News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Bob Necci & Carol Hrdlicka, Andi Wolos
(POW-MIA FaxNetwork)

Re: AUGUST MOON for America's POWs

Date: August 17, 1997

From Chip Beck -

AUGUST MOON for America's POWs
Op-Ed by Chip Beck
The Real Washington

WASHINGTON (16Aug97): With the exception of one person in the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) who was in diapers, most of us were in, or reach adulthood in the 1960s Vietnam era. You might remember the expression, "Smile, you've just been mooned."

The families of Unrepatriated American POWs, the POWs themselves, and all truly patriotic Americans were just mooned by DPMO's star chamber of bureaucrats.

On Friday, August 15, while Congress was in recess, retired Air Force general James Wold announced he is stepping down as Director of DPMO and going home with his increased retirement annuity. This would not be particularly unwelcome news if it were not for the intentional and outrageous mess he leaves in his wake.

Wold's claims that "everything" he did while in office was "open and above-board." Not so. Like so many other activities hidden from not only the public, but within DPMO, he permitted selected underlings in the Front Office to covertly reorganize DPMO into a structure that further institutionalizes a lie. For the past six months, Wold's select inner circle engaged in one of the most closed-door bureaucratic schemes the POW families have faced in years.

The trouble is, the families are not supposed to know the real intentions, nor the gravity of the reorganization. Billed as a "happy-go-lucky-increase-efficiency-and-service exercise," the plot effectively eliminated the one remaining pocket of integrity within the DPMO structure.

Or so they hope.

As of Monday, August 18, the Joint Commission Support Directorate (JCSD) will cease to exist. These are the folks that many of you remember as "Task Force Russia," but they are more than that. While they grew out of TFR, they are the Russian linguists and specialists who support the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs and comprise the American side of interview and investigation unit that operates out of Moscow.

While the Joint Commission is faced with tremendous dishonesty from the Russian side, there are elements within DPMO that are a mirror image of the Russian perfidy. Only the JCSD element acts as a buffer of integrity for the families against the twin pillars of bureaucratic deceit.

Under Director Norman Kass, the JCSD was the only unit inside DPMO to not only believe that the communist bloc is not telling the truth (much less the whole truth) about Unrepatriated POWs, but was committed to finding genuine answers to the questions the League, National Alliance, former POWs, and Congress expects DPMO to investigate.

This is more than office politics. It is an intentional "quiet coup" to continue the fraudulent line of policy statements that have been associated with the chain of POW offices stretching from JCRC to DPMO.

Every time honest or courageous officers in the POW office discover the treachery, and speak out against it, or seek to work within the system to nevertheless find the truth, a small cabal finds ways to force them out or eliminate their jobs.

Those who make a career of not only avoiding questions about the POWs, but who also prevent those who seek the answers, are -- guess what? Rewarded.

Wold did not direct this reorganization, but he fell in line fully. His cheerful note to DPMO employees was that "no one lost their job in this downsizing." What he failed to mention was that specific jobs were gutted. The "shells" that remain were the ones that the families care most about. Several new positions, and a "super-Directorate were established, all of which fed careers and personal gains of those in this secret loop.

There is nothing in this for the families or the country.

You will be told just the opposite, in the continuing saga of family liaison meetings around the country -- as long as they hold them, and that may not be for much longer.

In the reorganization, the men who masterminded the administrative plot fully rewarded themselves with positions, power, and promotions. Those who served the families were left out in the cold.

Where does that leave the families? Smile.

Wold told his employees (whose only participation in the reorganization was to be used as pawns in a fraudulent and unverified "poll" ) that he had "briefed" the reorganization "up the chain of command." However, in eliminating JCSD, he and his cabal did not seek the input, advice, or views of the JCSD Director or the Commission as a whole or part. They also ignored requests by Senator Smith and Congressmen Johnson to delay any implementation of the changes until Congress could get back from its break and weigh in.

With JCSD and its experts being taken away from the senior expert on Russian matters, i.e. Norm Kass, DPMO bureaucrats accomplish several agenda goals for themselves.

-They eliminate yet another honest man from a position of influence.

-They can control and manipulate the direction in which the dispersed subordinates of JCSD are funneled. That direction will conform with the POW efforts being undertaken in Vietnam and Korea. In other words, "MIAs" will remain the topic of conversation. "POW" will be further removed from the lexicon. (This process began when the bureaucrats talked about all the "help" the Vietnamese were providing about "MIAs." It continued when Ambassador Peterson dropped the term "POW" from his public and private discussions. It reaches a new stage as the "New and Unimproved" DPMO (DMO?) provides $60 million dollars to the North Koreans for 4-5 sets of remains, while setting aside the POW issue until the temperature in Hades reaches a cool 30 degrees F.)

-The American side of the Joint Commission will be marginalized. The Russian side of the Joint Commission will use the opportunity to fade from the radar scope except when Commission members, which will now include the Deputy DPMO Director, want to give the appearance of progress and enhance their career portfolio with a high profile, unproductive trip.

-Eventually it is hoped by DPMO's Deputy and the Strategic Planner that the Joint Commission will "go away." The Deputy has already invented a "recollection" of a "sunset clause" which he claims means the Joint Commission must go out of business.

Without Congressman Robert Dornan as head of the POW Oversight body (Subcommittee on Military Personnel), there has been no effective "conscience" or "policeman" to insure that the POW mission is kept honest. Senator Smith and Congressman Johnson, as legislators and Commission members, need to mobilize more support, and more effective support, in Congress. Congressman Johnson has suggested a new full-blown Congressional Inquiry is needed to investigate what is going on within DPMO. This is essential.

It was obvious during my tenure, that what DPMO feared most was a competent look at its operations from without. It also fears a platform where those from within who care, can speak about the treachery that has gone on too long. That is why the very people responsible for this "reorganization" held a front office party to celebrate the dubious defeat of Congressman Dornan. It was only because Dornan, who was responsible in large part for getting the funding and slots for DPMO, insisted on having them do their jobs, that he was so feared and threatening to them.

It is time for letters, phone calls, e-mails and faxes, to be sent to your Senators, Congressmen, and other contacts. It's time to generate a grass roots ground-swell not only to save JCSD, but to remove from DPMO those elements who seek to serve themselves and not their country.