"Editorial by
Chip Beck
The Real Washington
In the AP story (U.S., North Korea Hold Talks, by George Gedda), Defense MIA Office (DMO)* spokesperson Larry Greer was dispatched to inform concerned family members and the public (via the press mechanism) that "U.S. officials intend to press the North Koreans for permission to interview four American Army veterans who deserted their units in South Korea in the 1960s and are believed to be living in North Korea."
The article went on to say "U.S. officials want to determine whether the four have information about any other Americans from the Korean War era who may be living there. North Korea has rebuffed past U.S. efforts to gain access to the four former soldiers."
It should be well-noted that these defectors are from the Vietnam Era, and that their status in the eyes of the North Koreans -- operationally, legally, and chronologically -- is quite different from that of Unrepatriated POWs from the Korean War Era.
As an investigator, I would welcome the competent debriefing of any Americans in North Korea, which automatically disqualifies many of the untrained personnel in DMO from participating. However, both the wording of the DMO statement and the consistent reaction of the North Koreans indicate that the chances are slim to none of making a breakthrough on the Unrepatriated POWs through the defector channel.
From an intelligence operation standpoint, it's a bit like trying to breed cats with dogs. The two don't mix and you don't achieve results. The North Koreans understand this, but DMO does not.
First of all, what DMO either fails to understand, or chooses or ignore for its own PR purposes, is the standard intelligence compartmentation and physical separation that accompanies the use of different categories of "enemy personnel." It's very doubtful that the paranoid operatives of the North Korean Intelligence Service would have ever considered tossing four defectors in the same location as secretly-held POWs.
So, if the four defectors from the 1960s are allowed to be debriefed (and thus far the North Koreans are refusing access), it is highly unlikely that they ever saw, met, or were provided information on the large number of American POWs who were dispatched to the USSR and, to a lesser extent China, in the 1950-1953 time frame.
After a protracted period of time, the North Koreans may or may not "allow" access to the American defectors. A decision will be handed down only after Pyongyang has carefully reviewed the operational benefits and drawbacks to such a meeting. In the unlikely chance that any of the American defectors does have information, insights, or opinions on Korea War Era POWs, then access by U.S. officials will not be permitted, or if it is, it will be under strictly controlled conditions, and be preceded by careful coaching of the defectors by the North Koreans.
Operationally, the North Korean Intelligence Service, which would have undertaken initial control of the U.S. defectors, would have isolated these newcomers from both the "Turncoats" of the Korean War, and any unrepatriated POWs who might have still been in Korea. More likely, as has been repeatedly indicated over the years, by the time the 1960s defectors entered North Korea, the vast majority of Unrepatriated American POWs, if not all of them, had long been transferred to the USSR or Third Countries.
With the strict controls that are in effect in North Korean society, not to mention the additional intelligence checks that are imposed on defectors and foreigners in general, it would be surprising if these defectors knew anything at all about the policies, practices, means and methods that the North Koreans practiced on other "assets" during different historical times.
Keeping defectors and POWs separate is standard "OPSEC," or "operational security," and it is practiced by all intelligence services. Expecting the four defectors in Korea to have information would be like expecting Soviet defectors to the US to be given access to U.S. Submarine Warfare secrets against Russia. "It ain't gonna happen."
Now, being the clever propagandists that the North Koreans are, it could serve the North Koreans, as well as certain "blind bureaucrats" in DMO, to have the defectors assert their ignorance of any "live POWs." In such a scenario, Pyongyang could thus say they "cooperated" and the defectors supported their longstanding contention. In return, DMO could feign "progress" on pursuing "live sightings" or other off-the-mark categories, and proclaim, as it always has, that "there is no proof of live Americans living in North Korea."
The key to the problem isn't necessarily whether there are still any living American POWs in North Korea itself. The question has always been, were ther e any men held back, period, and for how long. Besides, from the way the Soviets, Chinese, Bloc countries and North Koreans structured the covert POW operation, the POWs were not supposed to remain in North Korea after the war anyway, unless they agreed to defect and renounce their U.S. citizenship. Most of the POWs had been transferred to Siberia, China, or Moscow by way of Prague and East Germany before the war ended.
At the same period in history, by the way, about five thousand French Foreign Legionnaires (consisting of Poles, Russians, Germans, and Eastern Europeans who had joined the Legion to escape both postwar Germany and the Soviets) were being transferred back to their communist-dominated governments in a Moscow-Viet Minh combined operation. Most of these Foreign Legionnaires died in gulags or were executed outright.
The pertinent issue that should be investigated, and exposed, is the North Korean covert operation, mandated and supported by Moscow, to exploit American and UN POWs and to transport them from North Korea to Siberia, Moscow, and other points in the communist realm.
Nowhere in the DMO press releases of the past three years, or the past 40 years for that matter, have the American families or the public read a statement that said "U.S. officials have demanded the North Koreans account for the U.S. POWs that it knows were transferred to the Soviet Union and China. Washington demands an end to the lies and insists on an explanation of the operation that exploited those POWs during the Cold War."
Wouldn't that be refreshing. Not to mention courageous and honorable. But, diplomatic? Of course not. Expedient? Certainly not.
Only by focusing pressure on the real, fundamental issue, which is the "deception operation" that took place under the command and control of the Soviet intelligence apparatus, will any real answers ever be obtained. Chatting with four, possibly naive deserters, would serve a propaganda agenda.
Diddling with four enlisted defectors of a different era, is only a smoke screen employed by bureaucrats in both camps.
*In keeping with DPMO's practice of eliminating "POWs" from its daily agenda, the author has eliminated that aspect from its bureaucratic title to reflect their true priorities, hence "DMO"."