Richard Johnstone

In Exile
Date of birth:c. 1944
Age:82
Gender:Male
Race:White
Era:1970s
State:Iowa
Support
Anti-War
No image available

Biography

Richard Johnstone, a farm boy from Brooklyn, Iowa, deserted from the United States Army during the Vietnam War and reached Sweden, among the roughly one thousand American exiles the country took in. He received a formal release from the Army in 1977 and could thereafter travel to the United States, so he was no longer a fugitive in the ordinary sense, but he stayed in Sweden. He was still there in December 1982, when the Washington Post found him aged 38, his American English by then carrying a Swedish accent.

Living status and present residence unverified: no dependable recent evidence has been found establishing whether he is alive or still in Sweden. He is recorded here as currently in exile on the assumption that he remains abroad — an exile by residence rather than by legal compulsion, since 1977.

Case

Charges: Desertion from the United States Army during the Vietnam War
Sentence: None imposed. Released by the Army in 1977 and thereafter free to travel to the United States; still resident in Sweden in December 1982. No exile start date is recorded because the year he reached Sweden has not been established.
Convicted: No — reached Sweden, which granted American war resisters asylum; formally released by the Army in 1977