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Highest National Priority?
Throughout this century, the United States, as a nation, has anguished over the plight of American prisoners of war, both known and missing. The emotional ordeal of the families, the debt which the nation owes to those who have put their lives on the line for their countries, and the human dignity of each and every single soldier, or sailor, or airman ought to have an incalculable bearing on our national policies and our honor.
On the record, the U.S. government has professed to give these concerns "the highest national priority." Off the record, this priority vanishes. Instead, other considerations emerge: Grand visions of a foreign policy of peace and reconciliation; desire for a new economic order of trade and investment'; idological imperatives to downplay the hostility of antagonistic systems; and the natural tendency of the bureaucracy to eliminate its workload by filing cases marked "closed" instead of finding the people.
Last October, the Minority Staff published an Interim Report based on hundreds of interviews and reviews of raw intelligence data in DOD files. The Interim Report suggested that DOD was more interested in manipulation and managing the issue that in finding living POWs listed as missing. But as the investigation proceeded, the weight of evidence of failure--a failure of the U.S. Government to meet its sacred trust--became overpowering.
Was it really possible that officials in the Executive Branch charged with the solution of POW/MIA issues could have failed so miserably to respond to the needs of the American people? Was it simply that the emotions of the POW/MIA- concerned community were making an objective appraisal of DOD's work impossible?
The resignation of the director of DOD Special Office for POW/MIA Matters, Col. Millard A. Peck, submitted on February 12, but made public only last month, offered unexpected and extraordinary support for the findings of the Interim Report. (Col.Peck's resignation will be treated in detail later in this report.) But the question remained: Was it credible that such a failure could occur? To answer that question, it was necessary to turn to history.
Opening of : An Examination of U.S. Policy
Toward POW/MIAs
AN EXAMINATION OF U.S. POLICY TOWARD POW/MIAS
By the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations Republican Staff
Thursday, May 23, 1991