December 1997
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
00 DEC 97: The 'official' unaccounted for figures are as follows - 2,099 Americans are still missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War: Vietnam - 1,566 (North 572; South, 994); Laos - 450; Cambodia - 75; and, the Peoples Republic of China territorial waters - 8. 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.
01 DEC 97: North Korean officials met with State Department officials in Washington, D.C. for the first time in fifty years, discussing such topics as the opening of diplomatic missions, obtaining an accounting of Americans missing in action from the Korean War and missile proliferation.
02 DEC 97: 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has published a picture album commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, with scores of previously unpublished photos documenting Japanese atrocities.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.
03 DEC 97: 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 18th century. 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.
04 DEC 97: A U.S. recovery team has completed its work for 1997 in China in an effort to recover the remains of a 10-man WW II bomber crew which perished in a 1944 crash in southern China. The CILHI team recovered additional remains and with those recovered by the Chinese, the DoD has established contact with the families and is keeping them advised of the progress of the forensic identification process.
07 DEC 97: The New York Times reports that Navy F-18 pilot Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher, the first American lost in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the only one whose fate remains unknown is under continuing investigation. The DoD sent a spy satellite over the crash site and "detected a man-made symbol in the area of the ejection seat." In December 1995, two years after the discovery of the crash site, a Red Cross team visited the site. The site had been scavenged by Bedouin nomads. A tattered flight site and one of the plane's date recorders had been recovered from the nomads. Mr. Liotta said that the team emerged with a clearer picture of what happened to Cmdr. Speicher. When asked if Speicher could have survived, Mr. Liotta said "we don't know." Speicher is listed as "killed-in-action - body not recovered." The first American lost in the Persian Gulf War remains the last to be accounted-for.
08 DEC 97: The Associated Press reports that the Clinton Administration has agreed to pay North Korea $672,000 to conduct five remains searches of U.S.soldiers killed on Korean War battlefields. This would bring the total to $1 million the amount of U.S. government compensation for assistance in the recovery efforts. As many as 1,700 U.S. soldiers fell in the area of search from the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division. Larry Greer, a Pentagon spokesman, said "both sides were looking for more productivity," and would not be returning to previous areas.
U.S. and North Korean officials meeting in New York have agreed to expand joint search operations next year to recover the remains of American servicemen lost in the Korean War. The DoD announced that five searches would be held between April 21 and October 15, 1998. These bilateral talks are a continuation of similar negotiations on MIA searches and another sign of improving relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
10 DEC 97: Sixty years ago troops of the Imperial Japanese Army captured the Chinese capital of Nanking. In a series of books published in China, author Iris Chang tells of Japanese disdain for the Chinese people which fought against and held them at bay. This humiliated the instrument of the living Japanese god and was the cause of the merciless revenge on the people and prisoners of war in Nanking. The book also tells of the war-time atrocities by the Japanese.
USA Today reports that Alan Liotta, DASD is pleased with the progress on the Korean MIA issue. Speaking at a lunch with his counterpart, Senior Col. Pak Rim-su, Mr. Liotta said "It took us three meetings to get an agreement on the first mission in 1996. It took us two meetings for this year's operations. This time, it took only one meeting." As with Vietnam, MIA recovery is a precondition for normal ties with the USA. "They have made a decision," Liotta says of the long- isolated North Koreans. "They want to come out of their shell."
12 DEC 97: Senators Bob Smith and Rod Grams have asked the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to inquire into the fate of the only Persian Gulf war pilot who remains unaccounted for. Listed as missing in action after his plane crashed, the pilot, Michael Scott Speicher was never heard from again. Conflicting information has created concern that Speicher may have survived the crash and left a "man-made symbol" at the crash site. This symbol was acknowledged in a secret memorandum dated May 11, 1994, more than three years after the plane went down. Previously, Pentagon officials had written to Sen. Smith saying that their investigation had found "no symbols that correlate to civilian or military distress symbols or evasion codes."
13 DEC 97: J. Alan Liotta, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense at DPMO, has announced that U.S. negotiators have reached an agreement with N. Korea covering the 1998 joint accounting efforts for Americans missing from the Korean War. Primary agenda items for this meeting were the live prisoner issue, increased archival access and expanded remains recovery operations. U.S. negotiators continued to stress to the N. Koreans American concerns on this issues.
Some 3,000 Chinese mourned the victims of the 1937 Nanking Massacre and reiterated the death by hanging sentence given to Gen. Iwane Matsui of the Imperial Japanese Army for his responsibility for the death and destruction of human life.
Two Dutch internees of Japanese prison camps have filed suit seeking an apology and compensation. The Japanese government is seeking dismissal of the suit, insisting individuals of foreign nations cannot demand compensation directly from the Japanese government.
15 DEC 97: The Department of Defense and the four military services are mounting an intense public outreach effort to locate family members of servicemen who remain unaccounted-for from the Korean War. Family members are asked to provide their name, address and relationship to appropriate service casualty office. USAF: 800-531-5501; USA: 800-892-2490; USN: 800-443-9298; and, USMC: 800- 847-1597.
17 DEC 97: Representatives from the DoD DPMO and JTF-FA met in Hanoi with their counterparts from the Vietnamese Office for Seeking Missing Persons to discuss aspects of a comprehensive remains study being conducted by American analysts. The question of further Vietnamese assistance in searching for known and suspected grave sites and related documents was a top priority during this meeting. The Vietnamese would continue to provide any documentary material that would have a direct bearing on the accounting effort. The U.S. is has also pressed for Vietnamese assistance in helping to identify those remains currently undergoing forensic analysis at CILHI.
U.S. and Russian officials traveled to the town of Severomorsk, near the Arctic Ocean, to investigate a suspected grave site of an American airman lost near Russia during the Cold War. Preliminary information indicates that one of the graves many contain the remains of Maj. Eugene Posa, USAF, lost over the Barents Sea on July 1, 1960.
18 DEC 97: In a NYT article, Ambassador Peterson speaking of Vietnamese efforts to account for U.S. MIAs commented that U.S. concern about prisoners of war and other soldiers listed as missing in action was long the driving force of U.S. reluctance to move beyond suspended hostility to engagement with Vietnam, continuing, Peterson said "we are now able to certify significant progress on the part of the Vietnamese in that area."
The U.S. is moving closer to establishing normal trade relations with Vietnam. The Clinton Administration is consulting with Congress to exempt Vietnam from the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which restricts trade with countries designated as limiting emigration. State Dept. spokesman James Foley the decision to consider the waiver was based on Hanoi's cooperation in accounting for American soldiers missing in action in the Vietnam War . . . and we believe Vietnamese cooperation in this has been and continues to be excellent.
20 DEC 97: In a letter received from DPMO, we are told that the statement "there were successful rescues at other POW sites in North Vietnam that the (CIA) shop had modeled," which had been printed in a Washington Post article Sept. 8, it appears "the reporter had made an honest mistake." Continuing, Mr. Greer, PAO, stated "After the Son Tay raid, no other rescue efforts in North Vietnam were attempted."
AP reports that Russians are seeking a million MIAs. Col. Sergei Osipov, the Russian head of the joint U.S.-Russian projects speaking of the American effort said "I don't think the American efforts to be excessive. Of course, he added, I'd be very, very glad if we were able to devote the resources and attention to this. For the individual person who's lost a loved one, this issue is more important than all the governmental issues together."
23 DEC 97: Iraq and Iran exchanged the remains of 44 soldiers missing in action form the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war. The missing in action and prisoners of war are among the thorniest issues hindering efforts to improve ties.
25 DEC 97: "GOD BLESS US, EVERYONE."
27 DEC 97: A delegation from Vietnam Veterans of America, Veterans Initiative Task Force departs the U.S. for further talks with Vietnamese veterans and government officials in its veteran-to-veteran program to account for Vietnamese war casualties and U.S. unrepatriated POWs (Last Known Alive) and those missing in action. The delegation will also visit Laos to expand its humanitarian mission in that country.
30 DEC 97: After 45 years in captivity in North Korea, a South Korean Prisoner of War escaped to safe haven on Christmas Day. 71 years of age and exhausted from the perilous escape through China, the man is the second known POW to have escaped the brutality and starvation of North Korea after capture during the 'Forgotten War' of 1950-1953. May we never forget those who served and may still serve.
31 DEC 97: The remains of three unaccounted for personnel were recovered in joint operations in Laos and Vietnam. The remains are identified as - Air Force Maj. Glenn Belcher of Fessendon, N.D.; Air Force Maj. Ronald Sittner of South Euclid, Ohio; and Marine 1st Lt. Brent Davis of Santa Clara, Calif.
31 DEC 97: To All, our wish for a happy and safe New Year.
REMINDER - 01/24/98 - Proposed Family Update - San Diego, CA
REMINDER - 01/28/98 - Proposed Family Update - Hawaii
POW-MIA Issue Update January 1998