Agency announced another American prisoner would not be returning. It said that Hugh Francis Redmond, 50, a businessman from Yonkers, N.Y., had committed suicide three months ago in his Shanghai cell. Redmond, who was serving a life sentence on charges that he had been the "chief American spy" in China, reportedly slashed the veins in his arms and wrists with a razor blade and died from loss of blood.

Bishop Walsh, a former superior-general of the Maryknoll Fathers, had also been convicted of spying. Before his arrest in 1958, the Communist regime offered several times to send him home. He refused each offer. The risk of imprisonment, he wrote shortly before his arrest, is "a small price to pay for carrying out our duty." Bishop Walsh celebrated his first Mass in 12 years at a Hong Kong hospital where he was taken for rest and a physical examination.

In announcing Walsh's release, Peking cited the bishop's age and ill health, claiming he had "confessed his crimes." Walsh said he had signed no confession. The most likely explanation for Peking's move was to head off bad publicity from one American's death with the release of another.

China is still holding at least four other non-Communist Americans, all captured from planes shot down over Chinese territory (an undetermined number of Americans who worked for the Peking regime but fell into disfavor are also believed to be in Chinese prisons). Civilians John T. Downey and Richard Fecteau were in a plane destroyed over Manchuria during the Korean War, have been in captivity for more than 17 years. Air Force Captain Philip E. Smith was captured while on a reconnaissance mission along the China coast in 1965, and Navy Lieut. Robert J. Flynn was imprisoned after being shot down when his plane strayed across the Chinese border during a combat mission over North Viet Nam in 1967. In addition, Navy Lieut. Joseph Dunn, whose plane was downed off the island of Hainan in 1968, may be a prisoner.

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