By: Donna Downes Knox

As many of our readers know, the so-called Generic File dates back to efforts by families in the mid-1990's to gain access to live sighting reports of American POWs that do not contain specific reference to any particular missing serviceman. New families join the accounting effort every year, and information changes every year, so we feel it is important to update issues from time to time.

It took us three years of concentrated advocacy to bring about the Generic File. Families who had been actively involved in the accounting effort for years knew that intelligence reports relating to both Korean and Cold War losses tend to be mostly generic in nature. Rather than providing information about Pfc John Smith, for example, a generic report might talk about a number of American POWs, none mentioned by name, being transferred to the Soviet Union, or a myriad of other scenarios…both during and after the Korean and Cold Wars. Unless a report provides information about a particular man, or obviously relates to a given individual's loss, it is not put in his file and a family member would not know about it, except by independent investigation that chanced to stumble upon it. We were concerned that many of these reports were not being called to our attention.

We envisioned the Generic File would become a collection of all generic reports of POWs, organized and indexed, and made available to families who wanted to conduct research into their loved one's loss. We families often have extensive and detailed information that government researchers do not have at their disposal. A seemingly insignificant detail in a generic report could jump out as important to someone who knew a certain individual, or who knew the details of his loss. Also, families want to know of intelligence that suggests men were held back alive. Such reports provide the impetus for family involvement in the accounting process.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the mid-1990's, Bob Jones, did not like the idea of the Generic File and felt he was not obligated by the law to provide families with such information. After considerable pressure from various sources, he agreed to compile a list of recent live sighting reports that remain classified. This list would be updated from time to time and would contain a one sentence summary of information found in a given report; the report's date and identification number; and the reason the report remains classified. The current Generic File List pertaining to Korean War losses has been reprinted in this issue of the Update & Review. It lists nineteen reports dating from 1996 until 2004.

Two explanations are given as to why these documents are still classified. Six are 'Foreign Government Information'. That means some other country, usually South Korea, obtained the information and reportedly won't allow the U.S. Government to release it. The other thirteen reports are said to be under ongoing investigation. Thirteen of the documents, the ones that have an asterisk by them on our list, are reportedly being processed for declassification. We learned this at the D.C. Family Update in April, when I asked to see the Generic File. We were not able to learn what the referenced process involves or how long it might take.

It is good that some of these reports are being reviewed for declassification. Hopefully, the process won't take years and will yield more than a report that has been blacked out except for a few meaningless words. However, the Generic File, in and of itself, needs to be rethought and revised.

One issue that comes to mind: What happens to the thirteen reports once they have been declassified (assuming they are, in fact, released)? They won't go into any particular family's file, because they don't mention anyone by name. If they are quietly deposited into the sea of documents at NARA (the national archives), without some distinction as to what they are and where they can be found, and without notification to families that they have been released, we won't know they are available and we won't know where to find them. They might as well not have been declassified.

A point in fact: The original Generic File Korean War list contained mention of thirteen reports related to Korean War losses. It appears that, over the last few years, the earlier dated reports have dropped off and more recent ones have been added. Where are the earlier reports? What is their current status?

And what of generic intelligence reports that are not classified? They are not in the Generic File in its present form. Most families have never seen them; have no idea they exist; and wouldn't have the first inkling as to how to gain access to them. Active family and veterans organizations have published and discussed some of the more provocative reports over the years, but a family member who is new to the accounting effort, or who happened to miss a particular issue of an organization's newsletter, would simply not get this important information.

Indeed, most families don't even know that the Generic File exists. They don't know that it is kept in the DPMO office and that they are entitled to review it whenever they review their missing loved-one's file. The Generic File contains a list of reports that might bear on a family's search for answers. A family might want to pursue declassification of a listed report by filing a Freedom of Information Act request for release of the information.

The Generic File should be expanded. It should be an actual collection of declassified documents, properly indexed, as well as a list of documents that remain classified, with sufficient information to enable a researcher to file a FOIA request. The Generic File should be made reasonably available to the families, and the families should be kept informed of its contents. Perhaps an index of documents contained in the collection could be posted and maintained on the DPMO website. A hard copy could be mailed to families once or twice a year for the benefit of families who are not on the web.

Families should be able to go a single location and be provided with a discreet collection of these documents to review. They shouldn't have to go through a million unrelated documents in hopes of finding one that provides meaningful information about American POWs. DPMO researchers have gone through the archives. Presumably, live sighting reports of whatever kind have been identified and indexed somewhere. They should be culled out and brought together.

The families want information. Time and again we hear from people who don't have even as much information about their missing loved one as the Coalition does in its data base. Our information manager, John Zimmerlee, receives daily requests from families for information that they should be able to easily obtain for themselves.

Generic reports might lack the most obvious identifying information, such as a name, but they are still important in a number of ways. If a report talks about a 6' soldier with blond hair, a scar on his left cheek, and a heart shaped tattoo on his right forearm, a government analyst most likely couldn't do anything with that information. The family of that soldier would know immediately who he was. If a report talks about 50 American POWs being shipped to Moscow, a family who has presumed its loved one died in North Korea might take a second look at what needs to be done to get answers.

We encourage families to request a review of the Generic File when they review their loved one's file, but that is only the beginning. As it stands now, such a review will only get you a list of reports that are classified and unavailable. That's an important piece of the process, to be sure, because these documents should be declassified and released. Families should file FOIA requests to get them.

We all need to go further, though. We need to work together, and with DPMO, to devise a way to create a more complete Generic File, one that addresses the real concern of making such documents reasonably known, and available, to families of missing men.

The Generic File
The Korean War