Were American POWs captured during the Korean War, Cold War and Vietnam transferred to the former Soviet Union?

Earlier this year a long time government employee involved with the POW/MIA issue resigned. In his good-bye note to the “few good people left in DPMO,.” he provided a laundry list of DPMO failures. We initiated email correspondence and met with this individual twice. Our email correspondence continues.

Our Sept. 11^th Bits N Pieces was based on information obtained from our meetings and correspondence. Among the topics we asked our source to comment on was the transfer issue. We received the following response.

“Begin Source: When one considers the number of reports to the effect that American POWs were transferred from Vietnam to Russia, you simply have to question whether the reporting is true or not. It makes sense that the Russians would have considered moving POWs from Vietnam to interrogate them further as to any technological expertise that was lacking in Russia. DPMO’s JCSD personnel have investigated some of these reports to an extent, but without adequate investigative resources and other support from within DPMO, have made little headway.”

“The first of these reports surfaced during the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW /MIA Affairs hearings when the FBI provided information to the committee from one of their sources to the effect that POWs had been transferred. DIA personnel paid little attention to the report, and after the formation of DPMO in 1993, no effort was ever made to go back to the FBI source for further information. “

“The Russian head of the joint US - Russian commission to investigate the POW issue indicated in writing that he had seen documentation about such a transfer program; then the Russian President indicated that the transfers may have taken place. DPMO then interviewed a Russian living in Israel who stated he was told about such a program when he visited Vietnam and Laos with Russian journalist Schederov during the 1960's. “

“Until these various reports are subjected to thorough, in-depth investigations, the collection of reporting has to be deemed compelling. Investigations into these reports have to be initiated with the governments in SEA. [End Source]

Were American POWs captured during the Korean War, Cold War and Vietnam transferred to the former Soviet Union? Lets take a closer look.

Russian Colonel Korotkov says – POWs from Korea Taken to the Soviet Union....

Recants after call from KGB

From the Biweekly Report of Task Force Russia dated 15-28 August 1992 - “During the reporting period, the Moscow Office conducted the most significant interview to date. Col. (Ret.) G.I. Korotkov, currently employed by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, provided a wealth of information and leads.

SYNOPSIS: Korotkov stated the following:

--U.S. POW's from the Korean War were transferred to the Soviet Union, where they were imprisoned and interrogated.

--He personally interrogated two U.S. POW's, although he could not recall their names.

--He recalled the name "1TC Black" from among the POW's.

--Khabarovsk was a transit and interrogation point for the POW's.

--The POW's were under the control of the N~JD, although GRU interrogators had professional access to them at Khabarovsk.

--He believed the number of POW's processed through Khabarovsk was in the hundreds.

--He identified the channels through which interrogation reports were forwarded.

--The Soviets attempted to "turn" U.S. prisoners, but were relatively unsuccessful in comparison to their experience with German POW's from WWII.

--He asserted that the declassification process under the General Staff, which had targeted documents relative to the Commission's charter, has essentially ceased functioning since LTG Lobov's dismissal.

--He asserted that pertinent collected records are being held in the General Staff headquarters and that the current military leadership views their declassification as a low priority.

--He identified five archives as critical to the Commission's efforts:

             (1) the External Policy Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

            (2) the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense at Podol'sk,

(3) the Archives of the Main Political Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, which are held separately, (4) the Archives of the KGB, and (5) the Archives of the Politburo/Central Committee.

--He implied that some records dealing with U.S. POW's of the Korean War period may have been intentionally destroyed.

--He also identified potentially-lucrative lower level and out-of-channels archives.

--He identified individuals who might be useful to TFR's future efforts.

--He provided additional experiential and second-hand details on the handling of U.S. POW's.

ASSESSMENT: Interviewers assessed Korotkov as highly credible. His testimony is important not only for the valuable details highlighted above, but because he directly contradicts previous Russian assertions, both direct and oblique, that no U.S. POW's from the Korean War were ever transported to or held on Soviet soil. Historical sources available to the Washington office circumstantially corroborate Korotkov's specific claim that U.S. POW's were held in the vicinity of Khabarovsk. Further, an interview conducted by the Washington Office with an emigre source also surfaced the claim that "Americans" were held in a camp between Khabarovsk and the Komsomolsk region; however this source could provide no eyewitness details.

The Korotkov Recant - from the report of “The Transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs To The Soviet Union” – “In his first interview, Colonel Korotkov stated that he had interviewed a U.S. officer, LTC Black. We believe that this may have been USAF LTC Vance Eugene Black who was reported by other POWs to have died of mistreatment and malnutrition in a North Korean POW camp. Another retired Soviet officer, GRU Colonel Aleksandr Semyonovich Orlov, stated that he had arranged for an interview by a Pravda correspondent with LTC Vance Black. In his subsequent interview with MG Loeffke, Colonel Korotkov denied having interrogated LTC Black, stating that he perhaps we had confused the name with a black POW. Task Force Russia interviewers, however, were adamant that he had been referring to the family name "Black" rather than to the black race. In this second interview, Colonel Korotkov remembered that the first officer he interviewed had been an Army first lieutenant, most likely from the 24th Infantry Division, but that he could remember nothing else. He had better recall about an Air Force pilot because he found much in common with him, such as color of hair (light), height (about 6'2"), rank (captain). He also said the pilot was about 28 to 30 years old. Colonel Korotkov also stated that while he was assigned to the project of interrogating Americans in the Far East during the Korean War, he also interrogated Japanese POWs, captured in World War II, and still held in Soviet custody. Here is an admission that foreign POWs were part of an overall system of exploitation.

Colonel Korotkov changed his statement in a subsequent interview with Major General Bernard Loeffke, former Director of Task Force Russia (now Joint Commission Support Branch - JCSB), in September 1992 after being contacted by a member of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. He then stated that the interrogations took place somewhere undefined, which he could not remember, in the Chinese-Korean-Soviet tri-border area. In MG Loeffke's words:

“Since that encounter, the colonel changed his story as to the location where he interrogated U.S. POWs. Even after having been contacted by the KGB official, COL Korotkov agreed to answer questions on tape in front of Russian LTC Osipov, General Volkogonov's assistant. This interview took place on September 29. He said he and other Soviet officers in Soviet and at times Chinese uniforms had interrogated U.S. POWs over a 1-2 year period (1951-52) in an area near the borders of USSR, Korea and China. In this new version, Korotkov claims that he did not know, if that particular location was in Russia or not. The important point is that he would not say that it was not inside Russia. In all previous interviews he had specifically said that these interrogations took place in Khabarovsk. The colonel was obviously willing to oblige the security services by not saying that it took place in Khabarovsk; but he was not willing to say that it did not take place on Russian soil. The colonel's official statement on tape, and in front of a Russian officer assigned-to the-Joint POW/MIA Commission cannot easily be refuted. Korotkov is a respected military officer with prestigious academic credentials.”

“What Colonel Korotkov did not do was to deny that Soviet military personnel, including himself, were directly involved in the interrogation of a "large" number of American POWs during the Korean War. In a subsequent videotaped interview recorded by Mr. Ted Landreth, an Australian journalist, Colonel Korotkov clearly stated that American POWs had been taken "through Khabarovsk" into the camp system. Their ultimate destination he did not know.”

The Plotnikov Interview – from a report titled “The Transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs To The Soviet Union” prepared by the Joint Commission Support Branch, Research and Analysis Division DPMO dated 26 August 1993, states: “Colonel Georgii Plotnikov was asked hypothetically if it would have been possible to effect such a transfer without GRU officers being aware of it. "Yes," he answered without hesitation. "It would have been a KGB [MGB] operation in cooperation with North Korean intelligence. The Soviet Army had no Gulag and was not prepared to deal with a stream of prisoners. The KGB [MGB] could do all of these things." The Soviets had the capability to move POWs, the Koreans would have permitted such an operation, and transport across the PRC would have been no problem, in Plotnikov's view. "At the time there was train service from Pyongyang to Moscow with a stop in China." The POWs, he stated, "would have been loaded into trucks with canvas drawn around them, then transferred to trains at night . . . The North Koreans hated Americans. They would have cooperated in such an operation if asked by the Soviets. The North Koreans could have not said no to a Soviet request."

“In Plotnikov's view, "specialized organs" in the Soviet Union would have made requests for particular types of Americans. "Design Bureaus might have made such requests," he said. The Deputy Chairman of the KGB [MGB] would be the lowest political level that could have approved such an operation that kept the GRU out of the picture. Grabbing American POWs [would have been a] political decision in response to a request. Infantry was of no interest to Soviet intelligence. There would have been no regular transfer. American POWs would have been moved as specialists fell into the camps. They would be identified and moved. The interest would not have been in people who operated equipment as much as it would have focused on people who understood the principles of how things worked....”

The Manchouli Transfer - In 1954, then Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles recognized information on the transfer of POW's through China to the Soviet Union during the Korean War was reliable. In message traffic Dulles stated “reports have now come attention United States Government which support earlier indications that American Prisoners of War Korea had been "transported into Soviet Union and are now Soviet custody. Request fullest possible information these POW's and their reparation earliest possible time."

The 1954 cable marked "Secret" bearing the Dulles, name (Note: Cable below is reproduced as is - with all typos and misspellings) states; "According Despatch 1716 from Hong Kong airpouched you a recently arrived Greek refugee from Manchuria reported seeing several hundred American POW's being transferred Chinese trains to Russian trains Manchouli late 1951 and early 1952. Some POW's wore sleeve insignia indicating they were Air Force non-coms. Great number Negro troops also observed. This report corroborates previous indications UNC POW to might have been shipped to Siberia during Korean hostilities."

"United States has been greatly concerned general subject UNC personnel who may still be Communist custody. Department has just accepted British offer make representations Peiping behalf UNC personnel who may be Chinese Communist custody. Question raising this matter informally Geneva under careful consideration."

"Unless you perceive objection request you approach highest available level Foreign Ministry and leave Aide Memoire undicating (sic) reports have now come attention United States Government which support earlier indications that American Prisoners of War Korea had been "transported into Soviet Union and are now Soviet custody. Request fullest possible information these POW's and their reparation earliest possible time."

"In your discussion with Foreign Office, you may desire inform Soviets without revealing source that we have reliable accounts transfers POW's Manchouli."

"Prisoner of War Not for Direct Repatriation" -- On May 16th, 1954, the Chief of the Army's Legal Division, Col. John K. Weber submitted a memorandum regarding statements made by Lee Sang Cho. The memorandum is written on the letterhead of "Headquarters United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission." According to the memorandum Mr. Lee made the following statement, during the 42nd meeting of the Military Armistice Commission.

"The prisoners of war of your side once held by our side were already completely repatriated in accordance with the Armistice Agreement. The prisoner of war not for direct repatriation are held by our side pending the final disposition of the entire prisoner of war question...."

"There is one feature about the language used by the enemy which definitely should be explored by us. In all the communications and statements made by the enemy, a singular phrasing has been used. That expression in substance is: 'prisoners of war not for direct repatriation.'"

"The Armistice Agreement refers to such prisoners as 'those prisoners of war who have not exercised their right to be repatriated.' It is here pointed out with much emphasis that the expression 'prisoners of war not for direct repatriation could included not only such prisoners who had not exercised their right to be repatriated, but others whom the enemy had decided were not for direct repatriation."

"It is my thought that the Chinese and Korean language versions used in the Armistice Agreement should be compared with the Chinese and Korean language versions used by Lee Sang Cho in his letter of 26 January 1954, and in the Lee Sang Cho statement at the 42nd meeting of the MAC. If the Armistice language is found to be substantially different from these later statements we have a very substantial and embarrassing opening to follow-up on the more than three thousand prisoners who have not been returned."

What was the State Department saying in 1955 - A memo from the office of the Secretary of Defense, dated Sept. 16th, 1955 and signed by G.B. Erskine, general USMC, Assistant to the secretary of defense, special operations, on the subject of Geneva Negotiations on Prisoners of War, states;

“In accordance with telephonic conversations with representatives of this office today, it is the position of the Department of Defense that the Chinese Communists should account to the U.S. for the ultimate fate of all 450 U.S. armed forces personnel.”

The memo also discusses what are now known as Cold War losses stating: “There is also evidence based upon radar plots and intercepted voice messages, as well as upon the recovery of casualties, that a small number of Air Force crews whose missions involved flights over the Sea of Japan during the Korean War were shot down by aircraft based in the Soviet Far East, some of whom are probably held in the Soviet Union. These cases (some 33) are of course not directly relevant to the current negotiations at Geneva. The missions on which these aircraft were flying, while related to the Korean War, are highly classified and the names of these individuals have never been included on any lists for which we have demanded an accounting from the Chinese Communists.”

As for the possibility of POW’s held back by the Soviets, the memo states: “The U.S. should not be surprised, particularly in light of Japanese and German experiences with the Soviets in World War II, if a number of completely unrecorded Americans are ultimately found to be alive or to have been alive and in Communist hands. Such individuals do not appear on the list of 450 nor on any other list which has ever been presented. Nor is there any significant evidence available at this time that such individuals exist. Neither do we suggest that any action can be taken with regard to this possibility.”

Russian Memoirs - Best described as a diary, the memoirs provide detailed information obtained through various sources of American POWs from World War II, Korea and the Cold War transferred to the former Soviet Union. According to a February 26, 2000 Associated Press article by Robert Burns "the assertions, while not confirmed, appear to support, and in some important respects strengthen, a case the Pentagon has been building for several years: U.S. servicemen in the 1940s and 1950s were silently swallowed up in the U.S.S.R.'s brutal gulag system of forced labor, never to be heard from again."

"There has to be something to this,'' said Norman Kass, who helped translate the unpublished personal memoir from Russian and interviewed the author on behalf of the Pentagon agency in charge of Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Affairs.... "

"...the memoir is exceptional because it provides names of individual servicemen. For example, it identifies by name 22 men said to have been held in late 1951 at the Kirovskij Mining camp near the Kamenka river in the sub-arctic pine forests of the Krasnoyarsk Region. The memoir's author cites secondhand accounts of area residents seeing the Prisoners, ``wearing bare threads and half-frozen,'' being led from the Kirovskij Camp Along a road to an undetermined destination - ``a dead-end....''

"...Kass said that although the events described by the author have not been independently verified, he believes the man is credible... There is no question that he spent many years in the Gulag network of forced labor camps. The man, now in his late 70s, was exiled to Siberia and worked as a permafrost engineer in the early 1950s near the Kirovskij Mining camp where the 22 Americans were said to have been held."

"In the translation from Russian, only one of the 22 names can be matched with a missing American servicemen. He is listed in Army casualty records as Chan Jay Park Kim, a Hawaiian of Korean descent. Kim was a private first class in the 24th infantry division's 34th infantry regiment, captured by North Korean forces on July 8, 1950. On that day, the 34th infantry collapsed in its defense of the town of Ch'onan south of Seoul, giving the advancing north korean army entry to most of the rest of southern Korea."

"According to Pentagon records, fellow members of the 34th infantry who survived captivity in Korea told Army debriefers that once he became a POW, Kim tried to mask his ethnic background by using the name George Leon. It is that name which appears among the 22 on the list from the Soviet labor camp..... Army casualty records list Kim as having died in Korea in January 1951, but his body was not recovered.... "

"...another section of the memoir describes the fate of 10 members of a 12-man crew of a U.S. Air Force B-29 reconnaissance plane, which was shot down by Soviet forces over the Sea of Japan on June 13, 1952. American search and rescue teams recovered no remains from the plane, and in July 1956 the U.S. government appealed to Moscow for information about the crew. The State Department note said an officer believed to have been a member of the crew was seen in October 1953 in a Soviet hospital north of the Siberian Port of Magadan. The Soviets replied that no American servicemen were on Soviet territory. "

"The Russian emigre said that in the 1980s he was told by an associate with extensive experience in the far eastern reaches of Siberia that he had learned the names of two of the captured B-29 fliers: ``Bush and Moore.'' the B-29's Commander was Maj. Samuel Busch. A crew member was Master Sgt. David L. Moore. The memoir indicates that Busch and Moore were killed - possibly beaten to death - in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, apparently a short time after their capture. Eight surviving crew members were put in solitary confinement in a prison in Svobodnyi, a city northwest of Khabarovsk near the Chinese border, it said. " [Note: This is the same location mentioned by Col. Korotkov as a transit and interrogation point for POWs.]

More On The Memoirs - from the Detroit News, July 9, 2000 by John Omicinski - “U.S. investigators say they have stronger evidence than ever that American soldiers missing in action -- including spy pilots shot down during the Cold War -- were held in the Soviet "gulag archipelago" of prison camps. "We believe the sheer volume of reports suggests it may likely have happened," said James MacDougall, senior analyst with a U.S.- Russia Cold War working group seeking information on Prisoners of War and servicemen Missing in Action.”

“...The trail of the Americans through the Siberian taiga has run hot and cold, said MacDougall. But a "memoir" turned over to U.S. officials and reviewed by Gannett News Service contains new information and at least one firsthand sighting. U.S. officials won't name the author, a Russian who spent decades in Siberian "internal exile."

“The author reports seeing an emaciated American named "Dale" in January of 1953. The encounter occurred at a uranium mine on the island of Rybak off the Soviet Pacific coast, where Dale had been sent by Soviet jailers to make engineering repairs. Dale, the memoir said, reported that more Americans were imprisoned at Strelka, on the Yenisei River basin in central Russia near Novosibirsk. Officials confirm that an aviator named Dale remains among the missing.”

“The writer also reported seeing 14 American prisoners of war held by the Soviets in 1948. The Soviets, according to the document, took them from their Japanese captors when World War II ended. He said he saw U.S. personnel emerge from "out of the hold of a ship transporting slaves" at a pier in the Bay of Nagaev on Russia's Pacific coast.”

“Once-secret State Department files at the National Archives say that at least two informants -- one a man identified as "Wukomitsch" - - reported talking with U.S. fliers who survived when their PB4Y2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over the Baltic Sea on April 8, 1950. One flier told the informant eight of the 10 members of the crew survived and were sentenced to 25 years for espionage, according to papers examined by Gannett News Service. The fliers reportedly were seen in a prison camp at Vorkuta, in northern Siberia near the Kara Sea.”

“In December 1953, the Japanese Foreign Office told Washington that a repatriated Japanese reported seeing an American in a hospital at "Camp 20" near Magadan in eastern Siberia. In many cases, the aircraft were sent to test Soviet radar equipment, according to officials of the Defense Prisoner of War/ Missing Personnel Office. But also in many cases, U.S. officials insist the Soviets attacked the aircraft in neutral territory.”

“The downings occurred in an era when the Pentagon had no spy satellites in orbit to keep track of the Soviet war machine. For many years, the Pentagon insisted the aircraft were shot down on weather missions.

In exchange for Russian help, U.S. officials now admit that virtually all the planes were on spy missions.”

Dateline Khabarovsk Russia - From the New York Times July 1996 - by James Brooke - “Khabarovsk, Russia -- Time has stooped Vladimir Trotsenko's shoulders, but his memories are as clear as his cobalt blue eyes: the American flyer, his right arm in a new cast, in a Soviet military hospital ward. The American, he recalled, would slowly repeat, "America -- San Francisco, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Chicago."

“Curious, Trotsenko, a paratrooper recovering from a knee injury, would hobble down the third-floor hospital corridor to gaze at the four imprisoned Americans. The airman with the broken arm would point to a crewman in a body cast and would make cradling motions with his arms, indicating that the man had left two small children back home....”

"...I did not talk about this for 43 years," Trotsenko, spry at 68, said as his wife, Nina, served blini and borscht at their wooden dacha outside this city, the largest industrial center of Russia's Far East. In 1994, he noticed a small advertisement in a local newspaper placed by a new group, a Russian-American commission on prisoners of war. Admitting that he was "tortured" about whether "to call or not to call," he finally did.”

“As fears of official retribution ease, more and more Russians are following Trotsenko's lead and are talking to American government researchers seeking traces of Americans who vanished into the gulag during seven decades of communism. Responding to advertisements for information, calls and letters trickle in to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the new consulate in Vladivostok....”

“...Numbering in the thousands, the list of Americans sent to Soviet labor camps is long and varied. They include left-wing Americans who emigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s only to be arrested as spies during Stalin's xenophobic sweeps; hundreds of dual nationals sent to Siberian labor camps after Stalin annexed Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in 1940; about 500 American military prisoners kept after World War II by Stalin as bargaining chips; about 30 F-86 pilots and crewmen captured during the Korean War and transferred to the Soviet Union in a secret aircraft industry intelligence operation; and as many as 100 American airmen who survived downing of spy planes over Soviet territory during the Cold War....”

"Clearly, there were a lot of Americans washing around the gulag, but it is unimaginable that any of the World War II prisoners are still alive," said Paul M. Cole, who wrote a three-volume report for the Rand Corp. in 1994 on American prisoners from World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War who were held in the Soviet Union.”

"I definitely believe that some survived," said Patricia Lively Dickinson, a Delaware resident, who believes that her brother, Jack D. Lively, a Navy airman who was shot down in 1951, was one of the four Americans that Trotsenko saw at the military hospital. "I feel that Jack's files are in the KGB files."

“Bruce Sanderson, a North Dakota steelworker, also believes that his father, Lt. Warren Sanderson, survived the shooting down of his reconnaissance plane near Vladivostok in 1953. "In 1955, a repatriated Japanese POW identified a picture of my dad," said Sanderson, who was born a few months after his father was shot down. "He could still be alive. It was just in 1992 that the Russians freed the last 80 Japanese POW's from World War II...."

"...Even as government 'insiders' with security clearances, we had great difficulty in locating documents" from U.S. government agencies, Col. Stuart A. Herrington of the Army, the task force's American deputy director, wrote in an appraisal in 1994. "Once located, documents are frequently classified -- often mindlessly...."

“...Peter Johnson, a major in the Army Reserve, who worked on the project in 1993, complained: "From the American standpoint, we ran into almost as much institutional resistance as from the Soviet side. The CIA did not want to talk to us...."

"...Often asked to "keep an eye on the Americans" by the Soviet army guard, Trotsenko said, he saw four men in five beds. A fifth American apparently died of ejection injuries a few days before Trotsenko was admitted. One American was so badly burned he could take sustenance only intravenously. Two others, who seemed to have reasonable chances of survival, were spoon-fed by a nurse. The fourth, with the broken arm, fed himself with his good arm. At the time of Trotsenko's release, in mid-November 1951, the Americans were still in the hospital, he said.”

A Voice From the Grave - When Russian General Dmitri Volkogonov passed away in December 1995, we all hoped that he left some message or information behind indicating that American POWs were transported to the former Soviet Union, during the Vietnam War. The message we hoped for was located in January 1998, among the General's personal papers, donated to the Library of Congress.

In his native Russian, General Volkogonov wrote of his efforts to help resolve the fate of American POWs. "I am not certain that we have fully clarified everything. I know that quite a few documents were destroyed. However, one document, probably sensational, is still in storage. I have a copy of it. It's content is as follows: at the end of the 1960s the KGB (external foreign intelligence) was given the task of "delivering informed Americans to the USSR for intelligence gathering purposes." When I found this sensational paper in a "special pouch," I immediately went to Y. M. Primakov (Director of Foreign Intelligence). He called in his people. They brought in a copy of this project signed; it seems to me, by Semichastny (I will explain). For a long time, there was a search underway to find traces of this task. These, the traces, as I had expected "were not found." They said that the task had not been accomplished. So how did this happen in fact? The regime was such that one could speculate on the wildest of variants. This remained a secret, which I could not penetrate. I also did not report this to my much-esteemed Ambassador, M. Toon. I am speaking about this now in the hope that these notes will make it into my book Reflections. (Note: in the text the word Reflections is underlined.)"

General Volkogonov's notes continued: "History, especially Soviet history, is full of secrets, and very often evil. With the exception of this incident, I can say that I have done something in order to raise the mysterious curtain from them...."

On November 9th, 1998, in an article by Bill Gertz, the Washington Times broke the story of the document's existence. According to the article, "Moscow is refusing to turn over a secret KGB document suggesting

captured Americans were taken to the Soviet Union in the late 1960s for "intelligence-gathering purposes..."

The article continued, "The Russian government has told U.S. officials the plan was never carried out, and Moscow recently turned down U.S. government requests to study the intelligence document, saying it is classified and will not be released, the officials said...."

In the days that followed the Washington Times Nov. 9th article, some confusion arose. The Russians first claimed that the document did not exist, then stated the document would not be released because it is classified. Further reporting indicated that Russian officials admitted the existence of the plan to transfer American POWs to the former Soviet Union but insisted the plan was never carried out."

Does a Central Intelligence Agency Report, dated 12 March 1982, offer corroborating evidence of a plan to transfer POWs to the former Soviet Union?

According to the un-redacted portion of the document summary "specially selected U.S. prisoners of war were being received into the Soviet Union circa 1970 for long term or lifetime incarceration and 'ideological retraining.' He implied the number involved to be about 2,000. The goal of the program was indefinite, but involved intensive psychological investigation of the prisoners and retraining to make them available as required to serve the needs of the Soviet Union."

The CIA thought little of this report in 1982 stating, in their Headquarters Comment; "this report should be read with caution. CIA records contain no information of the alleged intelligence affiliation of the subsource cited below, despite the source's assertion that Grigoriyev held a leading position in the KGB. Several other persons named in the text likewise cannot be identified. We have never before encountered even vague rumors among Soviet dissidents or other informants that any U.S. POWs from Vietnam are incarcerated in the USSR, much less that 2,000 such individuals are leading "reasonably normal lives" in the same region where numerous Soviet political prisoners have resided in exile. In short, while the source may be reporting his recollection of an actual conversation, we strongly believe that his report merits little if any credence from analysts. However, in light of continuing high interest in the question of U.S. personnel still listed as missing in action in Southeast Asia, this report is being disseminated with appropriate caveats to concerned members of the U.S. Intelligence Community."

The text of the report contains several very interesting items. Knowing what we now know, perhaps this reporting source and his source needs new investigation. Here are several examples of information contained in the 1982 report.

According to the source; "In a private conversation which was held circa 1970, KGB Lieutenant General Petr Ivanovich ((Grigoriyev)) stated that many specially selected U.S. prisoners of war were being received from North Vietnam for long term or lifetime custody... the prisoners were destined for confinement at a facility near Perm..."

"Grigoriyev, who learned of the program from an unnamed high level KGB colleague, understood that Soviets rather than North Vietnamese were involved in the initial selection process..."

"Grigoriyev understood that the detention facility was not a standard prison, but rather one in which inmates could lead reasonably normal lives. During conversations Grigoriyev recalled that precedents existed for such programs in the Soviet Union and cited similar previous efforts with Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese nationals. He stated that in past programs, participants were encouraged to marry Soviet Women.” (Note: In 1998, a Japanese POW, held after World War II, by the former Soviet Union, was allowed to return to Japan. He confirmed he was allowed to marry and after a time live a "reasonably normal" life.)

"Grigoriyev volunteered the information regarding the Vietnam prisoners during one of many private conversations during the late 1960's and early 1970's... Grigoriyev... subsequently became critical of the recruitment policies of KGB head Valdimir Yefimovich ((Semichastnyy)) and was transferred from his position to that of KGB Security chief for Soviet Bloc nations." (Note: The Semichastny name appears in the Volkogonov Papers, as the originator of the plan to move American POWs from Southeast Asia to the former Soviet Union. Interesting coincidence!!!!!!!)

National Intelligence Estimate - released July 1998 discussed the possibility of transfer of Vietnam era POWs to the Soviet Union. According to the report, "a few reports of transfers of U.S. POWs to Russia and other countries are unexplained and the books remain open."

Let's Not Forget - In June of 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin arrived in the U.S. making a stunning claim about American POWs transferred to the Soviet Union. During an interview with NBC's Dateline, Yeltsin stated - "Our archives have shown this to be true. Some of them were transferred to the territory of the former U.S.S.R. and were kept in labor camps. We don't have complete data and can only surmise that some of them may still be alive."

With this statement, the Bush (that’s Bush #41) White House panicked. First they claimed that Dateline had translated the Russian Presidents remarks incorrectly. NBC verified the translation. Then, the famous unnamed source surfaced inferring that perhaps the Russian President had too much Vodka on the trip over and mis-spoke.

Yeltsin made the mistake of thinking the U.S. government was really interested in POWs and spoke to the media prior to his appearance before Congress. We believe Yeltsin spoke the truth during his Dateline interview. With the subsequent debunking of his statement by unnamed White House sources, Yeltsin got the message -- Just because we ask about POWs doesn't mean we want the answers.

It must be noted here that the progress made on the transfer issue is a direct result of the diligent efforts of Task Force Russia and its successor the Joint Commission Support Directorate (JCSD), the investigative arm of the U.S. Russian Joint Commission. Although the JCSD falls under DPMO, it has not be corrupted by the DPMO mindset to debunk.

Their open-minded approach to an investigation, should be the model for DPMO and perhaps it should be DPMO under the JCSD. It is any wonder that officials within DPMO tried to dismantle the JCSD, not once, but twice!

Where is Matt Maupin – Alive or Dead, we need to bring him home.

Why Does Johnie Webb still have his job.

We're Still Waiting – For DPMO to provide the directive that would designate a captured serviceman Prisoner of War..... Have they failed to produce the directive because we’ve been right all along.... the directive doesn’t exist.