Free Republic

William Lee Brent, former bodyguard to Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver, died last week in Havana, Cuba. He would have been 76 last Friday. The cause was bronchial pneumonia, said Steve Wasserman, a close friend and editor of Mr. Brent's 1996 autobiography, "Long Time Gone." Mr. Brent was still a fugitive when he died, sought by U.S. law enforcement officials for his June 1969 hijacking of TWA flight No. 154 to Cuba. The plane, with 76 passengers aboard, was bound for New York from San Francisco. No one was hurt. He arrived in Havana expecting to be hailed as...

Growing up in North Korea, Hyok Kang was surrounded by desperate people who ate grass and bark before they died. Yet pervasive propaganda made them feel lucky to be there. The first time I ate chocolate was when I was five years old. My grandfather had relatives in Japan who were given exceptional permission to visit us. They came like extraterrestrials with their arms full of presents and food. I remember waving tins of condensed milk and chocolate bars under my friends’ noses. I was a horrid little boy. It was 1990 and I didn’t yet know what famine was....