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In the Clandestine Service and Special Operations, many things that supposedly "never happened" took place in the Cold War's "shadow conflicts." My experience and training in covert operations provided a lifetime of skills and insights upon which to investigate the mystery of unrepatriated POWs. Much to the chagrin of the Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO), I did just that, arriving at viewpoints that run counter to its official dogma. Upon 33 years experience and more recent investigations in 1995-96, were reached the following conclusions. For half a century, the Soviet Union masterminded an elaborate exploitation of foreign prisoners of war. Into the Gulag Archipelago that contained 30 million Soviet nationals were sent hundreds of thousands of non-Soviets, including nearly half-a million Germans, Austrians, Italians and Japanese.

The pool of foreign prisoners of war included hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. What happened to these American G.I.s is a chapter in our nation's history that has, for too long, gone unwritten.

The disappearance of Americans into the Gulag was intentional. If it were a mistake, it would have been corrected in diplomatic channels decades ago. The very nature of Clandestine Operations means they are not accidents. They are not acknowledged and never revealed. The greater the magnitude of the Covert Operation, the greater is the secrecy that surrounds it. The POW operation is one big secret.

What the Soviet Union started in 1945, Russia, Vietnam, North Korea, China and even Cuba still guard today. Secrecy is still vital to these governments. (Former Warsaw Pact countries of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and the remnants of East Germany are also quiet of their knowledge of Soviet POW operations).

First, the sensitivity of the Operations to exploit foreign POWs ranks as high as its nuclear programs. Both superpowers had nuclear arsenals. Both exploited prisoners in war time. But only the Soviets kept POWs incommunicado after the wars ended.

Second, "communism" is not "dead." It is only underground. There were no purges. Those who ran the KGB still run the SVR and a dozen other services in the former Soviet Union.

Third, it is difficult, but not impossible, for communist veterans who know the fate of our POWs to come forward. Their lives, families and well-being are at risk. The Defense POW/MIA Office needs a new approach toward the POW mystery. Traditionally, it has concentrated its efforts on individual loss cases, essentially neglecting the "strategic" aspects of the problem that are fundamental to understanding what happened to unrepatriated POWs.

When DPMO acts primarily as bone-hunters and archaeologists, it becomes easy for the Vietnamese and Lao Communists, Khmer Rouge, North Koreans, Chinese and Soviets to hide the existence of the broad-based clandestine programs they coordinated against the POWs.

Since Vietnam, DPMO has focused sizable efforts on investigating crash sites, to the exclusion of larger issues. That needs to be adjusted, not for show, but for effect.

The past is prologue. World War II, Korea, the Cold War and Vietnam were all linked. Soviet policy perspectives, intelligence requirements and covert operational needs were coordinated with their allies. America must understand the POW connection between those four conflicts before it can solve the issue of unrepatriated prisoners.

The methods and goals of Soviet operations were not random, unplanned or untested actions that occurred spontaneously in each of those conflicts. They were connected. To understand the consequences of those operations, America needs to probe the strategic importance that the Soviets placed on foreign POWs.

To do this, DPMO needs fewer "analysts" and more investigators -- men and women who can exhaust leads and solve mysteries. DPMO has the information it needs to make a strong case against the Soviet and Russian governments in the POW affair. It claims it lacks the proof, but what DPMO really lacks is the will. Granted, more proof would make a better case so hire more investigators to obtain it. The proof is out there and it can be obtained. It is the effort, the commitment and the way DPMO applies resources that will count. Under the current DPMO management, it does not count for much. What DPMO needs, along with new management and real leaders, is a commitment and new efforts to aggressively pursue the twin issues of (a) unrepatriated POWs since World War II, as well as (b) the transfer of American POWs to the USSR. The recovery of remains alone is only part of the mission and in truth, it is better handled by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA) and the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CIL-HI) .

Even if every one of the POWs and MIAs who were left behind are now deceased, America still owes them a debt of honor. The full measure of their sacrifices can only be known by exposing what really happened to them. The facts may turn out to be ugly, but they must be revealed.

What should America do with the sordid facts when they become known? Nations other than the U.S., faced with this same problem, enacted their own solutions. But they did it long before the "media age." Today, the public and policy makers need to address options rather than hide them. The current rush to expand NATO is being undertaken without any thought of how the former Warsaw Pact countries could be pressured to reveal their knowledge of the Soviet operations.

To understand what America is up against regarding the POWs, it is necessary to understand why it was it in the national interest of the Soviet Union to acquire, transfer and exploit Americans and other foreign POWs.

In World War II, perhaps 6000-7000 American POWs went from Nazi Prison camps to the Gulag, partially because the Western Allies would not forcibly return Russian POWs who had fought for Germany against Stalin. Stalin could not exact vengeance on those he considered traitors, so he took a measure of revenge against the soldiers of those who denied him his will. American POWs of the Nazis, became hostages of the Communists.

In Korea, American POWs were sent to Siberia and Moscow for nuclear radiation experiments, drug experiments, medical tests, intelligence exploitation, use of their identities, espionage, technical information, avionics, skilled labor, propaganda insights and forced labor. In the Cold War, the U.S. did not admit Soviet air space violations, so the Soviets did not acknowledge the presence of airmen it captured in this clandestine war.

The Vietnam War was not isolated from the rest of the communist world or its collective experiences. Too many credible people have stepped forward, in private situations, to say otherwise. DPMO cannot be so arrogant as to believe that it has answered all the questions concerning the POWs. It has not even raised all the questions adequately.

Let's be honest. The people who brought the West such tactical and intelligence defeats as Dien Bien Phu, Khe Sanh, Tet, Hue, the Cu Chi tunnel systems, the Ho Chi Minh Trail; and who infiltrated every U.S. and South Vietnamese military, intelligence and political organization of the war, are very capable of planning, executing and covering up an elaborate, secret, second-tier POW system. The Soviets, who never expected to lose the Cold War or answer for its human rights abuses of its own people or foreigners, have a history of acting with impunity.

If DPMO believes that all the major questions have been answered, then they need only to assign some caretakers to the files and save time and money. If the truth is admitted, which would show that the really hard questions have not even been seriously asked, much less answered, then new methods, new approaches and even fresh minds, need to be applied toward the lingering POW/MIA mystery.