News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: DPMO Update - September 10th

Date: September 19, 1998

Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update

USAF COLD WARRIORS ACCOUNTED FOR, BURIED AT ARLINGTON

The remains of 17 U.S. Air Force airmen shot down during the Cold War have been identified as a group and were buried in Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1998.

The airmen were crewmembers aboard a C-130 Hercules aircraft on Sept. 2, 1958 when it was shot down by MiGs over Soviet Armenia. The C-130 was flying a reconnaissance mission near the Armenian border when it strayed into Soviet territory. The aircraft crashed and burned with 17 crewmen on board.

In 1958 the Soviet Union returned the partial remains of 6 of the 17 crewmen. Later that year the U.S. Air Force and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology identified three of the six remains and the remaining 14 crewmen were listed as unaccounted-for. Identifications were made in 1996 and 1997 for the three remains unidentified from those repatriated in 1958.

A subsequent review of the case by the Air Force concluded that no crewmen had been able to escape from the aircraft.

A recovery team from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii excavated the crash site in 1993. The team recovered more than 2,000 bone and tooth fragments, life support equipment, personal effects and aircraft wreckage.

Given the incomplete nature of the remains recovered from the crash site and those of the six men previously identified, a group remains identification was made for the entire crew. A group remains identification is possible because the remains recovered represent all of the manifested crew. The remains will be interred as a group at Arlington.

Identified in 1958: Capt. Rudy J. Swiestra of Compton, Calif.; Capt. Edward J. Jeruss of New Haven, Conn.; 1st Lt. Ricardo M. Villarreal of Laredo, Texas

Identified in 1996: Airman 2nd Class Archie T. Bourg Jr. of Lake Charles, La.

Identified in 1997: Capt. John E. Simpson of Richland, Wash. and Airman 2nd Class Gerald H. Medeiros of New Bedford, Mass.

Identified as a group in 1998: Capt. Paul E. Duncan of Richland, Wash.; MSgt. George P. Petrochilos of Levittown, Pa.; Tech. Sgt. Arthur L. Mello of Erie, Pa.; Staff Sgt. LaRoy Price of Hodgenville, Ky.; Airman 1st Class Robert J. Oshinskie of Shamokin, Pa.; Airman 2nd Class James E. Ferguson Jr. of Kingsford Heights, Ind.; Airman 2nd Class Harold T. Kamps of Lena, Wis.; Airman 2nd Class Clement O. Mankins of Point Marion, Pa.; Airman 2nd Class Robert H. Moore of West Monroe, La.; and Airman 2nd Class Joel H. Fields of Cynthiana, Ky. Out of respect for his family's privacy, one serviceman's name is not being released.

With the group identification of these 17 men, 18 Americans have been identified from Cold War losses, and 123 are still unaccounted-for.

BOGUS POWS SURFACE AGAIN

As the nation prepares to observe National POW/MIA Recognition Day on September 18, reports of phony POWs plague veterans groups and community planners.

Military units, civic leaders, even veterans groups have reported what appears to be an increase of men misrepresenting wartime service and time spent as a POW. In many cases, the "wannabes" were never in the military or were never held as POWs in any conflict.

The men often seek recognition from the community by speaking to civic observances, or recounting their "POW experiences" to local media outlets. Some have even claimed POW time in order to qualify for state benefits.

Official records of Americans held captive by enemy forces are maintained at the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office. A quick review of these public records often exposes the fraud.

Veterans groups, including the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association, maintain a running list on the Internet of names often used by the impostors.

POW/MIA POSTERS AVAILABLE FOR FAMILIES

Each year, the Department of Veterans Affairs produces a color poster commemorating National POW/MIA Recognition Day. As in previous years, the event will be observed on the third Friday in September, the 18th.

A number of the posters will be set aside for family members of those Americans still unaccounted-for. These are the same posters which are displayed by government offices and military units in observance of the commitment to those still missing. The posters will be mailed by DPMO on written request of the families. The DPMO address is found at the end of this newsletter.

FAMILY UPDATE HELD IN DENVER

Each month, a team of government specialists travels to communities to update POW/MIA families on the ongoing work to account for America's MIAs. On Saturday, August 29, the team met with about 50 family members representing equally Korean War and Southeast Asia losses.

For the past three years this team, led by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, has reached hundreds of family members with information on government operations in Southeast Asia, in North Korea and in areas recovering World War II and Cold War losses.

Experts present to the families information on the latest technologies used to identify remains, including mitochondrial DNA. Archival research and other topics are also presented to the families. At the end of the all-day sessions, families are invited to privately review details of their own cases. This initiative is to assist families who are unable to travel to Washington, D.C. to review their individual case files.

Cities visited in recent months include Atlanta, Portland, Pensacola, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Detroit and others. Memphis is scheduled for September 26. Family members of unaccounted-for servicemembers from all conflicts within a 300-mile radius of the host cities may register for these events by contacting their respective military service casualty offices.

POW/MIA DOCUMENT DECLASSIFIED AND RELEASED

A key document used by the Department of Defense in its POW/MIA accounting effort has recently been declassified.

The Key Judgments of National Intelligence Estimate 98-03, Vietnamese Intentions, Capabilities and Performance Concerning the POW/MIA Issue, discussed VietnamÕs cooperation with the U.S. government on the POW/MIA issue. It was published in classified form in April by the National Intelligence Council, a senior staff serving the director of central intelligence, policymakers and senior military officials.

Mr. Robert L. Jones, deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, requested that Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet declassify the NIE so it could be shared with family members, veterans and family organizations. The declassification of the Key Judgments NIE 98-03 will enhance the publicÕs understanding of U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on this important issue.

A copy of the declassified document is attached.

ATTACHMENT

Vietnamese Intentions, Capabilities, and Performance Concerning the POW/MIA Issue

Key Judgments

Since the early 1990s, we have seen evidence for increased Vietnamese cooperation on the POW/MIA issue in the strengthened staffing, increased responsiveness, and growing professionalization of the Vietnamese organizations that deal with this issue.

In our view, Hanoi judges that closer ties to the United States are in VietnamÕ s own security and economic development interests, and that normalization requires progress on the POW/MIA issue.US financial support for cooperative action and willingness to agree to reciprocity on Vietnamese humanitarian concerns also encourage cooperation.

Consequently, we judge that Vietnam has become more helpful in assisting US efforts to achieve the fullest possible accounting of American personnel missing in action during the Vietnam conflict. On the issue of recovering and repatriating remains of US personnel, we rate Vietnamese cooperation as excellent. Cooperation also has been good on assisting with trilateral investigations and providing documents (see table).

We think the decision to be more cooperative with the United States on POW/MIA accounting has not come easily to the Vietnamese leaders. Longstanding ideological distrust, lingering animosity from the war, suspicion of American motives and fear of intelligence exploitation all have operated at times to limit Vietnam's willingness to cooperate on recovering or accounting for US MIAs. But our reporting suggests that the POW/MIA issue no longer has the political sensitivity it once had.

Incidents of outright refusal to cooperate with US investigators have decreased, but instances in which the Vietnamese raise objections to POW, MIA activities still remain. In most cases, the Vietnamese cite considerations of sovereigntyÑfor example, in refusing to make internal Politburo documents accessible to US investigators; security, such as not allowing US officials to enter classified locations and facilities; or technical problems, such as difficulty in locating documents or records. Occasionally the Vietnamese state that local villagers are concerned about the intrusive nature of investigations and recovery activities.

Moreover, although Vietnam's performance generally has improved with respect to the US POW/MIA issue, we think Hanoi has not been completely forthcoming on certain POW/MIA matters:In some instances, we believe full disclosure would prove embarrassing to the regime. For example, Hanoi continues to deny that US POWs were mistreated while in captivity in the North.We think Vietnam still has records it could make available to US investigators but which would discredit its denials of mistreatment.A few reports of transfers of US POWs to Russia and other countries are unexplained, and the books remain open.

Although 120 live-sighting investigations have been carried out by US teams, none has generated any credible evidence of American POWs left in Vietnam. Hanoi protests having to investigate such cases, but reports appear regularly - most recently on five POWs possibly being held in Laos - and established procedures for resolving them continue to be in effect.

Although Vietnam's overall performance in dealing with the POW/MIA problem has been good in recent years, the unresolved issues noted above suggest the need for continued close attention by the US Government.

We assess continued progress in POW/MIA accounting will require overcoming two types of obstacles: Technical problems, such as difficulty in retrieving archival materials, contacting leads, and conducting field activities by the Joint Task Force-Pull Accounting (JTF-FA), are more amenable to resolution than political obstacles. Not all can be overcome - the passage of time and geographic change increase the difficulty of recovery operations - but some can be resolved through improving technology, maintaining US financial support, and continued professionalization on the part of the Vietnamese. Overcoming political obstacles - such as Vietnam's sensitivities about infringements on its sovereignty and obstructionist tendencies on archival research and live-sighting reports - will be more difficult. In the past, Vietnam has reacted best to straightforwardness combined with respect and US acknowledgment of Hanoi's own MIA accounting efforts.

We have reviewed the so-called 1205 and 735 documents, which purports falsely in our view to be reports to the party leadership containing statements that Hanoi held large numbers of US POWs above those acknowledged to the United States. We believe the judgments in the 1993 Department of Defense (DOD) assessment remain valid: that the documents are probably authentic GRU-collected documents (Soviet Military Intelligence). But many of the details of the documents, including dates and other facts, are implausible or inconsistent with reliable evidence. In particular, the numbers of POWs allegedly held by Hanoi at the times mentioned are inconsistent with reliable US Government statistics and far outnumber the actual total of open cases. We believe that neither document provides a factual foundation upon which to judge Vietnamese performance on the POW/MIA question.