January 2001
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
January 31, 2001 Punchbowl Exhumations
The military hopes to use DNA comparisons to account for missing U.S. personnel. A search to account for the missing in World War II and the Korean War continues today as military forensic experts exhume four graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl.
January 31, 2001 DPMO Weekly (sometimes) Update
Desert Storm Reports Clarified... Navy Changes Status of CMDR Michael Scott Speicher...NSA DeclassificatioN Reviw of SSC Records Completed... Key Documents on Personnel Recovery Signed... DPMO Family Update, Las Vegas, NV... DPMo Seeks Family Members
January 30, 2001 DOD News Release
Navy Changes Status of Michael Scott Speicher to MIA
January 30, 2001 Punchbowl To Be Excavated
Families ask Pentagon to reveal where "unknown" casualties buried
January 30, 2001 Personnel Recovery Conference
"Our service men and women, our allies and coalition partners must believe that if they become isolated, we will do everything in our power to ensure they return with honor."
January 29, 2001 After 6 Decades, Marine Laid To Rest
Cpl. Kenneth K. Kunkle of Mountain Home, who died in a raid on Makin Atoll in the South Pacific in August 1942, nine months after the United States entered World War II was finally laid to rest. Kunkle's body remained in an unmarked mass grave on the atoll until 1999, when military investigators found an islander who had helped bury the Marines and remembered the grave site.
January 28, 2001 POW-MIA Recovery Stats
First Hand Live Sighting Figures... Recovery Statistics
January 28, 2001 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces
Monthly Summary of News
January 27, 2001 NLF Update Line
Monthly Summary of News
January 26, 2001 NLF Updates
Summary of News and Notices
January 25, 2001 Claims of 'POW' Questioned
Another Wannabe POW
January 24, 2001 More Answers and More Questions on Wallenberg
Researcher says there is "zilch" to prove Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was shot by the Soviets as a spy in 1947, despite current claims of Russian officials. Requests to reconstitute an international commission to solve one of the 20th century's lasting mysteries - what happened to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg?
January 23, 2001 Rumsfeld Sworn In As SEC DEF
Donald H. Rumsfeld was sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense. This is Rummy's 2nd go-round as SECDEF... he was the 13th, 1975-1977, the nation's youngest.
January 22, 2001 Bush-Cheney Salute Armed Forces & POW-MIAs
On the eve of the inauguration, the vice president-elect saluted America's veterans at George Washington University Smith Center here. He told the veterans his years as defense secretary were the most rewarding of his public life.
January 21, 2001 NLF Update
Monthly News Summary
January 20, 2001 More Speicher
Data and Intel from Multiple Sources
January 19, 2001 Speicher
On this, the ten-year anniversary of Speicher's loss incident, news is that the USG is considering a status change for the missing Naval Aviator.
January 18, 2001 Peterson Staying in Vietnam
Former POW and 1st Ambassador to Vietnam, Peterson is staying on under new Adminsitration.
January 17, 2001 Leonard Woodcock Passes
The former UAW President, Ambassador to China and POW-MIA, Remains negotiator under Carter passed away at the age of 89.
January 17, 2001 Iraq Releases 1995 Search Details
In 1995, U.S. crash site specialists from the Defense Department, working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, entered Iraq with President Saddam Hussein's permission. The U.S and Red Cross team found the wreckage from Speicher's aircraft and reported there had been previous digging at the site. The team also found Speicher's flight suit near the site. A Pentagon report later said the flight suit apparently had been cut off the pilot.
January 16, 2001 Ex-POW Recalls Persian Gulf Experience
The mission - to rescue a downed pilot - was going very wrong. Enemy fire riddled the helicopter carrying flight surgeon Maj. Rhonda Cornum, and the aircraft was plunging to the Iraqi desert. Five of her fellow soldiers were killed and Cornum, seriously injured, became one of two American servicewomen taken prisoner during the Gulf War.
January 16, 2001 WWII Ex-POW Passes
James de Deane Yule, a World War II prisoner who operated a hidden radio and arranged music for other captives while the Nazis held them in a huge Saxon castle, has died at age 84.
January 15, 2001 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces
Summary of News
January 15, 2001 NLF News
Summary of News
January 15, 2001 NLF Update Line
Summary of News
January 15, 2001 Clinton Counsels Caution - Backpedals After Bombshell
The officials, who spoke on condition they not be identified, stressed Friday that they knew of no evidence that Speicher was still alive, although President Clinton said "we're going to do our best to find out if he is alive and, if he is, to get him out." Clinton said he did not want to raise false hope.
January 15, 2001 US-No Hard Evidence
President Clinton said on Friday he had no hard evidence that a fighter pilot shot down over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War was alive, but said the United States would do its best to find out.
January 15, 2001 Iraq Claims Speicher Dead
"The American authorities...have announced a new lie concerning an American pilot in order to create a new problem with Iraq," an Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "Iraq returned all American prisoners of war in March 1991. If there was such a pilot, as claimed by the American authorities, why did they not ask for his release at the time," the spokesman said in a statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency.
January 14, 2001 Reports Claim Speicher Survived
A U.S. Navy pilot initially presumed to have died in a shootdown over Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 was seen alive in Iraqi custody afterward, according to unconfirmed reports reaching intelligence officials in recent years.
January 14, 2001 Iraq Continues to Reject Claims
Iraq said Saturday there was no truth to reports that a missing U.S. Navy pilot might have survived after being shot down during the Gulf War, calling the idea a "silly lie."
January 14, 2001 Reports Say Pilot Survived
The U.S. intelligence informants whose sightings correlate with Speicher did not refer to him by name, the officials said. They described an American, and in more than one case referred to an American military pilot or U.S. Navy pilot. Other aspects of the physical descriptions seemed to fit Speicher, the officials said.
January 14, 2001 Iraq Releases Speicher Search Details
January 13, 2001 Iraq Rejects US Pilot's Survival
Iraq on Saturday dismissed as a "lie" fresh U.S. claims that a fighter pilot shot down over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War might still alive.
January 13, 2001 Speicher Remembered
The hometown of an American pilot shot down in the Gulf War still is filled with reminders of his life - and monuments of a death that is now in question.
January 13, 2001 Iraq Dismisses US Statements
"It is a new and cheap American lie," an Iraqi Ministry of Culture and Information spokesman said. "When the Iraqi Foreign Ministry reveals documents related to the subject, this lie will be an American scandal," the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency.
January 13, 2001 USRJC 17th Plenum Report Available
The 17th Plenum of the US-Russia Joint Commission (USRJC) is available. It is a 32 page summary report that features Opening Statements, Closing Statements, and a summary of the WW II Working Group, the Vietnam War Working Group, the Korean War Workign Group and the Cold War Working Group.
January 12, 2001 Clinton: US Pilot May Be Alive
President Clinton said Thursday the United States has new information about a Navy fighter pilot shot down over Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War that indicates he survived the crash "and that he might be alive."
January 12, 2001 US & Chinese Vets & POWs Meet
U.S. and Chinese veterans shared their Korean War experiences Thursday in the first of exchanges that Washington hopes will lead to information on the whereabouts of missing Americans.
January 11, 2001 DOD News Release on Speicher
Based on the review, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig has concluded that Speicher's status should be "Missing in Action."
January 11, 2001 New Cold War Site
Son Of A Navy Man, by Charles M. Beasley, is his account of his father's Cold War disappearance and the years of struggle that followed.
January 10, 2001 CHANGE OF STATUS FOR SPEICHER
Navy Secretary Richard Danzig notified the Speicher family of the decision Wednesday, according to officials in the office of Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., who has long challenged the Pentagon's official ``finding of death'' for Speicher. The officials discussed the matter on condition they not be identified. Pentagon officials confirmed the information.
January 10, 2001 Navy Changes Speicher Status to MIA
In an unusual move, the Navy has changed the status of a Gulf War pilot from killed in action to missing in action. Now the State Department is demanding more information on the pilot's crash from the Iraqi government.
January 09, 2001 US Korean War Vets Go To China
At China's invitation, six U.S. veterans of the Korean War are flying to Beijing to discuss their experiences with Chinese veterans - an unprecedented encounter that Pentagon officials hope will lead eventually to new information about the fate of Americans still missing from the war.
January 08, 2001 Vietnamese Families Desperate For Answers
300,000 Vietnamese remain missing from the war. Desparate for answers, families seek out psychics and metaphysics.
January 06, 2001 POW-MIA Freedom Radio Schedule
Special show... tune in
January 05, 2001 Bill Gardner Passes
Bill Gardenr, from the National Archives, passed away. Bill worked tirelessly to declassify POW-MIA materials. He was regular at family meetings and a wonderful man who will be sorely missed.
January 04, 2001 Raoul Wallenberg Alive in '89?
Wallenberg, hailed as one of neutral Sweden's greatest World War Two heroes after helping to save thousands of Jews from Nazi death camps by issuing them with Swedish passports, was last seen in Hungary in 1945 when he and his driver Vilmos Langfelder were arrested by Soviet troops.
January 03, 2001 Raoul Wallenberg
A Swedish and Russian expert group that has been investigating the case of the disappeared Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg has found that there were invites from the Soviet Union to exchange Wallenberg for Russians in Sweden.
January 02, 2001 War Crimes Treaty
Acting on a last-minute decision by President Clinton, the United States on Sunday signed a treaty creating the world's first permanent international war crimes tribunal to bring to justice people accused of crimes against humanity. The Senate must ratify.
January 01, 2001 A Happy & Healthy New Year!
POW-MIA Issue Update February 2001