December 1996

Summary of news for the entire month.
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01 DEC 96: After several weeks, there is still no word on the whereabouts of Christopher Howes, 36, of Bristol, England. Reminiscent of the war years, Howes and his interpretor were captured by the brutal Khmer Rouge and held as slave labor captives in Cambodia. During an exodus of Khmer Rouge defections, Howes was reported to have been released by his captors, and was making the slow, painful trek through the jungles to freedom, along with the faction of defectors. The brutality of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge continues many years after The Killing Fields. One wonders if the USG will ask the Khmer Rouge defectors, some quite highly ranked, what they know of American POWs and MIAs.

02 DEC 96:Switzerland's World War II government used allied funds intended to aid British and American prisoners of war to repatriate Swiss money from Japan. The document is a translated transcript of an intercepted Swiss diplomatic cable between Berne and Washington from November 1945. The documents shows that in August 1944 neutral Switzerland reached a secret agreement with Tokyo to divert 40 percent of money paid by the British and American governments to provide relief for their prisoners in Japanese captivity. The 40 percent was used "for the transfer of Swiss claims in Japan."

China has published a picture album commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, with scores of previously unpublished photos documenting Japanese atrocities. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal documented 140,000 lives lost by the Japanese atrocity.

04 DEC 96: One of the few remaining survivors of the Great Escape, passed this month. Sydney M. Pozer, who was held at Stalag Luft III, in Sagan, Germany, during WW II, was one of several hundred Allied POWs who dug 3 tunnels underneath the camp to freedom. The tunnels, named Tom, Dick and Harry, allowed 80 POWs to escape the camp. Three POWs made it to Great Britain. The remaining POWs were eventually captured, and under direct orders of Hitler, 50 were murdered in cold blood for their participation. Until the POWs were re-captured, the evading men tied up 1 million German troops.

05 DEC 96: The Justice Department announced that a number of Japanese nationals are now prohibited from entering the United States. A branch of Justice is tasked with tracking former War Criminals, and came up with a list of approximnately 19 individuals, who would be PNG'd should they try to enter the States. Until now, the office had maintained a long list of Eastern and Western Europeans, who commited war crimes or other atrocities, but this is the first time that Japanese nationals have been added to the war crimes list. Some individuals were identified as having been participants in the 'Comfort Women' program, whereby Chinese women were held captive and forced to work in Japanese run brothels, used by Japanese military personnel. Others were identified as having been participants in the notorious Unit 731. Operated under the auspices of a water purification program within the Japanese Army, Unit 731 used American and Russian POWs, along with thousands of Chinese prisoners as terminal experimentation material in some of the most horrific chemical-biological warfare tests known to man. At the conclusion of the war, the US parlayed a trade with Unit 731 personnel... they would provide existing materials and data, or recreate it, and give it to the US, and they would never stand trial before the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. Doctors, scientists and technicians, who wreaked unimaginable pain and suffering upon innocent people, went free to rise within the power structure of Japan's elite, while the US secreted the Unit 731 materials at Fort Detrick... home to the US Army Chemical-Biological Warfare program. It's a tragedy it took 50 years for someone in the USG to find their conscience and declare these men to be what they are... War Criminals and murderers.

06 DEC 96: The 'official' list of personnel unaccounted for in Vietnam is 1,597. For most, the numbers are meaningless, given that the USG has a highly irregular means of considering a person to be accounted for.

07 DEC 96: AP reports some commandos who were captured while running U.S. intelligence missions and imprisoned and tortured by communist forces are being thwarted by Vietnam's government. For the 145 commandos or their survivors still in Vietnam, the path to compensation is being blocked by government officials under the guise of compromising state security.

Russia unveiled a monument to honor prisoners of war held in Sweden at the end of the 18thcentury. The memorial was set up to honor 700 Russian POWs taken during fighting from 1788-90.

U.S. and Korean officials are meeting in New York this week to discuss further efforts to locate U.S. servicemen still missing from the Korean War. The U.S. is also seeking access to known American deserters in the Communist state to try to resolve alleged sightings of Americans there after the end of the war.

08 DEC 96: DASD General James Wold goes to Vietnam to visit a crash site excavation. The site, Mai Chang, Van Thang Province, just west of Hanoi, is where a B-52 crashed during the 1972 Christmas Bombing over Hanoi. 36 craft were lost during the missions. Two survivors from the loss provided information to the USG, and along with other data, search teams were able to track down the crash site, from which 4 Americans remain missing. The B-52 crashed with a full load of ordnance. So far search teams have recovered 6 bone fragments, which will be sent to CIL-HI for mitochondrial DNA testing.

10 DEC 96: President Clinton provides the Secretarys of Defense and State, with a Memorandum of Drawdown. The two documents state that support for POW-MIA accounting in both Vietnam and Cambodia is being reduced. The drawdown for Vietnam is $3 million, and for Cambodia, $151,000. This action flies in the face of testimony of former JTF-FA head, General Thomas Needham. The career officer testified before Congress that funding for POW-MIA recovery, research and repatriation was 'carte blanche', and would remain so for years to come. It is evident that this Badministration isn't willing to invest in answers. After lifting the embargo and normalizing, this year the President certified the SRV was being fully cooperative and forthcoming. Now they bounced the check. It appears that this President is acting more like President Richard Nixon - when he promised the then DRV 3.5 billion in war reparations and then renegged, than his idol, President John Kennedy.

12 DEC 96: All You Have To Do Is Ask. That's what John Huang, and the LIPPO Group did, and it worked... providing Mr. Huang with a cushy job in the Commerce Department after over $425,000 plus dollars padded the way into the beleagured office. Investigations currently underway in Washington, De Ceit, indicate that the mega-rich conglomerate headed by the Riady family, was most generous with the pennies and was extremely vocal that the US stop shunning the SRV, and normalize relations. The LIPPO connection adds another dimension to the Commerce connection, former playground of the late Commerce Secretary Ron (Rickshaw Ron) Brown, who also seemed to benefit from the largesse of outside interest groups who sought to have the US normalize relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Independant researchers investigated the Brown connection, and were able to track approximately 1 million dollars in pay-offs to the Commerce Secretary. However, formal USG investigations failed to uncover anything remiss, and the Justice Department declined to pursue additional investigation or charges. Brown was never charged with any wrongdoing. (As is the Modus Operandi in anything relating to Vietnam, POWs and MIAs, unless of course one is a family member, a researcher, an eyewitness or an activist.) Mr. Huang's rapid rise to the top of the Commerce heap and his subsequent departure to head the fundraising arm of the DNC - Democratic National Committee - is a virtual mirror image of Brown's career in the Clinton Badministration, and the very political career of John Kerry's favorite Gal-Friday, Ms. Comrade Francis Zwenig. It was Zwenig who meteorically rose to the top of the 'Have You Hugged Vietnam, Today' troupe, after trying to destroy documents, and penning Memos that read 'Auto Metrics Fits The Bill... Am Working On Script With DIA' during the SSC Hearings. How sad that mega-rich Big Business and foreign interests can buy their way into the Whitewash House, when American citizens and taxpayers cannot even drive past the House on the barricaded Pennsylvania Avenue on their summer vacation.

13 DEC 96: After 52 years, 5 families now have the answers they waited so long for. China turned over a video of a crash site in China, photographs of 5 dogtags and a canteen last month to the United States, and today provided authorities with two of the dog tags. The B-24 went missing after a bombing mission on Japanese ships, in August 1944... All cremembers were considered lost. After the initial materials were made available, the US located the original loss report and confirmed the names matched the crew manifest. Later this month, officials will travel to China for a repatriation ceremony of the five sets of remains.

18 DEC 96: Phnom Penh officials are preparing to enforce US trademark and patent laws in Cambodia. Coming on the coattails of the US granting normalization and favored trade status with the small country, Cambodia is getting ready to learn all it can about US Commerce (there's that word again), in its attempts to race Vietnam to the Most Favored Nation finish line.Instead of worrying about Pizza Hut, they should concentrate a little more on American Prisoners and Missing.

20 DEC 96: "Somebody might forget these guys..." thought Wayne 'Johnnie' Johnson, a POW during the Korean War, who secretly kept a log of the names, dates and circumstances of death of fellow POWs during the bitter cold years he spent in North Korean confinement. Upon release, Johnson smuggled the list he had meticulously kept all those years, and prepared to offer the 496 names to USG intelligence officers during POW debriefings. An officer glanced at the list, made a notation that Johnson had been 'cooperative' and the list was promptly forgotten. For 40 years, families endured the horror of not knowing what happened to their fathers, sons and brothers. Until now. Johnson, with the help of other Ex-POWs and a forensic specialist, has resurrected parts of the list rendered unreadable because of time, and was able to finally provide families with answers. DPMO has undertaken the task of correlating the names on Johnson's list to names on the official POW-MIA list from the Korean War, and notifying families. Better late than never... but shame on the USG for allowing so many to suffer so long, when the answers for 496 families were there all along.

31 DEC 96: Once again we find ourselves crossing off another year in the long, long history of this tragic issue. As we look behind us, we see countless years all too similar to this one just passing.

Commentary: 1996 began with sadness and frustration as AFIRB stood by its decision to declare the entire crew of BARON 52 'accounted for' and to bury the scant, questionable remains and artifacts with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Whether or not the crew perished in the loss incident, or survived into captivity may never be known. The habit of the USG to 'Rush To Judgment,' precludes virtually any possibility that any information coming from its hallowed halls and deep depths can be accepted as truth... not in the face of so much obfuscation, classification, misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies.

At the very same time that DOD was wiping the BARON 52 slate clean, they launched Operation Keeping Faith... the exercise in futility in the Persian Gulf. Even though they claimed Lt Cmdr Michael Spiecher, USN, to be dead, a team went in search of answers... most notably the reason as to why, if this young man died in his loss incident during Desert Storm, then why was his authenticator reported by others to have been imaged by US intelligence systems.

After years of haggling, haranguing and hard, hard work, the Missing Service Personnel Act of 1996 became the law of the land. Unfortunately, before the ink on the paper had a chance to dry, Senator John McCain, the unrelenting MOC who will not permit any pro-issue, pro-family or pro-POW legislation to stand, turned Capitol Hill on its head while he stalked the hallways and pounded on doors. He proffered the McCain Amendment which castrated the MSPA 1996, leaving it in a shamble. Once again, we must ask ourselves, Whose Side Is This Guy On?

We learned that offices tasked with the accounting process of missing Americans, were unable to account for their funds and equipment, let alone Prisoners and Missing. An across the board audit was launched, its scope reaching from Washington to Southeast Asia. As is so typical of bureaucracies, the Report on the audit is not expected before the Spring of 1997.

President Clinton, who once stood before family members and declared that there would be no lifting of embargoes nor normalization until the SRV was fully forthcoming and cooperative, signed a certification (Presidential Determination No. 96-28) that said Vietnam was doing a bang-up job. This calculated move insured that diplomatic initiatives could be funded.

As promised, Congressman Robert Dornan continued the ongoing POW-MIA Hearings in the House Military Personnel Subcommittee, of which he was the chair. Countless family members, researchers, analysts, apologists, Ex-POWs, activists, authors, military personnel and Badministration officials testified over the year. Some poignant moments during the Hearings:

As President Clinton was certifying that Vietnam is acting in good faith, members of various serviant government agencies are testifying under oath that Vietnam is being less than cooperative and forthcoming. Accusations of warehousing remains, salting excavation sites and continued recalcitrance are echoed over and over again.

Philip Corso comes from the shadows of the Korea-Cold War Era, and announces that he was instrumental in creating the unofficial official policy of abandonment of POWs and MIAs, during the Eisenhower Badministration years. He testifies that hundreds of POWs were held back during scheduled exchanges, and the USG knew all along.

Jan Sejna, the highest level defector to the US and government employee, testifies that Czechslovakia, along with the former USSR and Vietnam, actively engaged US POWs in a terminal chemical-biological warfare medical experimentation program. This endeavor was a copy cat program of one initiated during the Korean War.

Fed up and frustrated by government apologists being either unwilling or unable to satisfactorily respond to questions from the Chair, Congressman Dornan finally erupts, asking, "Then why do you people exist?" No doubt a question that has been on the minds of families and activists for years.

In an attempt to restore some substance and give teeth to the Missing Service Personnel Act that was eviscerated by Senator McCain earlier in the year, Congressman Dornan introduces HR 4000 - The POW Protection Act. The legislation is introduced with 255 original co-sponsors, and when voted upon in the House, passes 404-0. Senator Bob Smith immediately produces a strong letter of support urging his Colleagues to support the measure. Even with the strength of its supporters, and unanimous passge in the House, HR 4000 was allowed it to languish in the Senate until the Congressional year ran out, rendering it obsolete.

The Defense POW-MIA Office (DPMO), once again is metamorphosed into a new entity. The new office is now tasked with POWs and any and all Missing PERSONS.

The SNIE Assessment is released, along with a rider - a debunking document created to defuel the explosive analytic report. Created in 1986-1987 by a DIA analyst and classified all these years, the SNIE Assessment dovetails with what family members and activists have said all these long years... Vietnam has been warehousing the remains of US Service Personnel, have used the emotions of the POW-MIA issue for political and financial gain and have not been even remotely forthcoming.

Finally, as the year closes, so does the long career of Congressman Robert Dornan. Dornan, who relentlessly pummeled elected and appointed officials during ongoing POW-MIA Hearings, and who introduced the POW Protection Act (HR 4000), was defeated by a narrow margin in a contested Congressional race. This Member of Congress, controversial at the very least, was willing to put everything on the line in his aggressive pursuit of answers and the TRUTH. He used his good office to provide family members with some modicom of support, and to open the eyes of the complacent public. More has come out of his Hearings the past year and a half than the USG has offered in ten. His dedicated and defiant presence in the POW-MIA issue arena in Washington, De Ceit, will be missed beyond words.

And so we venture into a new year. One that we fervently hope brings about answers, resolution and the TRUTH. Something that was in very short supply in 1996.

To the Families... we wish you Peace, Strength and Answers.
And to All... we wish you a Happy, Healthy and Blessed New Year.
Until the Boys Come Home, or someone gives us a heck of a good explanation... we go on.

POW-MIA Issue Update January 1997