March 1998
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
00 MAR 98: The 'official' unaccounted for figures are as follows - 2,096 Americans are still missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: Vietnam - 1,565 (North, 571; South, 993); Laos - 449; Cambodia - 75; the Peoples Republic of China territorial waters - 8. 487 Americans have been accounted-for from the Vietnam War: Vietnam - 362; Laos - 117; Cambodia - 6; and, China - 2. 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 MAR 98: The Andersonville National Historic Site will host the dedication of the National Prisoner of War Museum on April 9th. Senator John McCain will be the featured speaker. The $5.8 million complex is located adjacent to the 26-acre Civil War prison preserved as part of the national historic site. The 10,000 square-foot museum includes exhibit rooms depicting what soldiers and civilians experienced in captivity from the American Revolution to the Persian Gulf War.
03 MAR 98: The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that a political message on a T-shirt may not be sold at Mall sites, including the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (VVM). The Park's Service view is that the sale of T-shirts is "intrusive and intimidating." Many of the T-shirts sold at the VVM deal with issues of the Vietnam War, particularly that of prisoners of war. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected First Amendment claims, ruling the ban was not aimed at any specific political view. These highly lucrative sales locations "resulted in excessive commercialization of tranquil park settings."
04 MAR 98: The DoD and four military services are mounting an intense public outreach effort to locate family members of servicemen who remain unaccounted-for from the Korean War. As a result of negotiated agreements, four joint operations have been conducted. The remains of seven American soldiers have been recovered. Family members of unaccounted-for Korea-era servicemen are asked to call: USAF - 800-531-5501; USA - 800-892-2490; USN & CG - 800-443-9298; and, USMC - 800-847-1597.
President Clinton has certified that Vietnam is "fully cooperating in good faith" with U.S. efforts to account for missing American soldiers from the Vietnam War. In his memo, Clinton said he is satisfied that Vietnam's communist government is helping in four areas: resolving discrepancy cases, recovering remains of U.S. soldiers and sending them home, providing documents that can help account for missing soldiers and assisting with implementing investigations with neighboring Laos. Clinton promised the families and friends of the missing a "continuing personal commitment" to finding their loved ones and continuing said: "the cental, guiding principle of my Vietnam policy is to achieve the fullest possible accounting of our prisoners of war and missing in action."
05 MAR 98: U.S. and Lao representatives concluded semi-annual consultative talks in Vientiane. These meetings focused on greater access to information and artifacts located in Lao military facilities; access to Lao films currently archived in Hanoi; further unilateral investigations; more tri-lateral operations; and better information on the recovery of remains process.
Moscow-based DPMO representatives traveled to Vladivostok, Russia to meet with senior officials of the Russian Far Eastern Pacific Fleet and address methods to determine the status of crewmembers lost during Cold War shootdowns.
Reflecting the U.S. position, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that Iraq must account for missing war prisoners and return Kuwaiti property before economic sanctions can be lifted. The Kuwaiti's have modeled their POW/MIA efforts after U.S. NGO's.
06 MAR 98: The remains of an American serviceman previously unaccounted-for from Southeast Asia have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial in the United States. He is identified as U.S. Army Sgt. Douglas Alan Ross, of Temple City, CA.
1998 National POW/MIA Recognition Day will be September 18, 1998. Over the last several years most of the 50 states have proclaimed POW/MIA Recognition Day in conjunction with the national effort.
07 MAR 98: Forced war laborers are suing Ford Motor Co. for compensation. Ford's German subsidiary, Ford Werke A.G., was "unjustly enriched by knowingly accepting substantial economic benefits," the suit claimed. The compliant also said the Nazis' favorable treatment of Ford Motor Co. was attributable to "a personal friendship between Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler," noting the two exchanged birthday gifts and Ford's publication of the anti-Semitic tract "The International Jew, a Worldwide Problem." French POWs along with forced laborers from Russia, Ukraine, Italy and Belgian labor at the Ford's Cologne plant. During the war 7.5 million people were forcibly deported from occupied territory to Germany to support its war effort.
08 MAR 98: Documents on some 510,000 Japanese POWs who were interned in the former Soviet Union after WW II are stored in a historical material center in Moscow. Russia and Kazakstan have handed over to Japan the names of 40,025 POWs who died during internment.
09 MAR 98: Iraq and Kuwait will hold talks this month on tracing people who went missing during Iraq's 1990-91 occupation of the Gulf state. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will be part of this discussion.
10 MAR 98: Representatives of Vietnam's Montagnards urged the Clinton Administration not to give the Hanoi government full trade benefits, contending U.S. policy already favors an oppressive communist regime. Sen. Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who opposes the waiver of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, at a recently completed hearing said: his hearing was "a long overdue assessment of the hardship the Montagnards have suffered in communist hands." The Montagnards were a mountain people recruited by the U.S. military to conduct guerilla operations against North Vietnam during the War.
11 MAR 98: President Clinton signed a waiver granting exemption of the Jackson-Vanik amendment effectively relieving Vietnam from a law that restricts business with communist countries that limit emigration.
12 MAR 98: The DoD is attempting to explain the recently declassified U.S. Army reports that hundreds of American troops were held in China during the 1950-53 war. The report said that "Manchurian camps house a great many U.S. POWs, and Manchuria is a staging area or collecting point." The Dec. 15, 1951 report also concluded that about 2,500 American POWs were being held in Manchuria, and about 1,500 in other parts of China. Pentagon spokesman Larry Greer said "Reports analyzed by us have been able to confirm the movement of small numbers of prisoners, not the so-called large numbers that are rumored in some circles."
13 MAR 98: In a recent hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Walter Slocombe in reply to a question said: "I believe, believe there is more that the Vietnamese and the other countries in the region can do. So there is certainly evidence that supports that proposition."
U.S. Ambassador Pete Peterson praised Pres. Clinton's waiver of a 24 year old trade restriction as a milestone in normalizing relations with Vietnam. U.S. officials have said two issues influenced this decision: continued progress in resolving POW/MIA cases and Hanoi's cooperation with a special U.S. program aimed at resettling Vietnamese refugees. Clinton will advise Congress on June 4th of his intention to continue the Jackson-Vanik waiver for a year.
14 MAR 98: Speaking at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Stanley Roth said "Obtaining the fullest possible accounting for POW/MIAs remains our highest priority in relations with Vietnam. Normalization in other areas has not lessened the centrality of POW/MIA accounting to the relationship, and every high level USG official to visit Vietnam has stressed this point. Sustaining progress on POW/MIA accounting will remain our highest objective in the future."
15 MAR 98: In an INSIGHT magazine article, author James Lucier relates a response from Maj. Brian Salas of the defense secretary's public-affairs office saying that no specific cases of POW/MIAs, were raised with China President Jiang Zemin by Defense Secretary William Cohen on a recent visit. In a letter sent by Chinese Ambassador Li Daoyu he states: "The US side is clear that there is no American POW or MIA in China and, therefore, there is no outstanding issue in this regard."
16 MAR 98: A team of DoD specialists has arrived in Nicaragua to recover the remains of crew members from a B-26 bomber which crashed there in 1961 in support of the Bay of Pigs operation. The location of the crash site was provided by officials of the government of Nicaragua, who have supported the planning and execution of this humanitarian mission.
17 MAR 98: Marking 25 years since his release as a prisoner of war by North Vietnam, the Senator honored Sen. John McCain by expressing gratitude for the "courage and sacrifice" he and his fellow POWs displayed by passing Sen. Res. 196. McCain said he hoped the US would ensure that "never again will we send our young people to fight and die in a conflict unless the goal is victory and we are prepared to devote all the resources at our disposal to winning that victory as quickly as possible." An emotional McCain thanked his colleagues on behalf of his comrades in arms, especially "the heroes whose names appear on the wall."
20 MAR 98: The US has set an agenda for discussions with the North Koreans. The top priority will be missile concerns. Other important issues will be the recovery of remains of U.S. prisoners of war and missing in action in the Korean War; economic sanctions; liaisons offices; and, removal of N. Korea from list of State Dept. list of countries which support international terrorism.
21 MAR 98: The full Senate has taken up deliberations on expanding the NATO treaty to include the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary.
In the Congressional Record, Sen. Bob Smith said "We should remember that the Eastern Bloc was an active ally and supporter of the communist North Vietnamese and North Korean regimes during those respective U.S. wars. They had a significant presence in Asia and were probably privy to information about communist policy toward the disposition of American POWs, to include whether any were transferred to the territory of the former Soviet Union as we now suspect. We simply cannot afford to lose sight of this issue (POW/MIA) of highest national priority in the context of the current NATO expansion debate."
22 MAR 98: DPMO officials are engaging in several conferences, technical meetings, archival reviews, and negotiations around the world. Vietnam analysts will travel to Hanoi in April to assess progress of the Remains Study currently being written. U.S. archivists are currently reviewing holdings of the International Red Cross in Geneva. DPMO is currently negotiating with Polish authorities to review their archives.
23 MAR 98: A team of nine Americans and 80 Laotians workers are excavating a site where a U.S. built UH-1 Huey went down with 11 on 10 Feb 71 near the Ho Chi Minh trail. Four of the 11 were journalists covering Operation Lam Son 719. "Finding the film really guarantees that we're looking in the right place," said Lisa Hoshower, an American anthropologist.
A 77-year-old former Japanese POW returned to Japan after having disappeared in Soviet Russia at the end of the war. Toshimasa Meguro was taken prisoner in Siberia and held for eight years. After his release he was ordered to remain in the region. Japanese authorities learned of his whereabouts only last November.
24 MAR 98: A JTF-FA team has returned to Xekong Province, Laos to complete the excavation of the site for the remains of Sgt. Robert Preiss. Partial remains were returned in 1995. U.S.-Laotian efforts will focus exclusively on excavating for remains at locations already identified, rather than searching for new sites.
Legislation passed 412-0 would limit burial at Arlington to members of the Armed Forces who die on active duty, military retirees, recipients of the Medal of Honor and other top awards, former prisoners of war and the president and former presidents.
29 MAR 98: Kuwait and Iraqi delegations met in Geneva under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross to try to clear up the fate of people reported missing during the occupation of Kuwait in August 1990. Kuwait lists over 600 missing. Iraqi has given no number to their missing.
30 MAR 98: Federal agencies declassified more than 400 million pages of documents the past two years but will fall well short of reviewing all 25-year-old classified records by 2000, officials said. The Pentagon, for example, will review less than half of its billion pages of classified documents. The CIA estimated it will get to only 13 million of 40 million pages of secret material.
REMINDER - 04/18/98 - Proposed Family Update - League Region II & III - Naval Training Ctr., Newport, RI
REMINDER - 04/2425/98 - Proposed Family Update - League Board Meeting, Ft. Myer, VA
REMINDER - 04/25/98 - DPMO Proposed Family Update - Pensacola, FL
POW-MIA Issue Update April 1998