Abstract
Congressional intervention followed a disturbing pattern. In 1991 the Senate turned its attention to the POW/MIA issue.
The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs began work, the Committee’s co-chairs went to Moscow with the intent to resolve the question of US POWs with one visit, and the DoD responded to Congressional pressure by creating an office responsible for POW/MIA issues. Congress was poised to exploit any indication that US POWs had been transferred to the USSR.
As soon as all of the political juice was squeezed and the accounting program returned to its rightful place as a matter of forensic factual evidence and battlefield archaeology, members of Congress turn their attention to issues that got them elected in the first place. Without the Committee lights and headlines, the POW/MIA issue always slips beneath the surface of the political pond.
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Notes
- 1.
32-CFR 371.1 “Defense Prisoner of War/Missing In Action Office (DPMO )” (7-1-94 Edition), p. 930. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-1997-title32-vol2/pdf/CFR-1997-title32-vol2-sec371-3.pdf
- 2.
“Russian Offers Americans Access to K.G.B. Files,” Allison Mitchell, New York Times, January 30, 1992.
- 3.
General Joersz and LTC George Morgan set the world airspeed record on July 28, 1978, in an SR-71A Blackbird when they zoomed up to 2194 mph (3530 km/h). An SR-71 pilot had no business being in charge of the POW /MIA accounting effort, particularly the archive research segment.
- 4.
“A Sad Story Must Be Told,” MIA Facts Site, http://www.miafacts.org/dornan_hearing.htm
- 5.
MIA Fact Site: “Where Are The ‘Hundreds’ Of Americans Who Were In The Gulag ?” http://www.miafacts.org/january%202006.htm
- 6.
Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov (1929–2015) was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the KGB in 1991. After the formation of the Russian Federation, he served as Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) from 1991 to 1996.
- 7.
The transcript is posted here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/pow/senatehouse/investigationS.html.
- 8.
The video of my panel is posted here: http://www.c-span.org/video/?34399-1/soviet-involvement-vietnam-powmias
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Cole, P.M. (2018). Congressional and DoD Action. In: POW/MIA Accounting. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7128-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7128-7_8
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