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INFORMATION FROM RUSSIA, NORTH KOREA AND CHINA

Background

The Committee's mandate from the Senate encompassed a review of the fate of Americans still listed as missing from World War II, the Korean War and the Cold War. Accordingly, the Committee has conducted an investigation of reports that unacknowledged U.S. prisoners had been held by Soviet, Chinese and North Korean officials during and after one or more of these conflicts, and that U.S. prisoners might have been transferred to the Soviet Union during the war in Vietnam.

U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIA Affairs

The disintegration of the former Soviet Union and the establishment of a democratic government in Russia have created new possibilities for investigating reports concerning U.S. POWs. In mid-February, 1992, Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Bob Smith met with Russian officials in Moscow to discuss the prospects for cooperation on this issue. This visit laid the groundwork for the creation on March 26, 1992 of the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission for POW/MIA Affairs (Commission) under the leadership of Col. Dmitri Volkogonov and former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Malcolm Toon. Sen. Kerry and Sen. Smith were designated as representatives of the U.S. Senate on the Commission.

The objectives of the Commission are 1) to obtain access to people and documents in Russia that could shed light on the fate of U.S. servicemen missing from World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War and the war in Vietnam; 2) to pursue all reports alleging the presence of U.S. POW/MIAs in the former Soviet Union and assist in facilitating their repatriation if they desire; and 3) to establish a mechanism by which remains identified as American can be returned to the United States.

A full description of the activities of the Commission may be found in Section 3 of this Chapter.

Task Force Russia

An organization had to be created to convert the Commission's policy objectives into action. The Secretary of Defense directed the Secretary of the Army to form such an organization. The Army recalled from retirement Maj. Gen. Bernard Loeffke to be the director, Task Force Russia (TFR); the deputy director is Col. Stuart Herrington, USA, a career intelligence officer.

The responsibilities of the Task Force are to acquire and analyze data provided by the Commission. In Moscow, archivists, historians, and an interpreter were assigned to pursue leads concerning U.S. POWs through interviews and access to archival records. Staff in Washington, D.C. were assigned to translate, analyze and compare the new information with information in existing U.S. databases, and to assess its value and reliability before releasing it to family members through DOD casualty affairs offices. In all, Task Force Russia has a staff of 35 persons, including seven in Moscow.

The close coordination between the committee and the U. S. Delegation to the Commission was enhanced through the direct liaison established between the Committee staff and TFR resulting from the assignment of a Committee investigator, Al Graham, to the Task Force element in Moscow.

A more detailed description of the organization and activities of Task Force Russia may be found in Section 3 of this Chapter.

Investigation in Progress

While substantial progress has been made, the investigation remains incomplete. The reasons for this include the relatively brief duration of the life of the Committee; the voluminous nature of the materials stored in Russia; logistical impediments to reviewing materials held abroad; and limited cooperation on the part of individual officials in Russia assigned to work with the Commission and the Committee.

The difficulty in reaching a firm judgment based on current information is illustrated by the present status of data regarding the 8,177 Americans still listed as missing from the Korean War. Of that number, the U.S. Government has information that 2,177 people died in POW camps; 293 were missing in action at sea; 412 died in aircraft incidents over North Korea; approximately 300 were buried in abandoned graves in United Nations cemeteries in North Korea; and another 576 were buried in isolated, unidentified graves. This leaves more than 4,600 soldiers who did not return who could be, as RAND researcher Paul Cole put it, "anywhere [in North Korea]. . . literally, anywhere." Further complicating the arithmetic is the uncorroborated testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Corso, who was posted at the National Security Council during the Eisenhower Administration, that at least 900 U.S. POWs were taken to the Soviet Union from North Korea.

Although firm conclusions remain elusive, some progress on the issue of U.S. POWs in the former Soviet Union has been made. Russian President Boris Yeltsin has stated that some Americans were imprisoned in the former Soviet Union after World War II, that a small number of U.S. prisoners were interrogated by the Soviets during the Korean War, and that approximately a dozen U.S. airmen were captured and imprisoned during the Cold War period. The Russian Government has stated, however, that there are no Americans now being held in the former Soviet Union against their will.

Based on the research to date, the Committee cannot make definitive judgments that go beyond what the Russian Government has stated is the case. Reports alleging the transfer of prisoners to Soviet soil during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts remain under investigation, as do the specific circumstances of Cold War shoot-downs. Large quantities of archival material remain to be examined; and many potential sources of first-hand information have not yet been interviewed.

The Committee recommends that the U.S. continue to attach a high priority to cooperation with the Russian Government in efforts to resolve the fate of missing Americans. Efforts to obtain cooperation from the Governments of China and North Korea should also continue.

Committee Hearings

The Committee held public hearings on this subject on November 10 and 11, 1992. The first day featured testimony from eight witnesses:

Alan C. Ptak, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs;

Dr. Paul Cole, researcher for RAND corporation;

Capt. John P. Gay, USN, director of the Asia/Pacific Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff;

Lt. Col. Phillip Corso (USA, Ret.), of the National Security Council staff under President Eisenhower;

Serban Oprica, a former Rumanian engineer, now an American citizen, who served in North Korea;

Col. Delk Simpson, former U.S. military attache in Hong Kong; and

Steve Kiba, a POW from Korea held in China.

The second day of hearings, November 11, featured testimony from an additional twelve witnesses:

Richard Boylan, archivist at the National Archives;

James Sanders, co-author of Soldiers of Misfortune;

John M. G. Brown, author of Moscow Bound (unpublished manuscript); Thomas Ashworth, researcher, author, and speaker on POW/MIA issues;

Col.Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov (ret.), military adviser to President Boris Yeltsin and Co-Chairman of the U.S.- Russian Joint Commission;

Richard D. Kauzlarich, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs and member of the Joint Commission;

Gen. Bernard Loeffke, USA, director, Task Force Russia;

Albert Graham, the Committee investigator posted to Moscow;

Dolores Alfond, the chairperson for the National Alliance of Families;

Robert Dumas, the brother of a soldier lost in Korea;

Bruce W. Sanderson, whose father was lost in a Cold War shoot- down;

Jane Reynolds Howard, whose husband suffered a similar fate; and

Gregg Skavinski, the nephew of Master Sergeant William R. Homer, a member of the crew of a USAF RB 29 shot down by a Soviet Air Force MIG-15 over the Sea of Japan in 1952.

These witnesses provided the Committee with a wide spectrum of sometimes irreconcilable viewpoints concerning Americans missing from World War II, the Cold War, Korea and Indochina, and on Soviet involvement with American POWs in these conflicts.

Testimony of General Dmitri Volkogonov

On November 11, 1992, the Committee received testimony from Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, retired, military adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and co-chairman of the Commission.

Gen. Volkogonov made a preliminary statement which noted that while all Soviet leaders from Khrushchev to Gorbachev said that this problem did not exist, the new democratic government of Russia has said that the problem of U.S. POWs in Russia did exist and continues to exist today. Gen. Volkogonov stated that he had spoken with President Yeltsin on the eve of his departure for Washington, and that President Yeltsin wished to present the Committee with a statement. That statement follows:

The intergovernmental commission established by decision of the U.S. and Russian presidents for the purpose of determining the fate of American citizens missing in action in World War II and later is evidence of the new nature of Russian-U.S. relations. The commission is headed by Colonel General Volkogonov and Ambassador Toon.

Over a short period of time the commission has done a great deal of work in studying Russia's enormous state and agency archives, including those that had been closed to the public until recently, from the ministry of security, the ministry of defense, the foreign intelligence service, the ministry of internal affairs, the foreign ministry, and military intelligence.

It has questioned dozens of participants and witnesses of the events involving American citizens on the territory of the former USSR. During the plenary meetings held in March, May, and September of this year, the U.S. side was given documents on American citizens who found themselves on the territory of the former USSR in World War II and the Cold War period, and some documents that contained information on several U.S. citizens who had been taken prisoner during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

The commission has found evidence of American citizens staying in camps and prisons of the former USSR, and discovered shocking facts of some of them being summarily executed by the Stalin regime and in a number of cases being forced to renounce their U.S. citizenship. Some of them still reside on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Their names and addresses have been identified and communicated to the U.S. side.

A number of former U.S. citizens have stayed in Russia voluntarily after World War II and still reside here. Of course, in a democratic Russia they have the right to decide about their lives themselves, all their rights are fully guaranteed.

As a result of the work done, one may conclude that today there are no American citizens held against their will on the territory of Russia. However, all the questions have not been fully answered. There are cases that still require additional examination. For my part, as Russia's president, I express the hope that the Joint Russian- American Commission will continue its work and that it will be able to find answers to the outstanding questions.

Gen. Volkogonov stated his desire to make three essential points. First, the Russians fully understand the moral significance of the possibility that Americans might still be living on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Second, the issue is of significance in Russia because for many decades, human lives and individuals were considered nothing more than statistical data in the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the search to determine the fact of Americans missing in action in the former Soviet Union is an example to the Russians of how the government needs to be concerned with the fate of individuals, and thus the issue has enormous humanitarian, moral and legal significance for Russia. Third, conditions in Russia are difficult, and the issue of whether or not reform will continue in Russia remains under very great doubt. Therefore, the U.S. should recognize the significance of the fact that the Russian government and President Yeltsin are paying such close attention to the issue.

In his written statement, Gen. Volkogonov described the conclusions of the investigations conducted by the Joint Commission to date:

1. No U.S. citizens are currently being detained within the territory of the former USSR. The conclusion is based on a thorough analysis of all archival documents, interviews with witnesses, and on-site inspections of possible American housing sites.

2. A group of Americans is living in Russia as either political refugees from the USSR period or individuals voluntarily remaining in Russia. A list of these individuals as well as their addresses, and an agreement to meet with representatives of the American contingent of the Commission have been obtained and the Russian side is prepared to provide this list. In addition, one American, Marcus Lee, a Florida businessman, was arrested in Moscow in the spring of 1992 and is currently being detained at Lefortovo prison, charged with attempted export of contraband icons.

3. Thousands of American citizens traveled overland across the former USSR beginning with the Second World War. The majority of these were Americans liberated by the Red Army from Nazi camps and subsequently repatriated (22,454). The second major group consisted of American pilots forced to land within the USSR and interned here (730). There were also several dozen individuals who were detained in Germany, in Austria, in the USSR and other socialist nations for "espionage" as well as a few pilots from American aircraft shot down over the USSR. The Commission has succeeded in accounting for virtually all of these individuals. The Russians are convinced that they are not presently located (with the exception of those who have died) within the territory of the USSR.

4. The Russians were successful in identifying the burial sites of virtually all U.S. citizens who died in the USSR during the Second World War, with the exception of a few who died en route to or in prison-of-war camps or those buried in mass graves. The Russians intend to continue their efforts to identify the remaining burial sites of U.S. citizens in these areas.

5. The Russians were less successful in obtaining information on U.S. citizens missing during the Vietnam or Korean Wars, events taking place outside the Soviet Union. Some documents were located concerning the Korean War, including information on the numbers of prisoner-of- war camps for Americans in Korea; their location; and, the number of prisoners housed in these camps. Some interrogation materials and fragmentary evidence on 71 American servicemen captured in Korea were found. Unfortunately, virtually nothing has been found to date on the Vietnam War. The only documents concerning the Vietnam War located to date relate to the fate of nine American deserters sent by the KGB to the USSR and on to neutral countries. The Russians have not been successful in recovering anything new or significant from conversations or eyewitnesses or participants in these events.

6. The Russians have appreciated the assistance of the U.S. side of the Commission for its willingness to provide assistance in searching for Russian prisoners and MIAs in Afghanistan. The Russians believe approximately 100 of them are still alive and that many of these are being held under inhumane conditions in prisons belonging to warring Afghani groups. The Russians, while appreciating the assistance offered to date, believe the U.S. could do more to assist in the liberation of Russian prisoners-of-war in Afghanistan.

Gen. Volkogonov testified that the six Americans recorded as having been in captivity in the Soviet Union in 1954 were held in separate camps and classified as special prisoners. Each was arrested in Europe for espionage or intelligence activities on behalf of the United States. At the time, any foreign citizen who was detained was automatically charged with espionage, according to Gen. Volkogonov, whether or not there was any substance to the charge. With respect to the fates of the six prisoners, Gen. Volkogonov testified:

. . . two people, Hopkins and Clifford. . . were held for eight years and subsequently shot. This is Mr. Ogins, who served eight years under an espionage sentence and then after his sentence expired he should have been released, but Abakumov, who was then Interior Minister, reported to Stalin that this was a person who had seen too much and proposed that he be liquidated, and Stalin gave the order allowing him to be executed. . .

Three of them were given back, were released to American representatives in Berlin. Subsequently, two died, one took Soviet citizenship, and the fate of another is still unknown.

Gen. Volkogonov provided to the Committee the names of Americans now living in Russia who are political refugees or voluntarily remaining in Russia. He also cited American citizens living in the former Soviet Union who were American citizens from childhood, but who ended up in the Soviet Union in the 1930's and were then forced to renounce their U.S. citizenship and become Soviet citizens. Many of these individuals passed through the prison camps and some died there. Some made their way back to the United States eventually. The Russians have identified five of these people now living in Russia, each of whom is elderly, and each of whom wishes to receive help in locating and contacting relatives in the United States.

Gen. Volkogonov also testified concerning the possibility that a secret camp exists or existed for American prisoners in Russia:

If you had asked me that question before 1985, I would have allowed for the possibility that such a secret camp could have existed. However, since 1985, such large and dramatic changes have taken place in our country that I can no longer imagine that it would be possible for such incidents or events to be concealed. . .

If there were a secret camp, or a jail, or even a single American held against his will secretly, we would know about it sooner or later. The moral climate in our country makes it, I believe, psychologically impossible for this information not to come to light.

I believe we will still find more information about the fate of Americans who were in the Soviet Union. We may find their graves or more information about their tragic fate. Not all the documents have yet been examined, but I can nearly exclude the possibility that we will find any live American being held in Russia against his or her will.

In closing, Gen. Volkogonov stated that he believes joint efforts will be necessary for another three to six months to complete the process of determining the fates of all American citizens located within the former Soviet Union, including those who have emigrated and those who have died. Gen. Volkogonov also said that:

It is possible that some may be disillusioned with the results of our efforts. However, we are convinced that we have done everything possible on this side to answer all questions submitted to us. You should also keep in mind that conducting this work is difficult while attempting to maintain the course of reform. The Government of Russia and President Yeltsin, personally, in spite of his severe work load and difficult problems, continue to devote enormous attention to this effort. President Yeltsin views the work of the Commission as a "test" of trust and willingness to work together and to forget forever the times when we were enemies.

Gen. Volkogonov's Letter of December 17

The Committee received a letter from Gen. Volkogonov dated December 17, 1992. The letter includes the following:

While working in the Presidential Archive, I made it a point to go through all documents which may have contained information on American POWs, including correspondence between Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, Kim Il- song and Chou En-lai, as well as correspondence with Soviet Ambassadors to Korea, China and Vietnam. These documents do not contain any evidence of American POWs being sent to the USSR.

U.S. POWs and Korea

Official Assessments

Defense Department efforts to analyze materials received by the Commission remain in progress. Gen. Loeffke told the Committee during his testimony that the effort to reach conclusions has been complicated by the official deceptions that characterize Soviet history:

They have lied to us, and they have said openly that they have lied to us. So we know if you develop that historically, they did keep some in World War II, they did keep them in the shootdowns, because they've already said that, that they had them. So if you develop that line, you could go in and say that we believe that they did that in Korea also. . . [the Defense Department is] holding a very conservative view until we can come to some very hard facts. . . [But] it's all possible. . .

The Russians have admitted that they interrogated U.S. POWs during the Korean War period. Testimony has differed, however, about whether the interrogations occurred in North Korea, near the Chinese border, or whether some occurred within the borders of the Soviet Union, as well. As Gen. Loeffke testified:

Al Graham and I were questioning this Colonel, and at the end of an hour and a half I asked if I could record this on tape, and we did, and he on tape said yes, I interrogated American POWs in Russian uniform. And he did it more than once. And he said his colleagues did it, too. . . His latest version, it is in Korea. And in all fairness to the Russians, he was in the Far East, and he says the Khabarovsk area. (Khabarovsk being a Russian base in Russian territory) So the Khabarovsk area is larger than the city of Khabarovsk. So it could have been in defense of him saying another area just besides the city, but he did mention a specific base which is in Russian territory.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Alan Ptak testified that, as of November, 1992, the Defense Department was still evaluating the information it had received concerning the possibility that some U.S. POWs may have been transferred to the Soviet Union or to China during the Korean War.

Assessment of Committee Investigator

Beginning in May, 1992, Al Graham, a Committee investigator, was posted to Moscow to undertake interviews, archival research, and related investigatory work under the aegis of the Commission. During that time, he arranged for and conducted interviews with Russian officials, citizens, and retired officers who served in Southeast Asia and Korea. During the Select Committee's hearing on November 10, 1992, Mr. Graham testified that Soviet military officers interrogated some U.S. POWs during the Korean War and that some of these interrogations may have taken place on Soviet territory.

According to Mr. Graham, one problem experienced by U.S. investigators in Russia was that several high-ranking Russian officials whom they interviewed subsequently changed their testimony:

. . . perhaps the most flagrant case of turnaround during a reinterview concerns a well-known Russian colonel, scholar, and renowned Far East expert, who was stationed at Khabarovsk from 1950 to 1954. This individual was asked by the chief of the general staff to review all documents on Korea. . . currently supposedly in their hands.

During the first interview with him conducted on August 19th, 1992, he told five Joint Commission representatives -- four U.S., one Russian -- that Soviet military specialists had been given approval to interrogate American servicemen in Korea, and that some American servicemen with experience, seniority, and specific specialties were selected for transfer to the U.S.S.R. for further interrogation.

He mentioned that in the confluence here between Russia, Manchuria, China and North Korea, there was . . . . a naval base called Posyet, which served as a transit point for the movement of Americans north by rail or plane to Khabarovsk, the Far East military district headquarters. He maintained that the number of Americans processed thorough Khabarovsk was in the hundreds and they were under KGB control, both during and after the interrogations. He did not know their fate after the interrogations.

He personally claimed to have interrogated two American POW's. One he recalls was a Lieutenant Colonel Black. Efforts were made according to the Colonel to recruit and gain cooperation of Americans. (During) a follow-up interview of this individual, on September 29, 1992, at which General Loeffke was present, he admitted he received a phone call from a Foreign Intelligence Service representative the night before. He then considerably modified his previous testimony, denying any knowledge of an American POW named Black and the fact that American POW's from the Korean War were interrogated by Soviets at Khabarovsk.

However, he did admit interrogating two American POW's in North Korea and asserted that there were anywhere from 10 to 25 Soviet interrogators involved in this process, indicating a large number of American POW's were interrogated during the Korean War.

He now maintained that the interrogation point, which was in existence for at least 18 months, was located at a juncture between North Korea, China, and the U.S.S.R. borders. He did not completely rule out that it may have been on Soviet territory.

According to Mr. Graham, immediately following the first interview with Col. Korotkov, the Russian side produced an additional witness who confirmed the use of questionnaires for obtaining information from American POWs in Korea, but who insisted that the interviews had been carried out primarily by Koreans in Korea. This witness said that no American POWs from the Korean conflict were taken to the USSR. Mr. Graham's conclusions, based on the conflicting statements received, was that:

Although we have no direct evidence to prove it, there appears to be a strong possibility that at least a handful of U.S. POWs, possibly more, were transferred to Soviet territory during the Korean War.

The Russian side will likely stick to its current line until the body of evidence gathered through a vigorous interview program forces the government and security services to re-evaluate their position.

Although doubtful that such individuals could have survived the rigors of the Soviet camp system this long, it is theoretically possible that one or more could still be alive. It is more likely that some former POWs. . . who chose to cooperate with the Soviets for whatever reason could be alive in Russia and do not desire their presence to be known.

Research and Analysis of Paul M. Cole, RAND Corp.

On November 10, 1992, the Committee received testimony from Dr. Paul M. Cole, an analyst with the International Policy Department of the RAND corporation. RAND has undertaken a project through the National Defense Research Institute, a federally-funded research and development center. Originally, the project was to review information concerning the fate of American POW/MIAs in Korea. In April, 1992, the project was expanded to include a study of evidence that American servicemen and civilians may have been transported to the Soviet Union or its allies during World War II, the early Cold War, or the Korean War.

Although the project is not yet complete, Dr. Cole was able to provide the Committee with an overview of the work done to date, as well as some conclusions. With regard to the Korean War, Dr. Cole concluded the following:

Concerning Korea, the record on individual MIA/POW cases is extremely detailed, and was originally organized chronologically and geographically before being reorganized alphabetically. The original chronological and geographic databases are now being recreated, and few questions would remain unanswered once the effort is completed.

Two groups of Korean War prisoners remain unaccounted for: prisoners who made it alive to a camp, and those who did not. Those who made it alive to a camp, but were not repatriated, are known as POW, body not recovered, or POW/BNR. The location and number of more than 2,000 POW/BNR remains can be estimated with great certainty, although the state of the remains is unknown. Prisoners who did not survive the time between capture and arrival at a camp, characterized by Dr. Cole as "post-capture killed, body not recovered" or PCK/BNR, should not in his view be characterized as POWs. Approximately 900 or more PCK/BNR's occurred during the Korean War, with the remains of those who died last located in scattered locations throughout North Korea.

The location of approximately 3,500 MIAs may never be determined because the U.S. has not been able to determine where they died. By contrast, the location of remains left in burial sites, UN cemeteries, and aircraft crashes on North Korean territory can be stated with precision.

Since 1953, the U.S. has received nearly 900 sets of unidentified remains from North Korea, collected by the North Koreans in a manner that has precluded association with any individual MIA, with the result that all of these names are still on the full list of 8,177, with the individuals buried in Hawaii without identification.

American POWs were transferred to the territory of Communist China during the Korean War to be interrogated by Russians and Chinese. The majority of these POWs were returned to camps in North Korea; those known to be held as political prisoners were repatriated in the mid-1950s. There is no documentary evidence suggesting Americans were left behind in China; however, interrogations and interviews offer some testimonial support for such allegations.

American POWs were interrogated by people identified by the POWs as Russians, but only a small percentage of U.S. POWS reported this type of contact. Evidence shows that perhaps two dozen repatriated American POWs were successfully recruited by foreign intelligence services. U.S. authorities were aware of this soon after the Korean War. Seven American missionaries who spent three years in a North Korean prison camp were repatriated in May 1953, through China, Moscow and Berlin, after having been held as internees. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Americans were transferred from Korea or China to the territory of the Soviet Union, however, to date this evidence is hearsay which is not supported by corroborative documentary evidence.

In response to questions, Dr. Cole stated that there is evidence, consisting of TFR interviews with prison guards and others, that some U.S. POWs may have been transferred to the Soviet Union during the Korean War. However, Dr. Cole expressed caution about making any firm judgments based on the information provided:

In this last trip to Moscow the Commission was presented various documents, some of which didn't even relate to POWs. But as a gesture, they were handed over to Ambassador Toon and to the commissioners. Well, right in those documents that were given to us in Russian and translated, it talks about how the information can be either changed, distorted and so forth, in order to keep the truth from anybody who might fall upon the documents. Now these documents go back to World War II, specifically I believe it was 1949. But nevertheless, there is a pattern here of deception on the part of the Russians, with a lot of their documentation. So in my judgment, we have to be very very careful before we make a judgment about an occurrence, or something like that, until we have documentary evidence, archival evidence, and sources.

In response to further questions, Dr. Cole testified that the total number of U.S. POWs who might have been transferred to Soviet or Chinese territory was certainly less than 100. He also noted that one of the documents provided to the U.S. by the Russians on this subject related to an Australian; and that other documents were interrogation transcripts that had been made by the Chinese and then summarized by the Russians. In addition, most of the individuals who had been interrogated by non-Korean officials were ultimately repatriated.

Dr. Cole testified that the RAND review of POW/MIA issues related to the Korean War was also subject to ambiguities because of inaccuracies in the original casualty data and because casualty reporting methods changed over time.

In addition to the losses in captivity and the difficulty of documenting the fates of American POWs who lost their lives as a result of criminal mistreatment by the Korean Communists, post-war records in the U.S. are, to quote Dr. Cole, "contradictory, ambiguous, inconsistent, or a mixture of any of these." According to Dr. Cole:

In 1991, the Department of Defense stated in testimony before Congress that 389 U.S. servicemen who had been POWs in North Korea had not been repatriated or otherwise accounted for by the Korean People's Army and the Chinese.

Yet according to Dr. Cole, casualty status data maintained by the U.S. government contradicts these figures. In fact, he says, the list of 389 contains the names of 197 MIAs, 180 Americans who may or may not have ever been prisoners, and one case which has in fact been resolved. According to Dr. Cole, "prisoner status means that the individual was lost under circumstances that were consistent with a probability of live capture. There is no evidence in many cases that those listed as POWs were ever seen alive in a POW camp." Dr. Cole notes, for example, that the majority of the 188 Army names on the list belonged to individuals who were lost during the first eight months of the Korean War. Given the brutality of the Koreans in this period, and the conditions of imprisonment for U.S. POWs at this time, according to Dr. Cole, "the likelihood of survival for this group was very low."

RAND also reviewed information concerning the alleged transportation of U.S. POWs to the USSR from Korea. It is well documented that there was a significant Soviet presence on the ground in North Korea during the war. In addition, some returning U.S. POWS and Army personnel reported having been questioned by Russian officers in North Korea or China. A 1974 Air Force assessment of the Korean War POW experience, quoted by Dr. Cole, described Soviet interrogations of U.S. POWS in Korea as follows:

Interrogators of three nationalities, Chinese, North Korean, and Caucasian (presumably Russian) questioned USAF personnel during the Korean conflict. The preponderance of interrogators were Chinese who, after their entry into the conflict in late October of 1950, took over the responsibility for POW from the Koreans. Evidence indicates that the Koreans reluctantly gave up this responsibility, and that often tense feelings rose concerning who was to have custody of a new POW. Not infrequently, POWs reported that they were captured by North Koreans and turned over to the Chinese only after much heated discussion and sometimes near violence between the two groups. In some cases, a POW remained in North Korean custody for prolonged periods of time.

The most detailed discussion of the interrogations now available is contained in the recent interview by Dr. Cole of Victor Alexandrovich Bushuyev, Deputy Chief of Intelligence for the 64th Soviet Air Corps. On September 16, 1992, Mr. Bushuyev made the following statement:

We had contacts with the American POWs, mainly the pilots. We weren't interested in anybody else. I was responsible for organizing the interrogations and for processing all of the information received during the interrogations.

How were the interrogations organized? All arrangements, the structure of the interrogation, its content etc., were completely in the hands of the Chinese. We prepared questions in advance. Then we gave the questions to the Chinese. They asked the questions while interrogating the American POWs. When I was there, I believe all American POWs were completely in Chinese hands on the territory of North Korea.

All American pilots, with no exception, would be interrogated in the town of Sinidju. It was the very northern most point in Korea, near the Yalu river across from An' Dung where we were stationed. There was a special building there--the interrogation point. Americans would be brought there. We could see it from An'Dung. We would go there about twice a week to accommodate the prisoners. Sometimes there were just a few of them so we didn't need to go.

I was responsible for the interrogations of the POWs, but neither I nor the translators ever saw any of the POWs with our own eyes. Contact on our level was completely prohibited. We only had to get questions ready and then receive the answers.

We would enter the building from a different side before the POWs were brought there. We would go to our room and would sit there very quietly. Only then would they bring in the POWs. We had no visual contact. We would sit behind the wall, a thin wooden wall, and the translators would sit with us. We heard everything. The interrogations were in English, or course.

We were prohibited from seeing the Americans . . . The Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow would give us questionnaires: ask this, ask that, whatever we thought was interesting. I don't want to offend the American pilots, mainly we would deal with the pilots, but they were of no value. They didn't know anything. They were average pilots, and good athletes.

I was there for more than one year, the most tense period. Practically all the POWs went through my hands, not in person but their files and interrogation materials. Several hundred of them. But, again I want to say that none of them was any serious value to us. We knew twice as much as they could tell us. . . Practically all of the American POWs belonged to the Chinese. The war was conducted not by the Koreans but by the Chinese and Soviets. The Koreans were under pressure and had no rights. They would just load and unload stuff, build roads, that sort of thing.

There was no need to bring Americans to Russia. Military personnel, location of bases and all that were already known. We had no questions of this sort. We had the planes as well, all their parts, so it didn't make any sense [to take pilots to Russia]. If someone had asked for political asylum we would have, but I haven't heard of any such cases. As far as I know, our counterintelligence people didn't express any particular interest in the pilots. We would have known this.

Regarding the issue of post-capture deaths of American MIA-POWs in the Soviet Union, Dr. Cole has stated the following:

I have interviewed two Soviet military advisers in Korea who had contact with two Americans POWs who were not repatriated. The first, tentatively identified as First Lieutenant Niemann, was definitely seen and perhaps interrogated by Soviet military advisors. Niemann, who is on the RAND and TFR lists, is listed in several records as deceased.

Another Soviet military adviser recalled having contact with "Lt. Colonel V. Black" in order to arrange an interview with Pravda. Colonel Vance E. Black of California, who has not been accounted for since he was shot down in May 1951, was seen alive by an American POW in Pyongyang in March 1952. Lt. Colonel Vance E. Black may be the "V. Black," who was identified in the Pravda article and seen by a Soviet military adviser.

According to a retired KGB Major General, Soviet intelligence wanted to recruit agents. George Blake's decision to work for the KGB, whether it was the result of recruitment or simply a walk-in, gave the KGB additional incentive to find other potential agents among the UN prisoner-of-war population. Army G-2 analyses of repatriated American POWs turned up an alarming number of cases that fit this pattern. In June 1954, the U.S. advised the Air Force that "evidence had been uncovered which concerned the assignment of Sabotage and Espionage missions to repatriated American prisoners of war during "Big and Little Switch," and that quite recently new cases of this type have been discovered." No evidence has yet been obtained that points toward a similar North Korean or Chinese interest in recruiting agents. There have been reports over the years that American POWs were used as guinea pigs in Sino-Soviet biological experiments. None of this has been documented thus far.

Intelligence reports located in the U.S. archives are nearly silent on the issue of whether American MIA-POWS were transferred to the territory of the USSR. If this activity took place, it was not discussed in Eighth Army G-2 daily reports or annual summaries. If this activity took place it was not widely known to repatriated POWs. Thus far only one repatriated POW affidavit has been located that mentions this activity.

In this affidavit, repatriated POW John T. Cain said that he had been told by a Nationalist Chinese officer that a U.S. helicopter pilot with the rank of Second Lieutenant had been taken to Russia in March, 1952. The Captain did not know the branch of service, and had communicated this information to POW Cain through "sign language, in broken English, and by pictures drawn on the ground then erased."

In the early and mid-1950's, according to Dr. Cole, the U.S. Government took the position that Americans may well have been transported from Korea or China to the territory of the USSR. For example, according to press reports, in May 1954, the U.S. Department of State delivered a note to the Soviet Foreign Ministry accusing the Soviets of having transferred American prisoners to the territory of the Soviet Union from Korea. The Soviet Government's rejection of the U.S. note was the first public notice that the U.S. had made such a protest. As Dr. Cole stated, "reports were apparently collected through U.S. intelligence and diplomatic channels that U.S. POWs during the Korean War were seen in Soviet camps."

Yet, the following year, the coordinated inter-agency position of the United States took precisely the opposite position, concluding:

With regard to the question of United States personnel captured in Korea, the Department of Defense has informed us that all American servicemen, missing or unaccounted for in that conflict, have been presumed dead. In close cooperation with the Department of Defense, however, we intend to continue to seek information from the Communists about their fate. Further, we have no evidence that any United States personnel captured in Korea were ever taken to the Soviet Union.

As Dr. Cole stated:

There has been no official explanation that squares these two contradictory positions. The possibility that American POWs were moved from Korea or China to the territory of the USSR cannot be ruled out. Thus far, no documentary evidence has been found to support such a position. Circumstantial evidence (viz., missing POWs, Sino-Soviet intelligence cooperation, Russian presence in Korean POW camps) and eyewitness testimony (former prisoners, Soviet military sources) point to the possibility that some American POWs may have been taken to the USSR. The motives for this activity have not been established.

Testimony of Gen. Volkogonov on Korea

In response to questions from the Committee, Gen. Volkogonov said that he had found no evidence to indicate that large numbers of U.S. POWs had been held in the Soviet Union during the Korean War. As he testified:

I have examined an enormous number of documents, including the documents of Stalin, Beria, and all the special services, and these are documents which would have contained evidence of American prisoners being taken through Soviet territory.

I want to bring your attention to one document emphasizing that the leaders of these secret agencies, the KGB, the NKVD, did not lie to one another. They told the truth to one another in the totalitarian system because it was extremely dangerous for them not to do so. They may have deceived America or the Soviet public, but among themselves they were forced to tell the truth.

And here is a document giving evidence to the following. This is a document of February 4, 1954 of Interior Minister Sergei Kruglov, written to him, indicating that in special prisons on the territory of the Soviet Union there are six American citizens being held in special prisons and camps of the ministry of internal affairs. This document was never intended to be made public. It was top secret, and it contains the names of these persons, but again, was purely for the internal use of the Interior Ministry.

And this was immediately after the war in Korea. Despite all of our work--and we have many archivists working, dozens of experts searching, on their own time on a volunteer basis, a great many archives. Despite this, we have found no confirmation of the presence of other American citizens located on the territory of the Soviet Union.

Gen. Volkogonov testified that apart from the February 4, 1954 document, the Russians have found only one other document concerning Korean-era U.S. POWs. This document concerned two U.S. airmen from a helicopter forced to land in North Korea, in behalf of whom the U.S. Embassy in Moscow requested Soviet assistance. According to Gen. Volkogonov, the Soviet government decided not to respond to the note. The Russians have no information on the fate of these two men.

With respect to the location of interrogations of U.S. prisoners during the Korean war, Gen. Volkogonov has told the Committee:

Based on testimony by G.I. Korotkov, who participated in interrogations of American POWs from the Korean War period, interrogations were conducted in an especially equipped site at a junction of the Korean, Chinese and Soviet borders. So far we have been unable to determine the exact location of this site. The Soviet side was not engaged in transporting American POWs to this site. Probably they were brought by Korean servicemen, who then took them away after interrogations.