Russia Pre-empts Secret Document Storm
Date: November 11, 1998
With so much attention focused on the blockbuster classified Russian document
that Dmitri Volkogonov stated spoke of a program to transfer US POWs to the
former USSR, the Russians have decided to create a distraction and release
some Korean War files.
The USG apparently welcomes the diversion, praising the release as a 'dramatic
breakthrough.'
What incredible timing! Such an ironic coincidence that only TWO DAYS after
the Washington Times broke the Volkogonov statement, the Russians would feel
so compelled to divest themselves of 5,000 pages of documents and some archival
film footage that they have kept secret for 45 years.
Which begs us to ask... Why Now?
They've had 45 years to tell the truth and shed some light on dark questions.
They haven't. Dr. Paul Cole and Peter Tsouras both wrote incredibly detailed
reports of the USSR's penchant for taking and keeping US Korean War personnel.
And the Soviets denied it. Phil Corso and Jan Sejna swore to the knowledge
of US POWs being held back or transferred by the Soviets. The Soviets denied
it.
All of a sudden, they release 5,000 pages of material that SHOULD have been
turned over to the US-Russian Commission years ago, but wasn't. Information
that is said to contain; records of shootdowns; date and place of loss; kinds
of AC and identification numbers; observations of pilots ejecting and captures.
The American side of the US-Russian Commission, which is currently in Moscow,
state that the Russians have offered assurances that 'interrogation reports'
from the Second Indochina War would be forthcoming in 6 months.
Do these interrogation reports have anything to do with the 'evil secret'
document that Volkogonov described?
The news reports do not say. However they do say that the Soviets were not
permitted to directly interrogate US POWs in Hanoi, but had to pass along
questions to their captors.
Mule Muffins. We know from Korea that claim is a myth at best. During the
Korean War, the Soviets DID interrogate US POWs ... directly. We know from
the statements of Orlov, Cole, and others that the Soviets exploited Mongoloid
Soviet military personnel who were used to 'pass' as Chinese or North Koreans
to interrogate the POWs. We have 451 Soviet interrogation protocols of men
who NEVER RETURNED to prove it.
We have to wonder how many 'interrogation reports' of Vietnam War POWs who
NEVER RETURNED will see the light of day.
It is a good thing that Russia is handing over this material. 45 Years too
late for certain, but welcomed nonetheless for the answers it may offer.
But we still keep wondering...
Russia won't turn over KGB document
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Russia again turned down US government requests for access to a KGB document
suggesting captured Americans were sent to the Soviet Union in the late 1960s
for intelligence purposes, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
Jim MacDougall, a Pentagon official, said senior US officials now must raise
the issue with Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov, a former Russian
intelligence chief.
"Mr. Primakov would seem to be the important person to talk to about this
since he is one of the two people involved, and the other is no longer alive,"
said Mr. MacDougall, who just returned from a meeting in Moscow of the joint
U.S.-Russian commission on prisoners of war and missing persons.
Larry Greer, a second Pentagon official involved in POW affairs, said two
representatives of the Russian SVR intelligence service, the successor to
the Soviet KGB, took part in the two-day commission meeting that began Nov.
9 at Moscow's National Hotel.
The SVR officials offered conflicting explanations about why they would not
give up the document, he said. "At various times during the plenary session
they said that the document doesn't exist, and that it's classified and won't
be released," Mr. Greer said.
The White House said last week that President Clinton would raise the issue
of Moscow's stonewalling on the KGB document in a meeting with Mr. Primakov
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, if the commission failed to resolve the matter.
The president canceled his visit to Malaysia because of the Iraqi crisis.
Vice President Al Gore was scheduled to meet Mr. Primakov in Malaysia at
10:30 a.m. local time today, but a Gore spokesman in Washington said he was
"unaware" of whether Mr. Gore planned to bring up the document.
The existence of the KGB document was revealed in January in personal papers
of the late Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, the Russian POW commissioner who died
in December 1995. He wrote about uncovering a "sensational" KGB document
about a plan for "delivering informed Americans to the USSR for
intelligence-gathering purposes."
Gen. Volkogonov then said he asked Mr. Primakov, as head of Russian foreign
intelligence, for the document, and the document was located. Mr. Primakov
declined to release it and said the plan was never implemented.
Gen. Volkogonov said the matter was a "secret I could not penetrate."
Mr. MacDougall said pursuing the document is "one of the highest priorities"
of Pentagon investigators searching for unaccounted-for soldiers from the
Vietnam War.
Although it is not known if the document relates to Vietnam-era captives
or even POWs at all, investigators believe Gen. Volkogonov's interest in
the document shows it could shed light on the fate of the nearly 2,000 missing
Americans from that war, Mr. MacDougall said.
In October, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright sent a letter to Russian
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov asking for the document; the Russians replied
that the document was classified and would not be released, US officials
said. She also discussed the matter with Mr. Primakov at London meeting in
May.
Last week, US officials questioned retired KGB Chairman Vladimir Semichastny,
who Gen. Volkogonov said was the official who signed the document. "Mr.
Semichastny said he was not aware of, and had never seen, a separate plan
to deliver knowledgeable Americans to the USSR," Mr. MacDougall said.
Mr. Semichastny, 74, said one of the KGB's twice-yearly operational planning
documents may have contained "a couple of lines" about using captive Americans,
according to Mr. MacDougall. POW investigators expect to question him again,
he said.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright waited months before asking the
Russian government about a KGB document suggesting captured Americans were
taken to the Soviet Union for intelligence purposes during the late 1960s,
according to Clinton administration officials.
A document mentioning the KGB program was discovered by the Pentagon in January
among the papers of a retired Russian general. President Clinton was notified
in March about what investigators viewed as a major discovery that could
shed light on the fate of nearly 2,000 missing Americans from the Vietnam
War. A month later, the State Department was informed. Mrs. Albright, however,
did not act until Oct. 29 in writing to the new Russian foreign minister,
Igor Ivanov, seeking information about the plan, said officials who spoke
on condition of anonymity.
Delays in the case have upset a number of officials familiar with internal
discussions on the issue. State Department officials "have been dragging
their feet on this since the start," complained one. A letter drafted in
June from Mrs. Albright to Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov, a former
intelligence chief with direct knowledge about the KGB program, was never
sent because of State Department concerns it would upset Moscow during its
financial and political crisis in August, the officials said. Russian Gen.
Dmitri Volkogonov, a historian and cochairman of a U.S.-Russian commission
on POWs, revealed what he called a "sensational" KGB document on the plan
in his memoirs published in September. It was first revealed in papers his
daughter donated to the Library of Congress last year.
The plan called for "delivering informed Americans to the USSR for
intelligence-gathering purposes," Gen. Volkogonov, who died in 1995, stated.
Officials familiar with the US government's deliberations said they were
upset with the State Department's failure to pursue information about the
POW issue, which the administration has said is a high priority. "They didn't
want to upset the Russians," said an official close to the issue.
Lonnie Spiegel, a State Department official involved in Russia policy, told
Pentagon officials in September the department had more urgent matters to
discuss with Moscow. Mrs. Albright's letter to Mr. Primakov was not sent
because of the "large number of issues between the US and Russian governments
that required immediate attention," according to officials familiar with
the meeting.
According to Miss Spiegel, the department put off sending the secretary's
letter to Mr. Primakov until after Mrs. Albright had first met with the new
foreign minister, Mr. Ivanov.
The failure to press the Russians on the issue highlights the Clinton
administration's general reticence to press Moscow about contentious issues,
said officials critical of the soft-line policy.
According to the officials, Denis Clift, a member of a joint US-Russian
commission on POWs, objected to the delays during a Sept. 16 meeting of US
officials, when the Albright letter was discussed. The failure to contact
Mr. Primakov "did not make sense," he said.
Mr. Clift, a former DIA official who is president of the Joint Military
Intelligence College, said Mr. Primakov was "specifically mentioned" in the
Volkogonov book disclosing the KGB program, and thus any letters should be
sent to Mr. Primakov and not the foreign minister.
Miss Spiegel could not be reached for comment. But Nerissa Cook, another
State Department official involved in Russian policy and POW issues, declined
to comment when asked Friday about State's handling of the issue.
Another State Department official said that Undersecretary of State Thomas
Pickering asked Deputy Foreign Minister Gerogi Mamedov about the KGB program
during a meeting in London earlier this year, but the issue never reached
any high levels of the US or Russian governments until November.
Moscow has refused to release the document despite numerous US government
appeals, including a recent request by Vice President Al Gore to Mr. Primakov
on Nov. 17 in Malaysia, and requests made at a U.S.-Russia POW commission
meeting in Moscow three weeks ago.
In July, Mr. Gore was scheduled to discuss the matter during a dinner meeting
with Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko in Moscow. But the topic never
came up because Mr. Gore became sidetracked with other topics.
Mrs. Albright never wrote or asked Mr. Primakov about the POW issue, even
though she had developed close ties to the Russian. Mrs. Albright and Mr.
Primakov performed a song-and-dance routine together during a banquet July
28 in Manila that was put on as part of a diplomatic forum sponsored by the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Details about the KGB document were first reported by The Washington Times
on Nov. 9. In response, the White House initially said President Clinton
would not ask Mr. Primakov about the matter during a scheduled meeting in
Malaysia. A day later, White House officials insisted the president might
bring up the subject, but the meeting never took place due to the crisis
over Iraq.
Instead, Mr. Gore met Mr. Primakov on Nov. 17 in Kuala Lumpur, and the Russian
prime minister agreed to look into the matter, according to US officials.
Russian officials have provided conflicting statements about the KGB plan
identified by Gen. Volkogonov. During the POW commission meeting earlier
this month in Moscow, one official from the SVR intelligence service said
the document did not exist. A second SVR official said the document was
classified and would not be released.
SVR spokesman Yuri Kobaladze told Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio Nov.18 that
he did not know about the KGB document and suggested the United States already
has it.
"If this document really exists, then it is not in the SVR archive," Mr.
Kobaladze said, noting that the SVR "has checked its POW archives as carefully
as possible, including those on the Korean and Vietnamese wars and World
War II, and all documents in the archives have been given to the Americans."
Clinton to prod Moscow on POWs Russia may have held
Americans
By: Bill Gertz - THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Edition: Final Section: A Page: A1
President Clinton has promised to find out if Moscow carried out a KGBplan
to bring captured Americans and possibly soldiers from Vietnam to the Soviet
Union three decades ago.
"I have been very concerned about a possible KGB plan `to transport knowledgeable
Americans' to the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s for intelligence purposes," Mr. Clinton
wrote in a letter to a prisoner-of-war (POW) activist. "I agree we must do
everything possible to get to the bottom of these reports, given that American
personnel were held as POWs in Southeast Asia during this same period."
The letter from Mr. Clinton was sent Dec. 18 to Delores Apodaca Alfond, chairman
of the National Alliance of Families, a group that has pressed for a full
accounting of missing Americans from the Vietnam War and other conflicts.
Mr. Clinton said in his letter that Vice President Al Gore pressed Russian
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov during a Nov. 17 meeting in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, "for help to determine whether this plan existed or was acted upon."
"Primakov offered to look into these reports and to update us on his efforts,"
Mr. Clinton said. "We have also asked for information on the authors of the
plan, the names of any Americans who were transferred, and information on
their fate."
Mr. Clinton said that "if the plan was not carried out, we have requested
documentation that convincingly proves this point."
"My administration will continue to pursue the POW/MIA issue aggressively
with the Russian leadership," Mr. Clinton said.
The president's interest in the matter appears in sharp contrast to his initial
response to a report last month about the KGB plan disclosed by The Washington
Times.
The Times disclosed in November that a retired Russian general working on
a U.S.-Russian joint commission on missing prisoners had uncovered a historical
document from the Soviet intelligence archives he described in his personal
papers as "sensational."
Gen. Dmitri Volkoganov wrote that several years ago he asked Mr. Primakov,
who was then chief of Russian intelligence, to release the document but the
request was rejected. The plan called for "delivering informed Americans
to the U.S.S.R. for intelligence-gathering purposes," Gen. Volkoganov, who
died in 1995, wrote in a recently published memoir.
Asked in November if Mr. Clinton would raise the issue with Mr. Primakov
about the KGB plan during a meeting planned in Malaysia, White House Press
Secretary Joe Lockhart said the president was "not expected" to broach the
subject.
A day later the White House said Mr. Clinton would become personally involved
in finding out about the Volkoganov document, but only after U.S. and Russian
officials discussed the matter during a Moscow POW commission meeting in
late November.
During the meeting, Russian officials gave conflicting answers about the
KGB plan. One Russian intelligence official said there was no plan to take
Americans to the Soviet Union, and a second official said a document about
the plan exists but would not be released because it is classified.
Since Mr. Primakov became prime minister, Moscow has taken a distinctly anti-U.S.
positions on many issues, including nuclear and missile technology transfers
to Iran, and the recent air strikes on Iraq ..
A State Department spokesman said the agenda for Secretary of State Madeleine
K. Albright's meetings in Moscow later this month has not been set but she
hopes to hear soon on the results of a Russian investigation into the matter.
Pentagon officials were particularly upset that Mrs. Albright waited more
than eight months before asking the Russian government about the secret KGB
plan because she did not want to pressure Moscow during its recent political
and economic crisis.
The KGB plan was uncovered in January among papers donated to the Library
of Congress, but Mrs. Albright waited until Oct. 29 to contact Russia's foreign
minister, Igor Ivanov, by letter.
A letter from Mrs. Albright to Mr. Primakov was drafted but never sent because
it might upset Moscow during its political and economic crisis that began
in August, officials said.
State Department accused of stifling POW-MIA probe
Weldon says Russian lawmaker told him of U.S. effort
Washington Times (WT) - Tuesday, January 12, 1999
By: Bill Gertz - THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Edition: Final Section: NATION Page: A3
A Russian parliamentarian who worked on prisoner-of-war issues claims the
State Department discouraged Moscow from pursuing the fate of missing Americans,
according to a senior member of Congress.
Rep. Curt Weldon said he is upset by the claim of the Duma member who told
him about the State Department comments during a meeting in Moscow last month.
"During a conversation, the official told me `I can tell you, we were told
by your government, your State Department, not to pursue these issues,' "
Mr. Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, said in an interview.
The statement bolsters private criticism by some Pentagon officials that
the State Department is refusing to press the Russian government to investigate
cases of missing Americans.
Pentagon officials told The Washington Times last month that Secretary of
State Madeleine K. Albright delayed for months contacting senior Russian
officials about a secret KGB plan to transport "knowledgeable Americans"
to the Soviet Union during the late 1960s for intelligence purposes.
Mrs. Albright also failed to raise the issue directly with Russian Foreign
Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who is now prime minister, during several meetings.
Mr. Primakov would have had direct knowledge of the secret plan while he
was director of Russian intelligence in the early 1990s.
Mr. Weldon said he is investigating the claim and has written to Mrs. Albright
asking for an explanation.
The Russian official was not identified by name, but Mr. Weldon said the
official had worked on the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on POWs headed by
retired Russian Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov. The Duma members told Mr. Weldon
about the problem in a private meeting.
"His accusation is quite disturbing in light of the administration's initial
reluctance to aggressively pursue the matter with the Russian government,"
Mr. Weldon stated in a Jan. 6 letter to Mrs. Albright. "I urge that you
investigate this charge and inform me of your findings."
Ann Johnson, a State Department spokeswoman, said the matter was "looked
into," but no one in the State Department relayed such a message to any Duma
members.
Asked if Mrs. Albright would raise the issue of the POW document during her
upcoming meetings with Russian officials in Moscow, Miss Johnson said the
agenda has not been set. "We do look forward to getting a look at the results
of the Russian investigation of this matter, as Prime Minister Primakov promised
Vice President [Al] Gore in Kuala Lumpur in November," she said.
Gen. Volkogonov, who died in December 1995, disclosed in a memoir published
in September that he had uncovered the secret plan by the KGB intelligence
service during the late 1960s "to bring knowledgeable Americans to the Soviet
Union for intelligence purposes."
After the plan was disclosed by The Times in November, White House spokesmen
initially said President Clinton would not raise the issue in meetings with
Mr. Primakov set for late November in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Later, the
White House reversed its position and said the president would bring up the
issue if talks at the POW commission in Moscow failed to resolve the matter.
After Mr. Clinton canceled his trip to Malaysia because of the crisis with
Iraq, Mr. Gore raised the issue with Mr. Primakov.
Mr. Clinton said in a letter to a POW activist last month that he is "very
concerned" about the Russian plan "given that American personnel were held
as POWs in Southeast Asia during this same period." He promised to "press"
the Russians to provide answers.
The president stated in a Dec. 18 letter to Delores Alfond, chairman of the
National Alliance of Families, that his administration is trying to find
out about the authors of the KGB plan, whether it was carried out, and "the
names of any Americans who were transferred." If the plan was not carried
out, "we have requested documentation that convincingly proves this point,"
he said.
Mr. Weldon said in his letter to Mrs. Albright that he was encouraged by
the administration's discussions, "but I remain deeply disappointed that
you deferred pursuit of this matter for so long after it first came to your
attention."
"With hundreds of U.S. POW-MIAs still unaccounted for, we must aggressively
pursue all evidence which might help us determine their fate," he said. "The
United States has no basis on which to turn its back on information which
may lead us to closure on the POW issue. Nor should we fear repercussions
from the Russian government, as it will not suffer the reputation of its
predecessor's excesses, but may actually enhance its own reputation by fully
disclosing the fact."
Mr. Weldon said that Mrs. Albright should investigate the Duma official's
charge and "reaffirm the strong U.S. commitment to leave no stone unturned
in the effort to determine the fact of all U.S. POWs."
U.S. POWS SHIPPED TO RUSSIA? INQUIRY LABELED `TOP PRIORITY' SEATTLE
POST-INTELLIGENCER (SP) - Saturday, February 13, 1999 By: ED OFFLEY P-I MILITARY
REPORTER
Edition: Final Section: News Page: A4 Word Count: 609
TEXT:
Responding to critics who charge the Pentagon with ignoring evidence American
prisoners of war may have been shipped to the Soviet Union, the new head
of a joint U.S.-Russian Commission on POW/MIA Affairs vowed yesterday to
keep the matter a top priority.
``This is certainly the most controversial issue the commission is working
on,'' retired Army Maj. Gen. Roland Lajoie said yesterday in a telephone
interview from Moscow, where he has been meeting his Russian counterparts
during a weeklong visit.
Lajoie, who is fluent in Russian, is a career intelligence officer who worked
in the Soviet Union as an assistant Army attache from 1973 to 1976.
The retired general was appointed American co-chairman of the joint panel
last month, at a time when the overall Pentagon commitment to tracking down
missing servicemen has come under renewed criticism from MIA family members.
Pentagon efforts to resolve the fate of missing servicemen from World War
II, Korea and Vietnam erupted anew last year when U.S. researchers discovered
a memo written by Dmitri Volkogonov, the Russian co-chairman of the joint
commission from 1992 to 1995, disclosing he had seen a KGB memorandum that
seemed to confirm the existence of such an intelligence operation.
After public disclosure by The Washington Times that State Department officials
aware of the memorandum had failed for months to raise the issue with their
Russian counterparts, Vice President Al Gore last November formally asked
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov to look into the issue. And last
month, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pressed the point during a visit
to Moscow, a departmental spokesman said.
But Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., last month charged that a Russian member of
parliament had told him State Department officials have actually been
discouraging Moscow from pursuing the fate of American MIAs.
In an interview with The Washington Times last month, Weldon quoted the Russian
official as saying, ``I can tell you, we were told by your government, your
State Department, not to pursue these issues.'' Weldon called the accusation
``disturbing.''
On the possibility that American prisoners from the Vietnam War may have
been smuggled into the Soviet Union by the KGB, Lajoie said the commission
has concluded there is ``circumstantial evidence to indicate it did occur.''
``Volkogonov was a credible person and it is not likely he would make this
up,'' Lajoie said. ``The Russian side of the commission does not have that
viewpoint but they have agreed to leave this (inquiry) open.''
Also, the Pentagon was told years ago by defector Jan Sejna, a major general
in the Czech army at the time of his crossover in 1968, that hundreds of
American prisoners were shipped into the Soviet
Union through Prague. Lajoie noted that Sejna served as a consultant to the
Defense Intelligence Agency for several decades and was highly regarded in
his work, Lajoie said.
Lajoie said the Pentagon has also amassed ``credible'' evidence of Korean
War-era U.S. prisoners being shipped into the Soviet Union through North
Korea and China.
Lajoie deflected criticism by the National Alliance of Families, a major
POW/MIA group headquartered in Bellevue, over the handling of a key Pentagon
staff member who was involved in the discovery of the Volkogonov memorandum.
Norman Kass, a member of the commission staff, has lost his position under
a staff reorganization that brought the joint commission staff under the
Defense Prisoner and Missing Personnel Office in the Pentagon. Critics charge
Kass is being silenced to bury the controversial issue.
``If the concern (over Kass) is that somehow there will be a decrease in
the efforts or energy of this organization, that is silly,'' Lajoie said.
Volkogonov Papers - was there a plan to move American POWs from Southeast
Asia to the former Soviet Union? Does a Central Intelligence Agency Report
dated 12 March 1982, offer corroborating evidence such a plan existed?
According to the un-redacted portion of the document summary "specially selected
U.S. prisoners of war were being received into the Soviet Union circa 1970
for long term or lifetime incarceration and 'ideological retraining.' He
implied the number involved to be about 2,000. The goal of the program was
indefinite, but involved intensive psychological investigation of the prisoners
and retraining to make them available as required to serve the needs of the
Soviet Union."
The CIA thought little of this report in 1982 stating, in their Headquarters
Comment; "this report should be read with caution. CIA records contain no
information of the alleged intelligence affiliation of the subsource cited
below, despite the source's assertion that Grigoriyev held a leading position
in the KGB. Several other persons named in the text likewise cannot be
identified. We have never before encountered even vague rumors among Soviet
dissidents or other informants that any U.S. POWs from Vietnam are incarcerated
in the USSR, much less that 2,000 such individuals are leading "reasonably
normal lives" in the same region where numerous Soviet political prisoners
have resided in exile. In short, while the source may be reporting his
recollection of an actual conversation, we strongly believe that his report
merits little if any credence from analysts. However, in light of continuing
high interest in t he question of U.S. personnel still listed as missing
in action in Southeast Asia, this report is being disseminated with appropriate
caveats to concerned members of the U.S. Intelligence Community."
The text of the report contains several very interesting items. Knowing what
we now know, perhaps this reporting source and his source needs new
investigation. Here are several examples of information contained in the
1982 report.
According to the source; "In a private conversation which was held circa
1970, KGB Lieutenant General Petr Ivanovich ((Grigoriyev)) stated that many
specially selected U.S. prisoners of war were being received from North Vietnam
for long term or lifetime custody..."
"...the prisoners were destined for confinement at a facility near Perm..."
"Grigoriyev, who learned of the program from an unnamed high level KGB colleague,
understood that Soviets rather than North Vietnamese were involved in the
initial selection process..."
"Grigoriyev understood that the detention facility was not a standard prison,
but rather one in which inmates could lead reasonably normal lives. During
conversations Grigoriyev recalled that precedents existed for such programs
in the Soviet Union and cited similar previous efforts with Spanish, Japanese,
and Chinese nationals. He stated that in past programs, participants were
encouraged to marry Soviet Women.
(Note: In 1998, a Japanese POW, held after World War II, by the former Soviet
Union, was allowed to return to Japan. He confirmed he was allowed to marry
and after a time live a "reasonably normal" life.)
"Grigoriyev volunteered the information regarding the Vietnam prisoners during
one of many private conversations during the late 1960's and early 1970's..."
"...The conversation shifted to Vietnam and the apparent increase in strength
of South Vietnam at the time and the apparent instability in the North.
Grigoriyev agreed, citing the massive U.S. commitment to the South, but added
that the Soviets were also making gains. He then described the program involving
U.S. prisoners."
"Grigoriyev... subsequently became critical of the recruitment policies of
KGB head Valdimir Yefimovich ((Semichastnyy)) and was transferred from his
position to that of KGB Security chief for Soviet Bloc nations."
(Note: The Semichastny name appears in the Volkogonov Papers, as the originator
of the plan to move American POWs from Southeast Asia to the former Soviet
Union. Interesting coincidence!!!!!!!)
We think its time to re-investigate this report. The subsource along with
KGB Lieutenant General Petr Ivanovich ((Grigoriyev)) must be interviewed.
This could be an important lead. It could help answer the question, were
American POWs, from the Vietnam War, moved to the former Soviet Union?
