As difficult and risky as the POW/MIA issue might be for politicians and bureaucrats, it is an issue that strikes a chord in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and one that will take a place of significance when history regards American handling of its Twentieth Century conflicts. It is an issue that has dogged the American government for 50 years; one that will not go away any time soon, unless and until it is resolved.

 

     A smart government would take this issue on, and be the one to put it to bed. When the truth comes to be known, as it surely will sooner or later, all those who merely pretended to address it, and certainly those who willfully suppressed it, will wear the taint of complicity. In the midst of a complicated world of politics, diplomacy and economics, there lie numerous opportunities to inspire cooperation on this tragedy that has haunted thousands of Americans for two generations.

 

Meetings with Putin

   President Bush met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time on June 16. Before the agenda for the meeting had even been set, I discussed the upcoming meeting with Rich Armitage, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and Mark Pekala, Director of the Europe/Eurasia desk within the National Security Counsel.

 

     I outlined evidence that American POWs had been taken to the Soviet Union for exploitation during the Korean and Cold Wars, and I explained how Russian cooperation with the U.S. investigation of this issue has become, essentially, pro forma. I argued that the only way to entice the Russians into cooperation on an issue that would be difficult for them, at best, would be for President Bush to make it clear – from the outset of his relationship with Putin – that he considers this issue an integral part of the U.S./Russian relationship.

 

     Both Armitage and Pekala expressed agreement, at least in principle, with the points I made. Both assured me that President Bush genuinely cares about this issue. Both promised to raise it with the team that would prepare the agenda and brief the President. A week after the Bush/Putin meeting, I met with Mark Pekala at the National Security Counsel and  learned that Bush had not raised the POW/MIA accounting during his meeting with Putin. Time was short; the issues were many. The two had to get to know each other.

 

     I received a letter from Richard Armitage saying President Bush did not raise the POW/MIA issue with Putin because the matter has been raised in the past with General Bezborodov, chairman of the Russian side of the Joint Commission. I’m concerned that the point I had tried to make might have been missed.

 

     Yes, the POW/MIA issue has been raised within the Joint Commission. This is, after all, the actual focus of the commission’s work. Unfortunately, the Russians’ participation in commission investigations appears to be waning. They continue to deny knowledge that Americans were taken to the Soviet Union, and they discredit every piece of evidence that is presented to them. They thwart the effort by refusing our investigators access to those files most likely to contain information we need to flush out the covert KGB program to exploit American POWs.

 

     What is needed now, is for the President of the United States to make it clear, personally, that he intends to press the matter as a factor of the U.S./Russian bilateral relationship. As long as the issue is confined to low-level discourse, it will be treated as a low-level issue by the Russians; one they can continue to massage without producing the answers we seek. Our concern is that, unless we give the Russians (and any of the other recalcitrant governments involved) a reason to cooperate, they will continue to string us along with platitudes.

 

     Carving out the special humanitarian issue niche for the accounting effort sounds appropriate on the surface. In terms of remains recovery, it is probably a good idea. On the thornier issue of live Americans, though, it has merely served to dilute the consequences of failing to cooperate. A view of world politics, and a dose of common sense, tells us that rigid regimes do not come forward just to be nice guys. When you want people (or governments) to do something they don’t particularly want to do, you have to give them a reason to do it.

 

      Case in point: The United States wanted Yugoslavia to turn over former president Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague to answer allegations of genocide against Albanians in Kosovo. The Yugoslavian government, including the newly elected president Vojislav Kostunica, opposed extradition. They cited numerous reasons, not the least of which was the lack of a legal basis to do so within the Yugoslavian law.

 

     Yugoslavia needs billions of dollars in financial aid to rebuild its economy. The United States saw an opportunity to achieve its goal of bringing Milosevic to justice by linking that goal to the unrelated financial needs of the Yugoslavian government. The U.S. government conditioned its participation in a donors conference aimed at raising the money Yugoslavia needs, upon Yugoslavia’s turning over Milosevic to the Hague.

 

     Lo and behold, despite opposition from multiple quarters in Yugoslavia, the Yugoslavian government handed Milosevic over to the Hague. There was not even an attempt by the Yugoslavian government to color Milosevic’s extradition as the right thing to do. Unabashedly, they admitted that they turned Milosevic over because they had to if they wanted to raise the money they need. Mr. Putin will look to the U.S. for support in restructuring foreign debt, attracting investment, and gradually integrating Russia into western institutions, including the World Trade Organization. If he can accomplish these objectives without revealing what the Soviets did with American POWs, it makes sense that he certainly will do so. If he must unearth the Soviet program to exploit American POWs in order to move Russia (and his hold on power) forward, he will, albeit reluctantly, find a way to do that.

 

     President Bush and President Putin have had their introductory meeting. Their policy chiefs, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, have met to discuss issues of importance. The priorities are being laid out. During the Presidential campaign, Bush said the POW/MIA issue needs to be made a “Presidential Priority” early on, and that the relevant foreign governments need to understand its importance. Now is the time for Mr. Bush to do what he has said needs to be done.

 

     There are upcoming opportunities. He will meet with Putin this month in Italy, and again in Shanghai in October. There’s also talk of a visit by Putin to Bush’s Texas ranch in the fall.

 

Proposed NATO expansion

   In 1999, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted to NATO. All three countries were  members of the East Bloc throughout the Cold War. Their treaties were negotiated without mention of the need for them to cooperate with American investigators on the question of American POWs being taken to the former Soviet Union. Before ratifying the treaties, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment that required President Clinton to certify that these countries were fully cooperating with efforts to account for missing American servicemen, as a condition of U.S. approval of their admission to NATO.

 

     President Clinton was given an opportunity to interject the accounting effort into world politics and increase our chances of getting answers. He wasted that opportunity by making the certification despite complaints of U.S. investigators that none of the three countries were doing what they could do to assist the accounting effort. Once they were admitted to NATO, their cooperation, such as it was, dwindled to practically nothing, and a valuable opportunity was lost.

 

     Now nine more former communist East European countries are making a bid to join NATO. Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia,

Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have all asked to be admitted during the NATO summit in Prague next year. Leaders of the Congress, and President Bush alike, support NATO expansion. We do not argue that membership should be denied to these countries. We believe that the United States should use this opportunity to enlist cooperation from them on the issue of missing American servicemen.

 

     If our government can stand firm to accomplish its objectives in Yugoslavia, it should certainly stand firm in its resolve to account for its missing servicemen. There is a logical nexus between requiring cooperation on the accounting effort and admission into a military alliance which could call for involvement of American

servicemen and women in the future.

 

     It would be difficult to argue that any of these countries would decline admission into NATO because they were required to tell American investigators what they know about the Soviet program to exploit American POWs. These countries want to join NATO more than NATO wants them to join.

 

     We have leverage in this situation that is both logical and reasonable. The U.S. government should support its military … past, present, and future. When appropriate, we should require countries with relevant information to assist in accounting for missing American servicemen as a condition of enjoying the benefit of a military alliance with the United

States.

 

Unfolding dialogue with North Korea

   During the Clinton Administration, a series of talks between China, the U.S. and the two Korea’s were instituted. They were described as peace talks, aimed at formally ending the Korean War, which ended with only an armistice in 1953. The POW/MIA community was embittered to learn that the matter of servicemen missing from the Korean War was not on the U.S. agenda for those talks. It seemed an outrage to negotiate a treaty to end the Korean War and not even raise the fact that more than 8,000 American servicemen were missing without explanation. We went to work, meeting with State Department and Defense officials, as well as many members of Congress, arguing that the issue needed to be on the U.S. agenda. We wrote articles and fielded countless inquiries by family members and veterans who were incensed by the inexplicable omission.

 

     Imagine my surprise when I learned that those talks were not really peace treaty negotiations at all. Apparently, they were conceived as a mechanism that would bring the two Korea’s to the table to discuss current tensions. According to Mary Tighe, Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, once the leaders of North and South Korea began to develop their own dialogue, the talks faded into the background, their usefulness no longer apparent.

 

     Currently they lie dormant, and there is no U.S. policy in place on whether to revive them. The current U.S. priority is to support the North/South Korea dialogue.

 

     It would’ve been nice if, during the Clinton administration, someone had informed us along the way, instead of allowing us to waste our time and energy pursuing an issue that did not exist. It’s not as if the opportunity to do so did not present itself.

 

     Ms. Tighe further explained that, in terms of a bilateral dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea, President Bush issued a statement in early June laying out what he considers to be the main issues needing resolution. Accounting for missing servicemen was not among them. She explained that the POW/MIA issue is actually the one that we have seen the most progress on with North Korea. She referenced the ongoing remains recovery operations and Defense POW/Missing Personnel office’s (DPMO) regular discussions with their North Korean counterparts.

 

     I explained the ongoing concern of families and veterans that remains recovery is being allowed to suffice as progress on the issue. Important as it is, remains recovery is not the whole problem.  The North Koreans have refused to engage on the question of Americans still alive in North Korea. It seems fair to say they will not address that part of the issue until the U.S. requires them to, as part of a bilateral relationship. To date, they have refused to even appoint an official with whom the matter can be raised.

 

     I mentioned to Ms. Tighe a new report that surfaced in early July about American POWs from the Korean War being held in North Korea. (See Another North Korean Defector Tells of American POWs in Recent Captivity, elsewhere in this issue.) The report is attributed to a North Korean, Kim Yong, who was imprisoned in 1993 in the North Korean political prison system. Kim managed to escape in 1998 and made his way to South Korea in 1999. He spoke of the American POWs during a speech in February, 2000, most of which addressed the atrocities he witnessed during his imprisonment.

 

     Ms. Tighe did not know anything specific about Mr. Kim’s remarks, and said the NSC defers completely to DPMO when it comes to debriefing defectors and escapees from North Korea, and analyzing the credibility of their statements. Based on its own analysis of information, DPMO makes reports and recommendations to the policy centers of the U.S. government.

 

     We recognize the hard work and commitment many on the DPMO team have demonstrated in furtherance of the fullest possible accounting. However, analysis of information is, in many ways, a subjective process. On more than one occasion, we have been less than satisfied with analysis coming out of DPMO. We would like to see a more diverse cell of analysts reviewing and reporting the status of live sighting evidence. We would also like to develop a mechanism whereby family advocates are more involved in the analysis of live-sighting information.

 

Integration of China into the world community

   There has been no new information on any developments with China on the issue of missing Americans. The Bush Administration has not yet appointed a new Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for POW/MIA affairs, otherwise known as the head of DPMO. Although U.S. policy as to China will certainly come down from senior administration officials, implementation of that policy vis-avis POW/MIA issues will, in large part, be the responsibility of the new DASD.

 

      The POW/MIA issue should be an integral part of our overall China policy, as communicated by the President and his most senior advisors. Recitations of high-priority status are empty unless they are backed up by policies that produce results. The DPMO is in place to handle day-to-day affairs of the accounting mission, but China should hear from the lips of Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice that this administration means business when it sends in its mid-level bureaucrats to ask for information.

 

     We are getting disquieting signals that the Bush Administration plans to defer all POW/MIA matters to the DPMO, as though there is no need to first address the issue from the top as a matter of policy. If this issue is relegated to DPMO, without an outspoken commitment from the highest levels of the Bush Administration, we are certain that it will not be seen as a top priority by the foreign governments involved. They know all too well that the President and his most senior advisors speak out personally on matters of the highest importance. They take their cue from the way an issue is handled within the U.S. government.

 

     The Chinese have been approached time and again by the DPMO for information about men for whom there should have been an accounting, based on what is known about their circumstances of loss. There has been no cooperation. There is no reason to think that anything will change unless the Bush Administration makes it clear that the POW/MIA accounting will be an integral component of U.S. foreign policy.