Background of Korean War POW/MIA Issue

Although thousands of men were suspiciously unaccounted for, the USG listed 944 men who specifically should have been accounted for, because circumstances surrounding their loss indicated that the enemy would have known what happened to them. Indeed, some of these men were known to have been alive in enemy hands at the end of the war, yet they were not returned. Who knew how many others of the 8,000+ men had been captured alive and not returned? Certainly some of them had died in battle or in the POW camps, but there were too many unexplained disappearances.

What the families of the missing men did not know at the time was that the USG had good reason to claim foul play. They had been tracking movement of POWs throughout the war and knew that the Communists had been taking men out of North Korea into China and the USSR. Since these men had not come back, the USG knew the Communists planned to keep them for various kinds of exploitation.

For awhile some in our government continued to complain. Hearings were held. Demands for the return of all Americans were made. The Communists insisted that all POWs had been released and, eventually, it became clear that no more men would be returned. The USG did not tell the families about the evidence that men had been taken alive and obviously held back. Behind closed doors they worried that such revelations would be too painful for the families, and would result in demands that the government take action it was not prepared to take.

Instead, the government made presumptive findings of death, based on unexplained 'conclusive evidence of death' for each missing man, and the files were closed. The issue faded from the headlines, and the American people forgot about the 8,217 men who had gone off to war and just disappeared. Over the years, intelligence came in about the men who had been taken, but this information was not released to the families or the public. It was a dark secret, well guarded by even our own government.

In 1991, with the fall of the Soviet Union, President Boris Yeltsin came to the United States and made a startling announcement: Russia had information about some American POWs from the Korean War. Reaction from officials in our government was swift. Mr. Yeltsin's remarks were explained away by U.S. officials, but not before families of the missing men had been galvanized to learn the truth about the fates of their loved ones.

In 1992, a Senate Select Committee held hearings on the question of American servicemen having been taken alive by communist regimes during the various modern wars and secretly held back. People like Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and John Kerry (D-MA), who by then were pushing for normalization of relations with Vietnam, worked vigorously to dispel the notion that men had been held back. Despite the efforts of people like McCain and Kerry, the Committee found that American men had indeed been left behind after Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. The Committee urged that commissions be formed to press for a full accounting for all missing servicemen.

The Department of Defense was put in charge of the accounting mission. A POW/MIA office was created, referred to by its acronym DPMO. DPMO was supposed to research, collect and analyze intelligence and other information; investigate the disappearance of the missing men; and work (along with other agencies of the federal government) to bring the foreign governments involved to the table with answers to our questions. DPMO was to serve as a liaison to the families; help them obtain declassification of intelligence documents; and keep them apprized of information as it was learned.

From the beginning there were problems. Although DPMO professed a commitment to learning the truth about our missing men, families, veterans, and insiders alike complained that information was being suppressed, and the question of live POWs routinely avoided or explained away. An emphasis on remains recovery began to dominate the effort, while virtually every report that indicated men had been taken alive and not returned was dismissed as not credible or as insufficient proof. More than one insider came forward with accusations that DPMO was little more than a front office, bent on managing this potentially explosive issue so that it would not derail other, more 'important' political and economic agendas of the current Administration. Distrust and dissension grew and, today, the families are caught in a web of suspicion, frustration, and on-going anxiety in their search for information about the people they loved and lost.

There have been inroads made, mostly in the area of remains recovery and some archival research. These certainly are important pieces of the accounting effort, but the most urgent and most frustrating issue is the question of live POWs. On this issue, progress is largely non-existent. An ever-increasing body of evidence has surfaced detailing how Americans were taken and held back. This issue is the most pressing and, sadly, it is the most neglected by even our own government.

Beyond the mind set to derail the live POW issue that surely exists among some in a position of trust within the USG, efforts to account for our men have also been limited by a refusal of the relevant foreign governments to cooperate in a meaningful way. KGB and Communist Party files have remained off limits in Russia, and the official government position is that no Americans were taken to the Soviet Union. China has simply refused to discuss the issue. North Korea tells us to talk to Russia and China.

Each of these governments should have answers. Intelligence reports detail the taking of Americans to the Soviet Union and to China, with no return, and men being held in North Korea long after the war. In fact, in recent years, several South Korean POWs have escaped from North Korea, after being forced to work for more than 45 years in mining camps. How many Americans were held and forced to work in North Korea? How many were sent to the Soviet Union and put in the gulags or exiled to Siberian work camps? How many have languished in Chinese Laogai prison camps these many years? Numerous intelligence reports; information learned from defectors; and accountings by former gulag prisoners of other nationalities paint a vivid picture of American POWs taken by the Communists and never returned.

When asked, most government officials will recite the mantra that accounting for missing servicemen is a 'highest national priority'. For the most part, however, the POW/MIA accounting has been separated out of foreign policy on other matters, leaving it to stand alone as a humanitarian issue. Accordingly, the U.S. brings no leverage to the negotiating table, if and when the issue is raised. Russia still gets its loans; China still gets normal trade status; North Korea still gets food aid; and normalization of relations with Vietnam still moves ahead, despite a great deal of ongoing objection. Normalization of relations between the U.S. and North Korea are now underway, as well, and to date the issue of our missing men is not on the agenda.

Indeed, even on issues that cry out to be linked with the effort to account for our men, most in the U.S. government are silent. When the Secretary of State complains about China's violation of human rights, she speaks only of the suffering of Chinese citizens, without mention of the years of suffering by thousands of Americans who have waited and anguished over the fate of their loved ones: suffering that China has caused and that China could end. When food is negotiated for North Korea, the missing American servicemen are not included in the dialogue because the aid is a humanitarian gesture, as though providing answers about our missing men were not. When treaties for new NATO members Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic were negotiated, those governments were not asked about their knowledge, as former members of the Warsaw Pact, of the fates of American servicemen. When China, the two Koreas, and the U.S. began negotiations recently to formally end the Korean War with a peace treaty, the issue of missing Americans was not placed on the agenda because it might complicate the process.

In any war, there will be casualties. Members of the U.S. military know that they might be injured; they might be killed. They do not, however, expect to be left behind in enemy hands when the fighting stops. The American people do not accept as a justifiable cost of going to war that men will be left behind. It is a tragic betrayal of trust and a circumvention of honor that our government has not demanded the fullest possible accounting for missing American servicemen as a condition of any ongoing relations with the United States.

If the POW/MIA travesty is to be resolved, and confidence in the basic decency of our elected officials restored, a new generation of leaders will have to commit themselves...not with meaningless lip service...but with well defined policies and determined implementation... to the fullest possible accounting for missing American servicemen. This must include answers to the questions about live POWs.

Coalition Headquarters
P.O. Box 7152
Roanoke, VA 24019-0152
info@coalitionoffamilies.org