By: Richard Downes

There are real reasons, beyond hope and fantasy, behind the belief that American POWs were left behind alive during the Korean War. Documents exist. Sightings. Things like that. Experienced family members are familiar with the evidence. Those who are new to the issue may not be.

One of the more incriminating documents is a three page CIA Information Report from 1952. It has a cloak-and-dagger feel, as if the agent returned from a late night, clandestine encounter then sat down at his old Smith/Corona, and pecked out the astounding details. The report was quickly classified and remained hidden for the next forty years. When it finally surfaced, whole sections were blacked out. The writing is eerily detached. It is still essential reading. This may be the first document to state outright that Americans were among thousands of POWs taken from North Korea to the Gulags in the Soviet Union and never returned.

The dates covered are from July, 1951 through April, 1952. Subject: Location of Certain Soviet Transit Camps for Prisoners of War from Korea. Source: [Redacted]. The format is laid out in twelve numbered sections. Each one details a route, method, dates, or reasons POWs were transferred into the USSR. Transit camps are mentioned in remote locals like Komsomolsk, Maganda, Chita. Prisoners were taken there by sea and by rail … many transported first through China. All the details are there. All that is missing are the men's names.

The general theory is that the number of Americans taken was in the hundreds, maybe up to 1200. There were other United Nation POWs … many British. Thousands were South Korean. All of the men were long gone when repatriation occurred; never to be heard from again by their government, their families. Their fate was left to the minds and politics of a cold war, which meant that virtually nothing was done to bring them home.

Why? Cynics will ask this. Why would the Soviet Union keep these men? Why would the United States allow it to happen … then keep the truth from the families, from the American people? Isn't a full accounting of the missing our government's motto, its highest priority? These questions only reveal the naiveté we bring to politics, especially worldwide diplomacy.

The 1952 document does touch on why: slave labor was the fate of most of the men [South Koreans, in particular] … building railways, roads, power plants, airfields. There are, however, more oblique references … "investigation and selection" processes … prisoners being retained longer than others … some POWs "completely isolated from the outside world" … espionage … technical expertise. Were these the reasons for keeping Americans?

It is now known that the 1952 CIA Information Report was only the tip of the iceberg. Upcoming articles in the Coalition newsletter will explore more recent revelations, including Stalin's ongoing hostage program and following the trails taking American POWs from the transit camps into the depths of the Soviet Gulag system. What happened next to these men is stubborn information, buried in KGB archives. Getting our own government to declassify fifty year old secret documents is enough of a struggle … good practice, though, for what will be needed in Russia.

What must never be lost in the pursuit of this intrigue, is the human element … the loneliness these men endured, their feelings of abandonment. One day, we will need to face these realities, when there are names and faces to go with the numbers. That will be painful. The more people who know what happened and press for the truth, the sooner that day will come. Maybe these articles will be part of that process.