We also report the passing of Alan Miller, on December 24, 1996 from complications of a kidney transplant. Mr. Miller was the brother of POW/MIA Curtis "Dan" Miller, and son of Nell Johnston, Smith.
To the Huffman and Miller-Johnston-Smith families we extend our deepest sympathies.
On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, a small group of businessmen, led by a good friend of the National Alliance of Families, left for an unprecedented trip to North Korea. Accompanying the delegation were investigative journalist Mark Sauter and former POW Capt. Eugene "Red" Mc Daniel. We don't know what the businessmen discussed, but we can assure you, Mr. Sauter and Capt. Mc Daniel discussed the subject near and dearest to our hearts. We thank those involved in this effort and we thank the North Koreans for their willingness to meet with this delegation.
FBIS Report dated December 12th, 1996 - "A man claiming to be a North Korean Defector said he once lived with American and South Korean Prisoners of War whose names were formally verified as Missing in Action (MIA) from the 1950 - 1953 Korean War.
Kim Yong-Hwa, who came to Seoul via China, said he met an American named John Smith (Phonetic) during a training session in May 1971 at Taechon Airfield in North Pyongan Province. Kim said he spent 40 days with the American, who was about 1.55CM tall, slender with a small face. Smith told him he was caught with another colleague while fighting at Changjin, South Hamgyong Province in North Korea, one of the first battles of the Korean War. His colleague had died, according to what Smith told Kim.
Smith spent time doing translations and menial labor, Kim said, and he talked about wanting to marry although he had given up hope of ever returning to the United States. The Korea - U.S. Combined Forces Command said it has found "John S. Smith" in the list of American MIAs and started an investigation to verify Kim's claim.
Kim also said he lived in the same village for 20 years with two South Korean POWs --- Kim Kap-Saeng and Yun Se-In -- whose names were also verified as participants of the war, now classified as casualties of war......
.... He said letters from his family in 1993 indicated Kim Kap-Saeng may still be alive......"
Wall Street Journal, Dec. 19, 1996 - In an article titled "America's Cambodian Coda" author Nancy De Wolf Smith wrote of a State Department funded study to document the genocide of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot. We applaud the good intentions that led to this study. However, like all government projects this one seems to have developed a life of its own with information, POW/MIA documentation, being withheld from the U.S. government. The documentation is being withheld not by the Cambodian government, but by the man appointed to head the study Ben Kiernan, an Australian academic.
Last year, the Cambodia Research Project of Yale University was awarded $500,000 to document Khmer Rouge Atrocities. According to Ms. De Wolf Smith "...things went sour almost from the beginning, when the State Dept. chose Mr. Kiernan as lead investigator, despite the fact that before revising his opinion he had spent most of the mid-1970's when the Khmer Rouge was in power, extolling its ideology and trying to discredit reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities."
Ms. De Wolf Smith continued "Who could have guessed that today, with the projects public research funds exhausted, Ben Kiernan would have the upper hand in a battle with the Defense Department and the families of Americans missing from the Indochina war?"
"...Researchers working under Mr. Kiernan came into possession of a huge cache of previously unexamined documents in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh and the Pentagon was notified that the material might contain information relevant to the search for American MIAs from the Vietnam era."
The article continued "Cambodia has long been considered pretty much a lost cause where leads about American Indochina war dead were concerned. The sudden prospect of reopening files on at least 76 Americans was like a gift from on high."
The article continues "By spring, the DPMO had launched a Cambodia Research Initiative with plans to find an expert academic investigator to work alongside Mr. Kiernan's people in Phnom Penh. In June, the Pentagon broke the hopeful news to the annual convention of the National League of POW/MIA Families. The families cheered. [Note: this information was not presented at the DPMO briefing held for the National Alliance of Families.]
They're not cheering anymore. Within days of the June convention, in fact, the word had leaked out that something was terribly wrong, that Ben Kiernan had "dropped the hammer," as one interested outside observer put it. That Mr. Kiernan was refusing - presumably with Yale's blessing - to share his treasure trove of documents with the MIA/POW researchers. We may never know why."
According to Ms. De Wolf Smith "...State - which insists this is a minor spat - is not alone on the hot seat. Now people are starting to ask what on earth the Pentagon is doing and how the department charged with defending America can't even defend its right of access to the fruits of research funded by another U.S. agency. But most of the anger is radiating in the direction of New Haven. "It's obscene," says one insider. "Here's this Ben Kiernan telling all the families of MIAs, 'Screw you,' and yet it's their tax dollars that are paying his salary."
The article ends on a pessimistic note offering little hope of the POW/MIA material ever reaching DPMO and the families. "There is only a slim hope for the future. Mr. Kiernan was so angry after being contacted by a reporter that the folks over at the Pentagon are hunkered down in the protective no-confrontation position, with their lips zipped. And even if some general gets fed up with being pushed around by an Australian leftist on America's payroll, Mr. Kiernan's allies are not afraid of the big guns. They can try, but they won't win, boasted one. "Not much gets imposed on Yale University."
Appearing on the same page as this article, is a response, from Mr. Ben Kiernan, to another of Ms. De Wolf Smith's articles dated October 28th. In his response Mr. Kiernan strongly denies withholding access to POW/MIA material. He refers to Ms. De Wold Smith's original article as "embarrassingly ill-informed, inaccurate and intentionally unfair..." Mr. Kiernan goes on to state "...On Sept. 12, I had in fact offered further cooperation by inviting a Pentagon
commissioned researcher to carry our research in our archives in January 1997. Gen. James W. Wold, deputy assistant secretary of defense (POW/missing personnel affairs), wrote me on Oct. 23, accepting my offer of further cooperation and congratulating the Cambodia Genocide Program for uncovering "an astonishing amount of information" and "for your hard work and dedication on behalf of the Cambodian people and all of us who need to know more about the Cambodian holocaust.." Mr. Kiernan concluded "...In an article published three days later, Ms. Smith, who had mysteriously not contacted me for six weeks, launched an extraordinary, libelous personal attack, brimming with malicious falsehoods about my work and career.
Incredibly, she also falsely accused me of withholding cooperation from Pentagon researchers. Your newspaper owes me an immediate, unambiguous apology."
We find it interesting that Mr. Kiernan's letter appears on the same page as Ms. De Wolf Smith, December 19th article. As demonstrated by the quotes above Ms. De Wolf Smith does not back down from her position that Mr. Kiernan is indeed withholding POW/MIA related information from DPMO and ultimately the families.
Someone is inaccurately presenting the facts in this matter. Is it Ms. De Wolf Smith or Mr. Kiernan? We don't know the answer to that question. We do know it is a question that needs immediate answers.
We ask that you contact your congressmen, senators and local media. Ask that they look into this situation. If Ms. De Wolf Smith's accusations are correct, Congress must demand immediate access to the POW/MIA related material uncovered during a federally funded study. If Mr. Kiernan statement of cooperation is correct, Congress must monitor this situation, making sure that all POW/MIA material is turned over to the families involved.
Address your letters to: Senator Name, United States Senate, Washington D.C. 20510, and Congressman Name, United States House of Representatives, Washington D. C. 20515
December 9th 1996 From UPI - "Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian has given (Monday) Defense Secretary William Perry what appear to be dogtags and a canteen from the crew of a B-24 that crashed in China in 1944. American POW/MIA officials plan to visit Beijing next week to retrieve the remains of the airmen, a Pentagon spokesman says."
From the Associated Press by Robert Burns - "Five U.S. military dog tags recovered in a mountain ravine in China were from American airmen whose B-24 bomber was reported lost in 1944, Pentagon officials say. Chinese President Jiang Zemin turned over photographs of the dog tags, as well as a videotape of the crash site, to President Clinton when the two met in the Philippines last month. Two actual dog tags were presented to Defense Secretary William Perry when he met his Chinese counterpart at the Pentagon this week. The 10 men aboard the lost B-24 were never found and were presumed killed....
A U.S. search team also will visit the remote crash site, probably early in 1997, to try to find and recover more remains. Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Defense POW-MIA Office, said officials had located the original Army report of the lost aircraft and verified the five names.... The 1944 War Department report said the B-24 bomber, with a crew of 10 aboard, took off at 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 31, 1944, from a 14th Air Force base at Liuchow, China....
The pilot of the lost B-24 was 2nd Lt. George H. Pierpont and the co-pilot was 2nd Lt. Franklin A. Tomenendale, according to Army records. The navigator was 2nd Lt. Robert L. Deming, the bombardier was 2nd Lt. George A. Ward, and the engineer was Staff Sgt. Anthony W. DeLucia. The radio operator was Sgt. Ellsworth V. Kelley, and the radar observer was Pfc. Fred P. Buckley. The three gunners were Staff Sgt. William A. Drager, Sgt. Robert L. Kearsey, and Pvt. Vincent J. Netherwood."
December 20th, 1996 From Reuters - "The United States has opened talks on Most Favored Nation (MFN) status for Laos and a draft text of a proposed pact is being prepared, a statement from the U.S. embassy in Vientiane said on Friday.
The MFN talks were held in the Laotian capital from December 12-13 by teams led by between U.S. Trade Representative for Asia, Joseph Damond, and director of the Lao Foreign Trade Department, Leaume Nhongvongsithi. "During the meeting, both sides explained their trade and investment regimes and exchanged information on the proposed trade agreement," the statement said. "The Americans will now take the information back to Washington and draft the text of a proposed agreement which will be discussed at the next round of talks in early 1997," it added."
Did the issue of our Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, in Laos, enter into this discussion? We doubt it.
U.S. SOLDIER DIES IN HANOI - 14 Dec 96 Knight-Tribune service - Hanoi ---- "A U.S. soldier in Hanoi to search for remains of U.S. servicemen missing from the Vietnam War was found dead in his hotel room, the U.S. Embassy said. Earl Krepp, 28, a U.S. Army Specialist from Huntington Beach California, apparently died Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.
Vietnamese and U.S. officials investigating the case said the death appeared alcohol-related. An autopsy is expected. Other soldiers found Krepp's body Wednesday when they entered his room after he failed to answer knocks on his door, embassy said in a statement. Krepp was based in Honolulu at the Army's Central Identification Laboratory. He had been in Vietnam since early November as part of a team excavating sites around the country.
We at the National Alliance of Families extend our deepest sympathies to the family of Earl Krepp. As we have said in the past, we have the utmost respect and appreciation for the field investigators at JTF-FA. Our problem is with the policy and decision makers who, on many occasions, ignore the information provided by the hard working field investigators.
From Reuters - SYDNEY, Jan 1 (Reuter) - "Australia considered joining the United States in covert bombing raids in Laos during the Vietnam War, but decided against it because it feared it could not keep it secret, according to 1966 Australian Cabinet documents. The documents, released on Wednesday by the Australian Archives under a 30-year secrecy rule, said the then Australian government of prime minister Harold Holt was under pressure from the United States to join the secret air war over neutral Laos. The plan put to Australia was for it to send its eight Sabre air force jets based at Ubon in Thailand on missions in support of U.S. raids against North Vietnamese supply lines, according to media reports of the Cabinet documents...."
"The United States made a formal approach to Australia join the raids in a letter dated December 1965 through General Hunter Harris, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Air Force."
We sure like Australia's 30 year declassification rule. While the U.S. govenment has declassification laws, they don't seem to be obeying them and they contintue to ignore two Presidential Executive Orders to Declassify all POW/MIA related documentation. Makes you wonder.....
From Reuters - Jan 2, 1997 By Jim Wolf - "The Central Intelligence Agency said Thursday it had begun a declassification review of two vast bodies of documents that could shed new light on the Cold War and may open up many secrets. The reviews involve all records that flowed in and out of the office of the director of central intelligence for the past 50 years, as well as all CIA studies on the former Soviet Union from the spy agency's inception in 1947....
...The CIA declined to cite a target for making public the eligible parts of this material, but said its long-delayed release of files from another major declassification project -- involving 11 key Cold War covert actions -- would begin in a matter of weeks, "subject to final review by senior officials....."
"Among the other Cold War actions due for declassification review are activities in support of democracy in France and Italy in the 1940s and 1950s, insurgencies in Indonesia and Tibet in the 1950s and 1960s, secret operations against North Korea during the Korean War and against Communist forces in Laos during the Vietnam War. John Lewis Gaddis, a leading Cold War historian who is a former member of the historical review panel, said he would not be satisfied with the CIA's declassification effort until he saw what they actually turned over to the National Archives, the independent agency that catalogues government documents...."
"The proof is going to be in the pudding," he said in a telephone interview from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. "The real issue is when are actual documents going to show up at the National Archives, as opposed to the CIA's own highly selective publications of historical materials ... What a historian wants is to see the archives."
- LOS ANGELES, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- "The Los Angeles Times reports more than a dozen non-citizens have admitted voting in an election that included a tight Orange County race between defeated Republican Congressman Robert Dornan and Democratic representative-elect Loretta Sanchez.
The newspaper report Friday lends some credence to Dornan's allegations of voter fraud. Shortly after the Nov. 5 election, he claimed Sanchez won the 46th Congressional District race because Democrats and Hispanic groups registered non-citizens to vote...."
"Eighteen candidates for U.S. citizenship told the Times they registered with the help of Latino civil rights organization Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and voted even though they had not finished the naturalization process...."
"The House of Representatives and the Orange County District Attorney's office have not completed official investigations into the allegations of voter fraud. But Michael Schroeder, Dornan's attorney and vice chairman of the California Republican Party, told the Times his investigators have identified as many as 1,000 ballots cast by non-citizens or convicted felons."
"After a ballot recount Dec. 20 confirmed Sanchez's victory by 979 votes, Dornan's attorney Bill Hart said the real issue was making sure the people who voted were entitled to vote. Ultimately, the House can decide which politician gets the Congressional seat."
On December 30th, 1996 a New York Post editorial titled "Bob Dornan's Not Out of It Yet" stated "Now, 19 illegal voters don't a stolen election make. Not necessarily, anyway. But Dornan says his lawyers have uncovered more than 3,500 potential fraudulent ballots, more than enough to overcome Sanchez's declared margin of victory; indeed there were 1,985 more ballots counted than the number of people who signed in to vote -- fully 1,000 more than the number upon which the election turned." The editorial concluded saying "Washington's liberals may soon find that their celebrating was a tad premature. In fact, there's a good chance they may still have B-1 Bob to kick them around some more." We sure hope so.
-- On Dec. 17th, 1996 the N.Y. Post published a commentary written by Monica Crowley. Ms. Crowley identified herself as "...I worked with him during the last of his post presidential years." The theme of her commentary is that the "Latest Nixon tapes should be heard in perspective." We commented on those tapes in the Dec. 7th edition of Bits 'N' Pieces.
Ms. Crowley related how President Nixon often gave outlandish orders which his staff routinely ignored. According to Ms. Crowley "Haldeman often remarked that when Nixon gave such outrageous instructions, he gave the President time to reflect on what he had said, Nixon rarely followed up - because he never intended for these so-called "orders to be pursued." Ms. Crowley goes on to describe one such "order" she ignored. "...he instructed me to leak to the press things he had done, like his written answers to Sen. John Kerry's questions about Vietnam MIAs and POWs -- only to revoke the order an hour or so later."
We wonder what irritated President Nixon to the point of ordering his answers to the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs be leaked to the media? We also wonder why he changed his mind? We continue to wonder why White House tapes of conversation on POW/MIA matters during the period January - December 1973 remain hidden from public and congressional examination?
- the family of POW/MIA Floyd Warren Olsen. Olsen was part of a 6 man helicopter crew shotdown over South Vietnam on April 21, 1968. His home city of record is Wheaton, Illinois. If you have information on the Olsen family, contact Dovie Huffman at 817-797-4202
Since the expansion of our E-mail service, our exposure on line and the inception of our Website, the Alliance is receiving a steady stream of requests for information on POW/MIAs. Many come from individuals who wear bracelets. These notes are very touching and range from "I never take my bracelet off" to "each year I light a candle." We think the families of the missing should know when an inquiry is made. So we are going to add a new feature to Bits 'N' Pieces titled "They Are Not Forgotten."
At this time, we ask that family members interested in contact with those who wear the bracelet bearing their loved ones name, provide the Alliance with their address and/or phone number and an authorization to release that information. You can fax or e-mail the information. Unfortunately, we did not keep a record of all requests made from the beginning. Today we post the most recent requests information on missing servicemen.
- John R. Adams, Steven Adams, Timothy Bodden, Michael Bouchard, James Griffin, Donald Hall, Samuel Hewitt, Roderick Lester, Paul Milus, Kelly Patterson, Charles Rowley, and John Towle.
Reminder - our annual forum is scheduled for June 19th - 21st, 1997 in Washington D.C. Please make plans to attend.
Contact us here!