Ex-Crimed Sack Arrested for Hiding on Red Prisoner Ship

Stars and Stripes reporter John J. Sack '51, former CRIMSON editor and best-selling author of "The Butcher," was arrested by military police yesterday for smuggling himself aboard a Chinese prisoner ship in defiance of a strict press ban.

But, according to a spokesman for Stars and Stripes, "Sack isn't in any trouble." The officer added that Sack will not be disciplined.

Pfc. Sack boarded the prisoner ship--an LST--at Cheju Island. It was enroute to Pusan, Korea, with a load of Chinese Communists bound for repatriation. As the prisoners filed off the ship at Pusan, military police spotted Sack and detained him for violating a "no press allowed" ban.

Sack explained he was writing a series of articles for the Army newspaper on sick and wounded Chinese prisoners who were to be returned to their homes.

The Stars and Stripes spokesman said, "We talked to the Provost Marshal, assured him Sack was OK, and he was turned over to the prisoner of war command. Now we're just waiting for Sack's story."

Good Clean Enterprise

The Stars and Stripes spokesman added, "It was a good clean enterprise. We'd like to promote him. After all-he's a soldier as well as a correspondent--maybe he was just hitching a ride off the islands."

Sack became an editor of The CRIMSON in 1948, and was appointed Radcliffe Bureau Chief in 1950--the only male 'Cliffe Bureau Chief in Crime history.

For three years, he played Leverett House's six-foot bunny. As Chairman of the Leverett House Improvement Committee, he originated the Hutch cry of "Gore or War!", an attempt to establish the fact that the Gore section of Winthrop actually belongs to Leverett.

In June 1952, Rinehart published his book, "The Butcher," an account of the first ascent of Peru's Mt. Yerupaja by a group of Stanford and Harvard students. The book, called "one of the great real-life dramas of mountain-climbing literature," was favorably reviewed everywhere.