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Nato Expansion Igonores POWs

January-February 1997 Issue
By CDR Chip Beck, USNR (ret.)
Special to the U.S. Veteran Dispatch


Regardless of the pros and cons of NATO expansion, the current "mad dash" to admit former Warsaw Pact countries is being done at the expense of America's unrepatriated Prisoners Of War (POWs) from World War II, Korea, the Cold War and Indochina.

If you have not noticed this connection, you are not alone. Nowhere in NATO, the Clinton administration, Congressional or foreign government public statements has any mention of the POWs been made. It is entirely possible that the architects of the expansion policy, Strobe Talbot and Madeleine Albright first and foremost, ever gave a thought as to the opportunity they were giving up, or passing by, with regard to one of the most enduring mysteries of the last half-century.

One administration official, who should know better, has been typically quiet on the matter. That man is retired General James Wold, current Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs. It is Mr. Wold's assigned responsibility, as head of the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) to aggressively search for answers to America's POW questions. However, it is highly unlikely that Mr. Wold will be knocking on the doors of the new Clinton cabinet members with any suggestions on how the NATO card could be employed on behalf of the POWs.

Mr. Wold is too timid for the task. Furthermore, the mission of recovering remains from our former communist adversaries provides all the progress that DPMO managers require to further their assignments and careers. Aggressive pursuit for the knowledge of what happened to 6000 - 9000 POWs, who were transferred to the Soviet Gulag between April 1945 and the early 1970s, is too difficult and might retard more important policies.

As a Special Investigator for the Director, Joint Commission Support Directorate (JCSD) of DPMO, it was clear that American POWs were transferred to the former Soviet Union at several key junctures of Cold War history.

The first and largest group of Americans to be transferred were POWs who had been incarcerated by the Nazis during WWII. The Soviets "liberated" Nazi POW camps, but failed to repatriate all of the allied prisoners who fell into their hands. According to official declassified American documents from 1945, an estimated 6000-7000 U.S. POWs mysteriously failed to be accounted for.

Generals George Patton and Mark Clark knew that the men were among hundreds of thousands of Germans, east Europeans and Japanese who were being marched, hauled and railroaded into the Gulag to join millions of Soviets already imprisoned. General Eisenhower, according to officials from his subsequent administration, did not want to run the risk of starting World War III by confronting Josef Stalin.

Stalin learned an important lesson from this experience. He knew he could exploit foreign prisoners of war, even Americans, with impunity -- and get away with it.

Even before the Korean War was launched at Moscow's direction, the Soviets were training their Asian allies, the North Koreans, the Chinese Communists and the Viet Minh on how to exploit foreign prisoners of war. According to communist documents and training manuals, about "twenty percent" of all POWs should always be retained after any given conflict, as pawns and "hostages."

Past being prologue, Americans were again transferred to the Soviet Gulag from North Korea, by way of Manchuria, Prague, East Germany, by sea, and most probably through other Eastern European countries. Most of the POWs, estimated between 500 and 2000, were shipped by rail into Siberia via Manchuria, according to retired Army intelligence officer Colonel Phil Corso.

Other American POWs, numbering perhaps 200, were sent directly to Moscow via Prague, East Berlin and perhaps Warsaw. One eyewitness who helped negotiate the transfer arrangements between Pyongyang, Prague and Moscow, was General Jan Sejna, a Czech Army senior officer who defected to the U.S. prior to the Soviet Invasion of his country in 1968.

In testimony delivered before the Dornan Subcommittee on Military Personnel September 17, 1996, Sejna provided additional details on the purpose and nature of the Soviet transfer program. His viewpoints and firsthand observations supported the WWII and Korean knowledge of Colonel Corso. Sejna was in turn supported by myself and my superior, Mr. Norm Kass, Director of JCSD. Our findings were based on reams of documentary evidence and interviews that have been uncovered, but suppressed, over the years.

During the Cold War, American overflight missions into Soviet airspace was much more common and aggressive than was ever known by the U.S. public at the time. The provocative program, steeped as it was in "national security considerations," was one of the most clandestine operations of the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. Since the U.S. did not admit that it was violating Soviet airspace, the Soviets did not have to admit when it shot down U.S. aircraft. We know for a fact that the crews were both killed and captured, but the percentages of each category remains a "Russian" secret. By the time of the Indochina War, the Soviets were still interested in American POWs on a wholesale scale and they continued to be active participants in the debriefings, manipulation and covert exploitation of these men in Laos and Vietnam. While the transfer of American POWs never again reached the vast numbers recorded in WWII, too many accounts from Soviet and Bloc sources exist to believe that Americans were still not transferred out of the war zone and into the USSR. Some of the more interesting admissions that the transfers took place come not from the secretive Russians and the equally secretive Vietnamese, Chinese, and North Koreans, but from Eastern European personalities in the former Warsaw Pact countries. They are the ones who first surfaced the opportunity that is now being overlooked and bypassed, by the Talbot-Albright NATO Express. In the summer of 1996, in between the times that General Sejna testified before the Dornan Subcommittee in June and September, representatives from more than one former Warsaw Pact country made it known to me and a couple of colleagues that Sejna's stories were substantively true. In fact, they stated, the transfer of American POWs was more or less an "open secret" in the government hierarchies of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland during the Cold War. Officials of the present day governments, including communists and non-communists, are aware of the clandestine Soviet transfer operations and experimental programs for which the POWs were used. At the time of the conversations, these representatives stated informally that they believed their governments would be willing to provide the United States with documents, witnesses and other information they still have on the transfer and POW exploitation programs, if it would assist their entries into NATO.

More than one of these Eastern Europeans took the matter back to their capitals and returned to say that leaders at the highest levels of their governments were interested in making disclosures on the POWs as a hedge against the Russians, as a humanitarian gesture and as a contribution to their NATO membership.

By the fall of 1996, in-between the last Dornan Subcommittee hearings and the U.S. election, the attitudes of the East European representatives began to change. While those who live and work here in Washington remain sympathetic to the POW plight, their governments were beginning to retreat from their earlier positive stance.

Two reasons for the change were given by the representatives. First, their governments did not see any "genuine concern" on the part of the current or past U.S. administrations to resolve the POW transfer mystery. Second, it appeared to them that their NATO memberships were going forward, on the fast track, without them having to inform on the Russians.

Most Americans probably have not made up their mind on whether NATO expansion is a good move or not. There certainly has been no substantive public or Congressional debate on the issue. Following the 1996 elections, Sovietologists (is that a combination of "Soviet expert and apologist?") launched the rapid "membership drive" for NATO.

This move was a "policy decision," one of those quirky Washington traditions that dictates important changes should be left to important people, not the American public. Whether it was made for economic reasons rather than security considerations is something we are not supposed to learn until after (if ever) the actions have been taken.

Whatever the merits of NATO expansion, it is clear that the headlong rush should not take place at the expense of American POWs, whose last chance at finding their rightful place in history probably lies in the capitals of Eastern Europe.

Before future generations of American service personnel are committed to the defense of former Warsaw Pact countries, their soil, their rights, their economies or their citizens, a simple gesture needs to be given by them and expected by our government.

To demonstrate that they understand and appreciate the sacrifice past generations of American servicemen gave during the various 'wars against "communism," including the treachery of WWII by our "ally," the governments of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic should reveal what they know about the 50 year covert Soviet POW transfer and exploitation program.

If these governments, whose leaders include the humanitarian Vaslav Havel as well as former communists, say they have no information on the subject, then their membership should be postponed. Not postponed until they can develop the information, for their representatives have already admitted they have it, but until they decide to make it public.

CDR Beck is a former CIA Station Chief, Navy Foreign Counterintelligence Agent and POW Investigator. He retired from CIA (1993) and the Navy (1996). He is now a freelance writer in Arlington, VA.





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