Chip Beck (USN Retired), did two tours in Vietnam with Special Forces. He is a former POW Special Investigator with the U.S. Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, and a retired CIA Clandestine Service officer. Commander Beck's experience gives him insights into the programs, operations, and modus operandi of the Soviet KGB and its communist allies. He recently published comments about the distinction between POWs and MIAs, an important issue in the full accounting effort. Below are excerpts from Commander Beck's recent remarks.
"I have been trying to educate POW and MIA families, politicians, and concerned veterans about the difference between combatants who were killed in battle (MIAs), versus those who were captured alive, secretly held without full knowledge of the U.S., and not returned to America after the conflicts ended. If an adversary nation holds an American serviceman as a prisoner, then that man is a "Prisoner of War" or POW, whether we know his true status or not. He is not technically or literally an MIA, because the "other side" knows he is not missing. Even if that POW dies in captivity, and thus can be accounted for by the enemy, he does not then become an MIA. He becomes a dead POW. The enemy government can account for him. 9000 Unrepatriated American POWs from 20th Century conflicts fall into that category.
The POW versus MIA status is a critical distinction. Equal and dedicated special attention must be given to a competent, professional investigation leading to a full accounting of our Un-repatriated POWs, just as was done for remains recovery efforts for MIAs who fell on the battlefield, not as prisoners, but as combat casualties. The difference as to why the POWs have been ignored, and the MIAs attended to, is that our foreign adversaries have been offered financial incentives to help U.S. teams dig up the remains of service personnel killed in combat. President Clinton's announced trip to Vietnam, after the election, is part of the economic payoff involved for this "half" of the accounting equation. This has not been a full accounting under Clinton-Gore. It is a "half-accounting" at best.
The other side of the coin, the POW side, is far more embarrassing to the governments and intelligence services of Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and even former Warsaw Pact countries. Nearly all of them, to one extent or another, were involved in secret exploitation of American and other foreign POWs. There are still plans on the books of the Russian and Chinese services to resurface these programs, which the Bolsheviks first used against American troops in 1918, in future wars against NATO or the U.S.
What happened to past Un-repatriated POWs is a matter of national honor. It is a source of concern for the welfare of our future combatants."