October 1999

Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork

OCT 99: 2,047 Americans remain 'offically' unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: ARMY: 645 (VN-10, VS-490; LA-110; CB-35); NAVY: 415 (VN-284, VS-92; LA-28; CB-3; CH/OW-8); USMC: 263 (VN-24, VS-203; LA-22; CB-14); USAF: 684 (VN-234; VS-165; LA-268; CB-17); and COAST GUARD: 1 (VS-1). 39 civilians remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: VS-22, LA-12, and CB-5. 536 Americans have been accounted-for post 1973: VN-396, LA-131, CB-7, and CH-2. 167 Americans have been accounted-for during the present administration: VN-95, LA-66, and CB-6. Persian Gulf War - unsatisfactory accounting. Korean War - 8,139 remain unaccounted-for, 42 possible remains returned, 4 identifications. World War II - Over 78,000 remain unaccounted-for.

02 OCT 99: A Department of Defense delegation has concluded its second visit to China to seek additional cooperation in resolving Korean War POW and MIA cases. Robert L. Jones, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, led a four man team to China last week to continue discussions there on U.S. servicemen missing in action from the Korean War. Jones had earlier presented 44 case inquiries to the Chinese. He requested specific information relating to Americans missing from four areas: Korean War POW camps; ground battles (Chosin Reservoir, Chongchon River, Demilitarized Zone); air losses; and POW names appearing in Chinese publications during the war.

05 OCT 99: Iran and Iraq are to discuss the possibility of setting free thousands of Iraqi prisoners still detained in Iran from the two countries' 1980-1988 war, an Iraqi weekly newspaper said on Tuesday. "Iraq received an invitation from the Iranian side to visit Tehran in November to finalize discussions on some 11,000 Iraqi prisoners registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)." Iran set free some 276 Iraqi prisoners of war, saying the release was timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

06 OCT 99: Harvard University has acquired "an extensive collection of previously classified documents from the Communist Party archives in the former Soviet Union. The 25 million sheets of material include the archives of the Gulag, the system of Soviet forced labor camps; documents from the organization responsible for internal purges of the Communist Party; the archives of the Soviet police; and a variety of records detailing deliberations within Communist leadership between 1903 through the Gorbachev period of the 1980s."

08 OCT 99: The Department of Defense announced today that tentative agreements have been reached between DoD officials and the North Korean government to resume the search for and transfer of remains of Americans missing in action from the Korean War. Delegations from both countries will meet in mid-October to work out details. Operations to recover American remains from North Korea began in 1996, but were halted in June of this year in a dispute over the method of repatriating the remains. Robert L. Jones, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel, will lead a delegation to Pyongyang in late October to accept the remains of what is believed to be four American soldiers. Since recovery operations began in July 1996, the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii has recovered 39 sets of remains, of which three have been positively identified.

10 OCT 99: AIRMEN Magazine: In 1973, it was the first aircraft to carry American POWs out of Hanoi. AC-141, it still flies today, supporting operations in Kosovo and around the world. But to many former POWs, Tail No. 660177 represents A SORT OF HOMECOMING. The passenger manifest shows a flight from Gia Lam Airport in Hanoi to Clark Air Base, Philippines ”ÛÓ March 4, 1973. The aircraft was a C-141 bearing tail No. 660177. Twenty-six years ago aircraft No. 660177 was one of 16 Air Force C-141s that carried American POWs home during Operation Homecoming.

This aircraft, nicknamed "One-Seven-Seven," has even greater significance to POWs. It flew the first Homecoming mission, carrying 40 men out of Hanoi on Feb. 12, 1973. Today, it's often called the "Hanoi Taxi" and travels the world not only as an operational airlifter, but as a monument to brave men and their families.

12 OCT 99: His Excellency Roland Eng, Cambodian Ambassador to the United States, visited Mr. Bob Jones shortly after the ambassador's posting to his new position in Washington. Ambassador Eng has served as Cambodia's ambassador to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Jones highlighted for the ambassador the role of DPMO in the mission of the fullest possible accounting of missing Americans. He reviewed with the ambassador the successes achieved recently in access to documents, both French language and Cambodian documents from the Khmer Rouge era. Jones reiterated that accounting for our missing is of the highest national priority here in the U.S. The ambassador pledged his continued support and his intent to maintain an open dialogue on this issue. This included the Cambodian Prime Minister's support for a trilateral conference to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of recovery operations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Mr. Jones expressed appreciation for the Cambodian efforts during recovery operations for the Mayaguez incident. The next joint field activity for Cambodia is scheduled for January.

13 OCT 99: North Korean atrocities made headlines and outraged much of the world during the 1950-53 Korean War. Some of the first reports, in July 1950, told of captured U.S. soldiers bound and summarily executed by North Korean troops near the battle lines in southeast Korea. A U.S. Army war crimes report later estimated the Taejon dead at 5,000 to 7,500, including businessmen, police and other government employees, and 42 American prisoners of war. Many had been severely beaten and mutilated, it said. The U.S. Army, in November 1951, cited U.N. figures saying 25,575 South Korean civilians were killed during the communist occupation of South Korea. But the South Korean government later put that toll at 129,000. As for prisoners of war, the Pentagon eventually calculated that almost 8,000 U.S. military personnel were killed or otherwise died while in the hands of the North Koreans or their Chinese allies. Prisoners were "beaten, wounded, starved and tortured ... and-or forced to march long distances without benefit of adequate food, water, shelter, clothing or medical care," a U.S. Senate investigative subcommittee said in 1954. It condemned North Korean actions as "heinous and barbaric." Treatment of prisoners was generally conceded to have improved, however, as the war went on.

14 OCT 99: The last of three databases listing information on MIAs is expected to appear on the DPMO web site in the near future. This database will include the names and other information on Cold War MIAs shot down in the 1950s and 1960s. There are 124 servicemen still listed as MIA from that conflict. Another 18 have been accounted for through the work of the U. S. Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, DPMO analysts and the Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii. Internet visitors to the web site will find several choices in searching for Cold War information. Names of the MIAs may be found in an alphabetical listing, as well as a listing by state, and a listing according to the date of loss. Other details, such as the type of aircraft, may also be found. The Cold War database joins MIA databases from the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Internet address for the DPMO web site is http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo. Readers may then click on any of the databases once they reach the DPMO home page.

15 OCT 99: The Department of Defense announced today that agreements have been reached with representatives of the North Korean government to transfer remains of what are believed to be four American soldiers missing since the Korean War. Delegations from the United States and North Korea met in New York City this past week to work out details for the immediate repatriation of the remains which had been located in recovery operations earlier this year. These talks included a representative from the United Nations' Command. Robert L. Jones, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel, will lead a delegation to Pyongyang on Oct. 25 to accept the remains. He will be accompanied by a repatriation team from U.S. Forces Korea. From North Korea, the team will travel to Yokota Air Base, Japan, and Honolulu, Hawaii, where the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory will seek to positively identify the remains. These agreements signify an end to the stalemate that had hampered recovery operations since June of this year. 16 OCT

99: U.S. President Bill Clinton is likely to visit former enemy Vietnam next year, a senior U.S. official said. U.S. ambassador to Hanoi Pete Peterson said Clinton might make the trip - and be the first U.S. president to set foot on Vietnamese soil in decades - during the middle or end of 2000. Vietnam Prime Minister Phan Van Khai had formally invited Clinton to visit at last month's summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in New Zealand, he said. "Prime Minister Khai did invite the president... and the president has announced he wants to visit. He has expressed an interest to visit from the first day I came here," Peterson told Reuters in an interview.

Washington and Hanoi normalized diplomatic ties in 1995, two decades after the end of the Vietnam War, which pitted the communist North against the U.S.-backed South Vietnam. Peterson, a former navy pilot who spent more than six years locked up in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison after his plane was shot down during the war, took up his post in mid-1997. In recent years Washington and Hanoi have also edged closer to normalizing trade ties, although formal signing of a landmark bilateral trade pact has been delayed amid internal debate within Vietnam's leadership over the accord. Peterson said it would be good to have the trade agreement in place before Clinton's trip, but this would not influence his decision to visit.

17 OCT 99: When Zachary Baumel found out he was headed for war, the Israeli sergeant dropped his parents a postcard asking them to send him more toothpaste. That was 17 years ago and the last his parents heard from him. Baumel, who is U.S.-born, and two other Israeli soldiers disappeared in a fierce tank battle with a Syrian-backed Palestinian militia group in the Lebanese village of Sultan Ya'akub during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Baumel and his two comrades have not been heard from since though Baumel's parents now have part of his dog tag. No one is certain they are still alive and, if they are, diplomatic efforts to secure their release have been unsuccessful. The Israeli army lists the soldiers as missing in action (MIA) and refuses to describe efforts to locate them. Now the parents of the MIAs are hoping that the prospect of fresh peace talks between Israel and Syria, halted early in 1996, will solve the mystery of what happened to their sons. In June, the U.S. House of Representatives directed the State Department to investigate the cases of the three soldiers.

18 OCT 99: Documents on Korean War MIAs to be released. The McCain Bill, as amended, seeks to make available for public review all documents related to the government's work on POW/MIA accounting. Exceptions may be made when family members do not wish documents on the treatment, location or condition of their loved one released to the public. The bill requires that every effort be made to afford family members the opportunity to decide if their information may be viewed by the public. The military service casualty offices have been pursuing an aggressive outreach program for the past several years to reach Korean War families. When located, those families are asked to indicate their desires on the release of information on the treatment, location or condition of their loved one. That outreach effort will continue, but given the several years' search thus far, it was determined that a reasonable effort had been made. Documents related to servicemen whose families could not be located will be placed in the National Archives, without redaction, where researchers may review them. If a family has been located but has not indicated its choice, their information will not be released.

19 OCT 99: A Moroccan newspaper broke a taboo on Monday by urging the government to work for the release of 2,000 Moroccan prisoners held by the Algerian-backed Polisario front since 1978.

"For more than 20 years, some 2,000 Moroccan army personnel have been suffering in the Algerian jails of the Polisario...These prisoners who were drafted to the army to defend the country are now old, ill and demoralized," the newspaper said. In a front page article, entitled: "Tindouf: the forgotten POWs," Le Journal deplored what it said was the silence on the fate of "these brave warriors." "Morocco must do all it can...to repatriate these men. It is a duty and an obligation," it said. According to the U.N. peace plan, the exchange of prisoners should take place following the referendum.

20 OCT 99: A team of 43 mostly Hawaii-based U.S. Military specialists have departed to Laos with hopes of recovering remains that may lead to the identification of American servicemen listed as missing in action from the war in Southeast Asia. On Tuesday military and civilian members from Joint Task Force-Full Accounting at Camp Smith and the U.S. Army's Central Identification Lab at Hickam Air Force Base will join technical representatives from the Lao Democratic People's Republic to begin joint investigations and remains recovery operations in three Lao provinces. The U.S. team is comprised of 23 Army, six Air Force, four Marine Corps, seven Navy, and three Department of Defense civilian anthropologists. Twenty-six cases will be investigated and two primary sites, with five alternates, will be excavated during the 30-day operation. Of the 2,047 Americans still unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia, 440 are in Laos. This will be the 45th Joint Field Activity conducted in Laos since Joint Task Force-Full Accounting was formed in January 1992 at Camp Smith.

21 OCT 99: All of the Russian military documents received from the Podol'sk archives last fall that correlate to an unaccounted-for American POW/MIA have been translated and sent to the Primary Next of Kin. In addition, these correlated documents have been redacted and sent to the Library of Congress and the National Archives. JCSD researchers in Moscow are continuing work reviewing the Soviet 64th Fighter Air Corps records held in the Russian Military Archives in Podol'sk, Russia. Analytical work to correlate Russian documents received during 1999 with unaccounted-for American POW/MIAs continues. All information discovered relating to an unaccounted-for American POW/MIA is analyzed, translated into English, and forwarded with the original Russian through the services to the primary next of kin. The Russian material received is entirely unclassified. The entire collection of Russian documents received through June 1999 is available to the public in the original Russian, with some translations, at the National Archives (Record Group 330 II.81) in College Park, Maryland. In addition, some Russian archival material that has been translated into English is available online at the Library of Congress website (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/tfrquery.html/).

Two personnel from the Joint Commission Support Directorate of DPMO are planning work in the Czech Republic for this fall. The team plans to follow up on leads received as a result of Czech press coverage of their trip last May. They will be interviewing Czech citizens who reported either having seen or talked to people they believed to be American POWs or having heard rumors of the presence of American POWs in Czechoslovakia. In each case, the team will investigate the lead to gather as much information as possible in order to identify the reported American and corroborate or refute the report. They also intend to continue ongoing efforts to obtain documents from Czech intelligence archives. Finally, they plan to continue to search for and interview Czechs who held official positions under the Communist government that may have provided them access to information concerning US POWs, such as those individuals who served in Korea or Vietnam during the wars.

22 OCT 99: Each service has established a toll-free number to keep families advised of Korean War and Cold War remains recovery operations. Family members should contact the appropriate service casualty office to provide their name, address and relationship to their loved one. The Army number is 1-800-892-2490; the Navy's, 1-800-443-9298; the Air Force's, 1-800-531-5501; and the Marine Corps', 1-800-847-1597. Families of civilians missing from these conflicts may contact the State Department at (202) 647-6769.

23 OCT 99: U.S. Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (20th-NY), Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, announced that the committee will hold an open hearing to examine Cuban involvement in the torture of American prisoners of war in Vietnam. The hearing will be held on Friday, October 29, 1999, at 10:30 a.m. in room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Between July 1967 and August 1968, a team of interrogators believed to be Cubans brutally beat and tortured 19 American aviators, killing one, at a Hanoi POW camp known as "the Zoo." Recently, a survivor of the savage beatings identified the lead torturer, known to his victims as "Fidel." Chairman Gilman said: "I am grateful to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for her leadership in pursuing this issue. I served on the select committee that initially investigated the fate of American prisoners of war and those missing in action. There is no statute of limitations on the crimes committed by these Cuban torturers. Neither shall there be a statute of limitations on our commitment to discovering the truth of their crimes so they may be brought to justice. Our nation owes this to the courageous men and women who served us so loyally in Vietnam."

25 OCT 99: North Korea handed over to a U.S. defense official the remains of four U.S. soldiers missing since the Korean War, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. It was the first time the North has directly handed such remains over to United States rather than to the United Nations, and follows an agreement reached earlier this month in the wake of improving ties between Washington and Pyongyang. A spokeswoman at U.S. Yokota Air Base in Japan confirmed that North Korea had handed over the remains to a U.S. Defense Department representative in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. She added that a U.N.-sponsored repatriation ceremony would be held later on Monday at Yokota, outside Tokyo. KCNA, monitored in Tokyo, said the remains had been turned over "according to the new procedure of handover and receipt agreed upon between the Korean People's Army side and the U.S. Forces side. All remains to be unearthed during the DPRK-U.S. joint excavation of U.S. soldiers' remains will be handed over to the U.S. military, not to the U.N. Forces' side," KCNA added. North Korea has been cooperating with the United States for the past four years in joint searches for the remains of American servicemen missing from the 1950-53 war. Remains believed to be those of 39 troops have been recovered with 8,215 U.S. troops still missing from that conflict, which ended in an armed truce rather than a peace agreement.

26 OCT 99: Armenia sent two Azeri prisoners of war home as the hostile former Soviet states worked to improve relations before attending a European security summit in November. The POWs were captured three years ago in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. They were handed over to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which brought them to Azerbaijan's capital Baku. Azeri officials say 10 POWs remain. OSCE representative Andrzej Kasprzyk told Reuters: "I'm optimistic the rest of the POWs will be released in the nearest future." Azerbaijan handed over all its Armenian POWs in a gesture of goodwill last month.

28 OCT 99: LEGISLATION UPDATE: S. 484 - Bring Them Home Alive Act Of 1999 - A bill to provide for the granting of refugee status in the United States to nationals of certain foreign countries in which American Vietnam War POW/MIAs or American Korean War POW/MIAs may be present, if those nationals assist in the return to the United States of those POW/MIAs alive.
Sponsor: Sen Campbell, Ben Nighthorse (introduced 02/25/99)
Cosponsors: 26 Sen Gregg, Judd (R-NH) - 03/02/99; Sen Helms, Jesse (R-NC) - 03/02/99; Sen Brownback, Sam (R-KS) - 03/10/99; Sen Bunning, Jim (R-KY) - 03/23/99; Sen McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) - 04/12/99; Sen Hutchinson, Tim (R-AR) - 04/12/99; Sen Grams, Rod (R-MN) - 04/12/99; Sen Schumer, Charles (D-NY) - 04/20/99; Sen Mack, Connie (R-FL) - 04/21/99; Sen Allard, Wayne (R-CO) - 05/06/99; Sen Smith, Bob (I-NH) - 05/11/99; Sen Torricelli, Robert (D-NJ) - 05/11/99; Sen Fitzgerald, Peter (R-IL) - 06/10/99; Sen Frist, Bill (R-TN) - 6/28/99; Sen Hutchison, Kay (R-TX) - 07/01/99; Sen Shelby, Richard (R-AL) - 07/12/99; Sen Lincoln, Blanche (D-AR) - 07/12/99; Sen Ashcroft, John (R-MO) - 07/16/99; Sen Abraham, Spencer (R-MI) - 07/21/99; Sen Bingaman, Jeff (D-NM) - 07/27/99; Sen Conrad, Kent (D-ND) - 08/03/99; Sen Gorton, Slade (R-WA) - 08/03/99; Sen Kennedy, Edward (D-MA) - 08/05/99; Sen Kerry, John (D-MA) - 09/09/99; Sen Burns, Conrad (R-MT) - 09/09/99; Sen Thurman, Storm (R-SC) - 09/09/99; Sen Murkowski, Frank (R-AK) - 10/07/99.

29 OCT 99: Analysts from DPMO, the JTF-FA, and Stony Beach concluded a series of meetings with analysts from Vietnam's Office for Seeking Missing Persons Ministry of National Defense team. The intensive discussions covered all details of investigative follow-up for each of the 43 Last Known Alive (LKA), or priority "discrepancy" cases. Both sides described the meetings as productive. U.S. analysts noted that the atmosphere was one of proactive pursuit for the 43 cases that continue to be priority in Vietnam as well as for select priority cases from Laos. Of the initial 196 LKA cases first investigated in Vietnam in 1988, 43 individual cases compel priority pursuit.

30 OCT 99: The final draft of DoDI 2310.5 is nearing final signature and subsequent publication. When published, the DoDI will bring DoD into compliance with the Missing Persons Act by proscribing uniform DoD procedures for the determination of the status of missing persons. The draft has been previously approved during coordination.

31 OCT 99: REMINDER - DOD/DPMO Family Update - November 19 and 20 1999 - Houston, TX

POW-MIA Issue Update November 1999