SwiftVets.com

[Rdtf]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/11/gulag.report/index.html


A document from Russian archives lists American servicemen in Soviet custody in May 1945.

Official says hundreds of U.S. citizens likely died in gulags
Friday, February 11, 2005 Posted: 9:36 AM EST (1436 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. military service members may have been imprisoned and died in Soviet forced-labor camps during the 20th century, according to a Pentagon report to be released Friday.

Researchers for the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs have been investigating unconfirmed reports of Americans who were held prisoner in the so-called gulags.

"I personally would be comfortable saying that the number [of Americans held in the gulags during the Cold War and Korean War] is in the hundreds," said Norman Kass, executive secretary of the commission's U.S. section.

The Soviet gulag system remained strong until the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1953. But some camps remained in existence for years afterward.

Soviet authorities imprisoned millions who were considered "enemies of the state" and forced them to perform hard labor in the network of camps in remote areas of the country.

The publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" in the early '70s focused the West's attention on the camps.

For more than a decade, Kass and his team have investigated dozens of reports about Americans spotted in the gulags.

"We have multiple lists of American servicemen missing and, of course, they are arranged by conflict," he said. "We have lists from World War II, from the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the various casualties during the Cold War."

Friday's 90-page Pentagon report is the fifth in a series of updates about the missing troops.

A separate internal Pentagon document has concluded "there is a high probability" that American citizens and U.S. and British prisoners of war died in the camps.

"We recognize that we may not be able to close a single page on the hundreds -- if I'm correct -- of people unaccounted for, but the importance of this program is the fact that we allow the process to go forward, and we draw attention to the importance of it, both for the nation and those in uniform who serve the nation," Kass said.

In one case, the daughter of a man imprisoned in a Siberian gulag told investigators in 2002 that her father had met an American named Stanley Warner. In 1957, another former prisoner reported having seen three U.S. soldiers there -- one of whom called himself Stanley Warner.

One roadblock to the U.S. efforts has been the Russian government's refusal to open its intelligence and security archives, Kass said in the report.

"To date, the results of these efforts have been less than encouraging," he said.

U.S. Defense Department officials are pressing the Russians open up these archives, hoping that documents could provide more information.

CNN's Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

[nutcase]

And the 12,500 name list the Polish Goverment attempted to give

to the US when they were trying to get into NATO and the very fine

President Clinton and his assistant Senator John F. Kerry had the

list deposited in the Senate security valut,, and some say it is

still there...

Can any one think of a reason that say,,, Sen. Frist and or some other

offical of the Senate could not come forward and say,,

THERE IS NOT SUCH A LIST AND THERE NEVER HAS BEEN SUCH

A LIST, AND WE WANT SPECLUATION ON THIS TO CEASE..

then we could have that on the record, if the list ever appears uh.

[shawa]

It just breaks my heart to read this. I don't know how the self-serving
John Kerry can live with himself knowing that he pulled the plug on
Navy Chief and the trip to Poland, thereby causing the hopes
of so many families to go down the drain.
All to further his goal of establishing relations with Vietnam
and getting millions in contract deals.
HE IS BEYOND EVIL. HE HAS NO SOUL.

[Rdtf]

It's a good sign that CNN actually reported this. Hopefully now it will get the attention it deserves.

[Slednfool]

It would be interesting to hear Navy Chief's take on this. Has he posted on here since the election?
I have been hoping to hear that Navy Chief is writing a book about his work with the MIA issue.

[kate]

[shawa]

When John Kerry's Courage Went M.I.A.
Senator Covered Up Evidence of P.O.W.'s Left Behind
by Sydney H. Schanberg
February 24th, 2004 1:00 PM

Senator John Kerry, a decorated battle veteran, was courageous as a navy lieutenant in the Vietnam War. But he was not so courageous more than two decades later, when he covered up voluminous evidence that a significant number of live American prisoners—perhaps hundreds—were never acknowledged or returned after the war-ending treaty was signed in January 1973.

The Massachusetts senator, now seeking the presidency, carried out this subterfuge a little over a decade ago— shredding documents, suppressing testimony, and sanitizing the committee's final report—when he was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./ M.I.A. Affairs.

Continued at:

http://www.viet-myths.net/Schanberg.htm

[chuck58]

about this I think last year or a couple of years ago. I remember reading it. It mentioned airmen from WW2, and POW's from Korea and possibly even Vietnam. That, unfortunately is all I remember. I don't have the issue any more.

[1991932]