I TOLD YOU SO

I TOLD YOU SO

Last week it was reported nationally that an Alabama politician introduced a bill (HB 238) that would require a man to have a “vasectomy within one month of his 50th birthday or the birth of his third biological child, whichever comes first.”

When I wrote the essay that appears immediately below, many of the comments were to the effect that I was exaggerating.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Adolf Hitler, the Buck Sisters, and The Four Horsemen

By Henry Mark Holzer

Most dictionaries define “eugenics” as “the proposed improvement of the human species by encouraging or permitting reproduction of only those people with genetic characteristics judged [by the state] desirable.” It has been regarded with disfavor since the Nazi period.” (Encarta Dictionary.)

According to Wikipedia, this is a Nazi propaganda poster [poster deleted] for the regime’s compulsory euthanasia program. The translation is: “This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too.”

This poster [deleted]prominently features the flags of other countries. Wikipedia describes it as a “Nazi poster from 1936 with flags of other countries with, or considering introducing, compulsory sterilization legislation. The translation is: “We do not stand alone." (Emphasis supplied.)

The lengthy article in which these posters appear relates the now infamous story about the Third Reich’s eugenics program. A portion of that article appears below (in courier font):

Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was infamous for eugenics programs which attempted to maintain a “pure” German race through a series of programs that ran under the banner of racial hygiene. Among other activities, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple measurement of physical characteristics to the experiments carried out by Josef Mengele for Otmar von Verschuer on twins in the concentration camps. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people whom they viewed as mentally and physically unfit, an estimated 400,000 between 1934 and 1937. The scale of the Nazi program prompted one American eugenics advocate to seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that “the Germans are beating us at our own game.” The Nazis went further, however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled through compulsory "euthanasia” programs . . . . (Emphasis supplied.)

The American flag (along with those of other western nations such as England, Switzerland, and Denmark) on a Nazi compulsory-sterilization poster?

An “American eugenics advocate” competing with the Nazis in a race to prove which country could sterilize more of its citizens faster?

Compulsory sterilization?

Nothing like that could happen here. Or could it?

It could.

And it did.

And, as we shall soon see, even worse may happen soon.

Throughout the United States in the first half of the Twentieth Century, some 65,000 American men and women were involuntarily sterilized by various state governments.

Between 1924 and 1972, 8,299 of them were citizens of the State of Virginia.

A Virginia statute (Acts 1924, chap. 394, p. 569) provided that:

Whereas, both the health of the individual patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives . . . and Whereas . . . the Commonwealth has in custodial care . . . many defective persons who if now discharged or paroled would likely become by the propagation of their kind a menace to society . . . and Whereas, human experience has demonstrated that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, idiocy, imbecility, epilepsy and crime; now, therefore . . .

Be it enacted . . . That whenever the [State of Virginia] . . . shall be of opinion that it is for the best interests of the patients and of society that any inmate of the institution under his care should be sexually sterilized, such superintendent is hereby authorized to perform . . . the operation of sterilization on any such patient confined in such institution afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy. . . . (Emphasis supplied.)

Seventeen-year-old Carrie Buck was allegedly “a feeble-minded white woman who was committed to the State [mental hospital]. She [was] the daughter of a feeble-minded mother in the same institution, and the mother of an illegitimate feeble-minded child.” (Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, 205 (1927).)

Carrie Buck was ordered sterilized, Virginia having found that she was “the probably potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized without detriment to her general health and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization.” (Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, 207. Emphasis supplied.)

Carrie’s sister, Doris, was another victim of state-ordered involuntary sterilization. Doris was told she had undergone an appendectomy. (Years later, a Virginia physician conceded that Doris Buck, who was married, “was not particularly retarded.” )

According to The New York Times:

For years, [Dr. Nelson] said, she and her husband . . . could not understand why she could not bear children. “This is one of the tragedies,” Dr. Nelson said. He said the statistical probability of their having a retarded child was no greater than for the general population.

“I broke down and cried,” [she] told the [newspaper]. “My husband and me wanted children desperate—we were crazy about them. I never knew what they done to me.”

In a legal challenge to the Virginia statute, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld it, observing that the law “was not meant to punish but to protect the class of socially inadequate citizens from themselves and to promote the welfare of society by mitigating race degeneracy and raising the average standard of intelligence of the people of the state.” (Buck v. Bell, 130 S.E. 516, 519. Emphasis supplied.)

Eventually, the question of the Virginia law's constitutionality reached the United States Supreme Court. The Court’s 8-1 decision, written by legendary Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes some eighty years ago, are a grim and fearful portend of what may coming in the Democrat Party’s current plans for “health care reform”:

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizen for their lives [i.e., the draft]. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes . . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough. (Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. at 205. Emphasis supplied.)

The Buck sisters (their brother had been sterilized, too) apparently didn’t realize that their “lesser sacrifice” had been made for the "welfare of society . . . and [to] rais[e] the average intelligence of the people of the state.”

The underlying principle in which the Supreme Court's opinion is rooted—represented by reference to “public welfare,” “sacrifices,” “better for all the world” and “society”—is that, in the end, American citizens’ lives belong to the government, be it state or federal—which is to say that our lives belong to whatever majority can be mustered to work its will at any given time about any given issue. After all, involuntary sterilization throughout the United States was made possible by laws enacted by the elected representatives of voters in all those states.

It is a short step conceptually and practically from compulsory sterilization in the name of eugenics, to passive euthanasia in the name of an amorphous public good to be achieved through the Democrat Party’s “health care reform.”

There are at least two provisions of HR 3200, as written, which are worse than anything done by the eugenicists. Those Dr. Frankensteins “only” sterilized the Bucks of this country, but at least let them live. HR 3200, as it can be applied, probably will not.

The increasingly infamous Section 1233, as written, provides for payment to physicians for end-of-life counseling every five years (or sooner if the patient has a terminal diagnosis).

Well, wouldn’t it be cozy sitting down over tea with good old Dr. Kildare and chatting about death?

Not on your life!

Even liberals see the danger.

Charles Lane is an editorial board member of the uber-liberal Washington Post.According to Gateway Pundit:

"As I read it, Section 1233 is not totally innocuous," Lane writes, adding that it "addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones."

"Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite 'purely voluntary,'" as backers of the bill assert, Lane adds. "To me, 'purely voluntary' means 'not unless the patient requests one.' Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that's an incentive to insist.

"Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit 'formulation' of a plug-pulling order right then and there," Lane explains.

"What's more, Section 1233 dictates, at some length, the content of the consultation," Lane continues.

He points out the legislation says the doctor "shall" discuss "advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to"; "an explanation of . . . living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses" even though those are legal and not medical papers. The physician "shall" present "a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families."

"Admittedly, this script is vague and possibly unenforceable," Lane writes. "What are "key questions"? Who belongs on 'a list' of helpful 'resources?' The Roman Catholic Church? Jack Kevorkian?"

Ultimately, the Post editorial writer says "Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party -- the government -- recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations."

It requires little imagination, or paranoia, to contemplate eugenics-plus-oriented physicians, who believe some elderly can be “too old,” pushing them into eschewing “too expensive” medical care that could prolong their lives. Indeed, it is paradoxical that the usual liberal concern that “consumers” not be overreached by slick salesmen when they buy a used car, has somehow been forgotten when he is forced to listen to an alleged “end-of-life” expert with a financial interest in the outcome of the “counseling.”

“Sign here, Mr. Cronkite, we’ll pull the plug, and the taxpayers will save a bundle.”

But there’s more: rationing that will necessarily hasten the death of the elderly.

It is a fact that for various reasons—e.g., more people becoming insured, whether they’re intentionally uninsured or not—the Democrat’s health plan is going to be stratospherically expensive.

Where is the money going to come from (apart from more deficits, and thus eventual serious inflation)?

Among other places, from reduced Medicare reimbursements to participating physicians and institutions.

That will necessarily result in (1) fewer physicians caring for Medicare patients, (2) less time with those patients they do see, (3) reduced care and treatment for the elderly, and (4) ) likely termination of Medicare Advantage Plans (e.g., AARP)—all resulting in a reduction in the nature, scope, quality and quantity of care for the elderly.

One need not be Dr. Kildare to understand that when this is what happens to medical care, more seniors die—younger, faster and in much more distress. Indeed, Obama himself suggested that his 86-year old grandmother, instead of having a hip replacement, perhaps should have had only a few Vicodin tablets to ease her pain.

The Democrats can now play all the word games they wish, trying to bury in lies and euphemisms the nature of what they want to do, but it’s too late. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has stated categorically in his health care book that “[s]eniors should sacrifice advancements in care so that resources can be spent on the young.”

I call Section 1233 and the Daschle-Reid-Pelosi-Obama approach to elderly medical care what it is: passive euthanasia.

These Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse mean to emulate the policies of Nazi Germany, whose posters reminded the Volk that certain citizens ill through no fault of their own “cost the community” too much money, and that in instituting compulsory sterilization the Nazi’ did “not stand alone.”

Yes, elder medicine in this government-controlled, un-free, anti-competitive marketplace is expensive, and yes there are murderous, socialized triaged medical systems in other western English-speaking countries. But neither of these abomination is a warrant for the United States of America to cannibalistically dispose of its elderly.

If the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have their way, elderly Americans could easily become the Twenty-First Century’s Carrie and Doris Buck—and even end up envying them.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Yesterday the Imbeciles. Today the Elderly. Tomorrow the Unborn?

By Henry Mark Holzer

A couple days ago in my blog entitled “Adolf Hitler, the Buck Sisters, and The Four Horsemen” (http://henrymarkholzer.blogspot.com/2009/08/adolf-hitler-buck-sisters-and-four.html), I wrote of the Nazis’ use of eugenics to rid the Third Reich of “undesirables,” and of how American eugenics proponents achieved a Supreme Court victory approving the practice in the United States. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

I also made the point that under proposed Obamacare, rationing of medical services would “necessarily hasten the death of the elderly,” and that “[o]ne need not be Dr. Kildare to understand that when this . . . happens to medical care, more seniors die—younger, faster and in much more distress. Indeed, Obama himself suggested that his 86-year-old grandmother, instead of having a hip replacement, perhaps should have had only a few Vicodin tablets to ease her pain.”

I wrote that “[t]he Democrats can now play all the word games they wish, trying to bury in lies and euphemisms the nature of what they want to do, but it’s too late. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has stated categorically in his health care book that ‘[s]eniors should sacrifice advancements in care so that resources can be spent on the young’.”

So much for the elderly, who are to be “sacrificed” to the needs of the young.

But what about the unborn, who also require the expenditure of substantial government resources, medical and otherwise? Are some of the unborn also to be “sacrificed” on the altar of Obamacare’s “resource allocation” for the sake of others?

Why not?

For decades the unborn have been sacrificed for the sake of others—mothers, fathers, boyfriends, careerists, adulterers, philanderers-- with millions of abortions fig-leafed by euphemisms such as “birth control” and “planned parenthood.”

But, but, but . . . you say, abortions are voluntary. Pregnant women aren’t forced to have abortions. Roe v. Wade “constitutionalized” choice, not compulsion. The government could never require a woman to abort, for the sake of the young, or for “society” (i.e., lots of other people), or for any other reason.

No?

Let’s see.

In the wake of Roe v. Wade, the states had to revise not only their abortion laws (those that survived the Court’s indefensible decision), but also related laws affected by that decision (e.g., criminal statutes).

Connecticut Welfare Department regulations paid for childbirth expenses. But they limited state Medicaid benefits for first trimester abortions to those “medically necessary.”

In 1977, in the case of Maher v. Roe [a pseudonym] the Supreme Court of the United States was asked to decide “whether the Constitution requires a . . . State to pay for . . . [non-medically necessary] abortions when [meaning “since”] it pays for childbirth.” In other words, did Connecticut have a constitutional, Tenth Amendment, right to a Medicaid funding policy which treated birth and abortion differently?

Before answering that question, the Court felt obliged to point out what Roe v. Wade had not held: “Roe did not declare an unqualified ‘constitutional right to an abortion. It implies no limitation on the authority of a State to make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and to implement that judgment by the allocation of public funds’.” (Emphasis supplied.)

According to the 6-3 majority, “The State unquestionably has a strong and legitimate interest in encouraging normal childbirth . . . an interest honored over the centuries.” (Emphasis supplied.)

If, according to the Supreme Court, a state has the constitutional power in the allocation of public funds, to favor childbirth over abortion—supposedly a rock-solid constitutional right rooted in the “right of privacy”—that same state necessarily possesses the constitutional power to favor, meaning to “prefer,” abortion over childbirth.

The government preferring abortion over childbirth? An outrageous idea, no?

Hardly.

The liberals, progressives, feminists, democrats, and their ilk currently running our government have always preferred abortion over childbirth. Indeed, they are zealous in the extreme about it. And once the Obama Administration regains its footing after the health care fight, we will see further examples of their preference for abortion over childbirth, followed by government funds being dispensed, or withheld, to implement that preference.

But could that “preference” be translated into compulsory abortion of the unborn, perhaps of “abnormal” fetuses, torn from mothers who cherish their babies and want to carry them to term?

Preposterous?

Maybe not.

I return to the Supreme Court, which in Buck v. Bell (http://henrymarkholzer.blogspot.com/2009/08/adolf-hitler-buck-sisters-and-four.html) upheld compulsory sterilization of “imbeciles” and other actual, and alleged, retarded Americans.
As noted, in the Maher case, the Supreme Court majority said that “[t]he State unquestionably has a strong and legitimate interest in encouraging normal childbirth . . . an interest honored over the centuries.” (Emphasis supplied.)

After the last word in that sentence, “centuries,” there appears a footnote, as astonishing as it is ominous, written by Associate Justice Lewis Powell: “In addition to the direct interest in protecting the fetus, a State may have legitimate demographic concerns about its rate of population growth. Such concerns are basic to the future of the State and in some circumstances could constitute a substantial reason for departure from a position of neutrality between abortion and childbirth.” (Emphasis supplied.)

Does anyone need a translation? If there are too many people—the elderly, for example? —for whatever reasons, the state could “favor” abortion. Just the way Virginia and many other states “favored” compulsory sterilization, a population control technique approved by the Supreme Court of the United States.

It gets worse.

As noted in the footnote below, the majority which subscribed to this horrendous proposition consisted of Powell, Burger, Stewart, White, Rehnquist, and Stevens: two “conservatives,” three “moderates,” and a liberal. The Court’s other three liberals were in dissent: Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun (the infamous author of Roe v. Wade).

Do the math.

All six conservatives, moderates and liberals mused about a contemporary solution to “demographic concerns about [government’s] rate of population growth” by favoring abortion—the way the Court, 8-1, had approved various states favoring compulsory sterilization.

But not one of the three liberal dissenters raised even a syllable in denunciation of dumping the unborn in the name of some sort of a public good. On that point, the Supreme Court of the United States—conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike—was of one mind.

Once, compulsory sterilization of Americans was thought to be impossible—until it happened.

Once, rationing medical care for our senior citizens was considered unthinkable—but now it is discussed, even advocated, openly.

Once, even after Roe v. Wade sanctioned abortion-on-demand, coerced abortion was believed to be inconceivable—yet some thirty years ago it was not denounced by a single justice of the Supreme Court.

So, we must wonder: Tomorrow the unborn?
________________
* Powell, Burger, Stewart, White, Rehnquist, Stevens vs. Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun.

And now we are here on February 23, 2020, no longer having to wonder.

Memo to the Secretary of State

Recent headline stories about a "fabulous" trade deal with "Communist" China and its apparent incubation of a killer virus, reminded me of something I wrote several years ago and bears repeating because it's about American POWs in China, Russia, Vietnam and other places throughout the world.

For the last sixty-seven years, since the Korean War armistice in 1953,  the Chinese Communists have adamantly asserted that at the conclusion of the fighting no open POW/MIA issues remained.  According to the Chinese, no American prisoners were transported to China, either to remain there or to be transshipped elsewhere, principally to the Soviet Union.  China held no American POW/MIAs, nor knew anything about other countries that might have been holding them. So said the Chinese, now our mega trading partners.

Many in and out of our government knew, and still know, that the Chicoms were lying, not least because of the worldwide Communists’ history in dealing with enemy captives.  (For an extensive article on this subject, see www.henrymarkholzer.com, articles, miscellaneous, “Archangel 1918 to Hanoi 1972.”)

During the Twentieth Century, the United States overtly fought international communism three times, on battlefields from the frozen wastes of Siberia, to the harsh mountains of Korea, to the steaming jungles of Vietnam—and after those conflicts we never recovered thousands of American POWs and MIAs. 

We fought communists covertly during World War II when they were our allies, and later in the “Cold War” when they were not—and then, too, the United States suffered the loss of countless POWs and MIAs.

As infamous as were these losses of American military personnel, the most despicable abuse of POW/MIAs was the Communists’ horrific treatment of our men during the Korean War, followed by the unrepatriation by the Chinese of thousands of POW/MIAs after the armistice.  (See www.henrymarkholzer.com, cited above.)

According to a government report, “[o]n June 17, 1955, almost two years after the end of operation “Big Switch,” (repatriation of non-wounded POWs), the Office of the Secretary of Defense, issued an internal report titled, “Recovery of Unrepatriated Prisoners of War.” The report admitted that:

After the official repatriation efforts were completed, the U.N. Command found that it still had slightly less than 1000 U.S. P[O]Ws (not MIAs!) “unaccounted for” by the Communists.

At the time of the official repatriation, some of our [returnees] stated they had been informed by the Communists that they (the Communists) were holding “some” U.S. flyers as “political prisoners” rather than as prisoners of war and that these people would have to be “negotiated for” through political or diplomatic channels. Due to the fact that we did not recognize the red regime in China, no political or diplomatic negotiations were instituted, although [the] State [Department] did have some exploratory discussions with the British in an attempt to get at the problem.

The situation was relatively dormant when, in late November 1954, the Peking radio announced that 13 of these “political prisoners” had been sentenced for “spying.” This announcement caused a public uproar and a demand from U.S. citizens, Congressional leaders and organizations for action to effect their release.  (My emphasis.)

The sentenced U.S. “political prisoners,” according to the report, were not the only American servicemen the Chinese held after the Korean War. The New York Times reported that:

Communist China is holding prisoner other United States Air Force personnel who were recently sentenced on spying charges following their capture during the Korean War. This information was brought out of China by Squadron Leader Andrew R. MacKenzie, a Canadian flier who was released today by the Chinese at the Hong Kong border. He reached freedom here two years to the day after he was shot down and fell into Chinese hands in North Korea . . . Held back from the Korean War prisoner exchange, he was released by the Peiping [sic] regime following a period of negotiations through diplomatic channels . . . .  Wing Comdr. Donald Skene, his brother-in-law who was sent here from Canada to meet him, said guardedly at a press conference later that an undisclosed number of United States airmen had been in the same camp with Squadron Leader MacKenzie . . . .   Wing Commander Skene said none of the Americans in the camp was on the list of eleven whose sentencing was announced by the Chinese November 23, 1954.  (My emphasis.)

In its June 19, 2000 issue, Newsweek magazine published an article about American POWs, claiming that “hundreds” may have been kept against their will.  “After the collapse of the Soviet Union,” according to Newsweek “the Kremlin’s archives yielded an extraordinary exchange of telegrams among Joseph Stalin, Zhou Enlai [the Chinese Communist foreign minister] and the North Korean strongman Kim Il Sung, father of the current leader.  Toward the end of the war, the Chinese suggested that if American prisoners were to be repatriated, ‘at least 20 percent should be held back.’  Mao thought he could use the prisoners as political pawns in support of his efforts to win a U.N. seat and diplomatic recognition from Washington.”  (My emphasis.)

Among those who unquestionably had been held back was U.S. Army Corporal Roger Armand Dumas, then age 22.  Newsweek wrote: “A POW since November 1950 [when the Chinese poured across the Yalu River], he was brought to a repatriation point along the front line.  Then, as other American prisoners were being handed over, eyewitnesses saw two Chinese guards lead Dumas away.  There’s been no sign of him since [some forty-seven years later].”

Newsweek continued: “There may have been an even more sinister use for the prisoners.  Jan Sejna, a Czech general who defected to the United States in 1968, told Pentagon investigators he had been personally involved in a Soviet project that conducted medical experiments on American prisoners at a secret hospital in North Korea.  Testifying before Congress in 1996, Sejna said as many as 100 ‘human guinea pigs’ were later shipped to the Soviet Union for more tests.  Others, he said, were killed and cremated in North Korea.”  (My emphasis.)

In addition to Sejna’s knowledgeable testimony, considerable anecdotal evidence exists of American military personnel withheld after the Korea War by the North Koreans, Chinese, and Soviets.

For example, in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk, according to “The Gulag Study,” “A cleaning lady in the camp made a list of 22 names of citizens of the USA who were in the camp . . .  during the winter of 1951 to 1952. She was able to take a pencil to the Americans and have them record their names and addresses on pieces of newspaper. She smuggled these pieces out of the camp, put them in a can and buried them. Many names on the list match those of missing service members from the Korean War.”  (My emphasis.)

As reported in “The Gulag Study,” the following are several different reports, from different years, from different places, referring to the same specifically identified United States Army officer.

On 15 October 1957, a Polish witness visited the American Consulate in Strasbourg, France. He stated he was held in a prison camp in Bulun until July 1957 and reported seeing the following Americans: Dick Rozbicki, an American soldier captured during the Korean War.

On September 20, 1957, two Polish witnesses visited the American Consulate in Genoa, Italy. Both men claimed to have been WWII POWs held captive in Bulun Camp 217.  They reported that two men, who claimed to be American army officers captured during the Korean War, had been transferred to Bulun Camp 217 from another camp on July 24, 1955.  The men were: Stanley Rosbicki, approximately 24 years old, of Buffalo, New York and Jack Watson, 38 or 39, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both were infantry lieutenants.

A Catholic priest visited the U.S. Embassy in Paris on July 11, 1958 to report an interview he had recently conducted with a former Polish Gulag prisoner. He claimed to have been acquainted with . . . a lieutenant, Stanley Rosbicki, from New York.

On September 5, 1960, a Polish witness visited the American Embassy, Brussels, Belgium. He stated he had been imprisoned in Bulun Camp 307 for seven and a half years and was released on May 1, 1960. He reported seeing two U.S.Army personnel captured in Korea: Ted Watson, an infantry lieutenant, and Fred Rosbiki, a commando or paratroop sergeant.  (My emphasis.)

Although many of us have never entertained any doubt that American POW/MIAs were not repatriated by the Chicoms in 1953, but instead vanished into the oblivion of North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet prison camps and “medical” facilities, a little known Communist intelligence operation during that conflict provides additional proof.

A forty-two page Working Paper of the Joint Commission Support Branch, Research and Analysis Division, DMPM (Defense Prisoner-of-War and Missing Personnel Office of the Pentagon) dated 26 August 1993 contains this Executive Summary:

U.S. Korean War POWs were transferred to the Soviet Union and never repatriated.  (Emphasis in original.)

This transfer was a highly secret MGB [KGB] program approved by the inner circle of the Stalinist dictatorship.

The rationale for taking selected prisoners to the USSR was:

To exploit and counter U.S. aircraft technologies;

To use them for general intelligence purposes;

It is possible that Stalin, given his positive experience with Axis [German, Italian, Japanese] POWs, viewed U.S. POWs as potentially lucrative hostages.

The range of eyewitness testimony as to the presence of U.S. Korean War POWs in the GULAG is so broad and convincing that we cannot dismiss it.

The Soviet 64th. Fighter Aviation Corps which supported the North Korean and Chinese forces in the Korean War had an important intelligence collection mission that included the collection, selection and interrogation of POWs.

A General Staff-based analytical group was assigned to the Far East Military district and conducted extensive interrogations of U.S. and other U.N. POWs in Khabarovsk. This was confirmed by a distinguished retired Soviet officer, Colonel Gavriil Korotkov, who participated in this operation. No prisoners were repatriated who related such an experience.

Prisoners were moved by various modes of transportation. Large shipments moved through Manchouli and Pos'yet.

Khabarovsk was the hub of a major interrogation operation directed against U.N. POWs from Korea. Khabarovsk was also a temporary holding and transshipment point for U.S. POWs. The MGB controlled these prisoners, but the GRU [military intelligence] was allowed to interrogate them.

Irkutsk and Novosibirsk were trans-shipment points, but the Komi ASSR and Perm Oblast were the final destinations of many POWs. Other camps where American POWs were held were in the Bashkir ASSR, the Kemerovo and Archangelsk Oblasts, and the Komi-Permyatskiy and Taymyskiy National Okrugs.

POW transfers also included thousands of South Koreans, a fact confirmed by the Soviet general officer, Kan San Kho, who served as the Deputy Chief of the North Korean MVD.

The most highly-sought-after POWs for exploitation were F-86 pilots and others knowledgeable of new technologies.

Living U.S. witnesses have testified that captured U.S. pilots were, on occasion, taken directly to Soviet-staffed interrogation centers. A former Chinese officer stated that he turned U.S. pilot POWs directly over to the Soviets as a matter of policy.

Missing F-86 pilots, whose captivity was never acknowledged by the Communists in Korea, were identified in recent interviews with former Soviet intelligence officers who served in Korea. Captured F-86 aircraft were taken to at least three Moscow aircraft design bureaus for exploitation. Pilots accompanied the aircraft to enrich and accelerate the exploitation process.  (My emphasis.)

Why, one may ask, why were the Soviets so interested in the F-86?

The Working Paper provides the answer:

The First Modern Air War. One of the worst-kept secrets of the Cold War was the head-to-head clash in Korea between the two former Allies of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States. * ** The Korean War was the first modern air war and was characterized by an entirely new technology that was electronics intensive and depended not only on the keen wits and high mastery of the pilots flying the jet combat aircraft but on a host of advanced support activities such as air-intercept radar and airborne reconnaissance.

The Technology Gap. This was the backdrop for an even more insidious form of warfare. The Soviet Union cloaked its participation in the Korean War partly to conceal its urgent need to bridge the technological gap with the West, which was widening geometrically even then. Based upon a precedent repeatedly acknowledged by senior Soviet officers, which began with the wholesale reverse engineering of the Massey-Ferguson tractor by the State Automobile Factory in the 1930s, the Willys Jeep in the 1940s, and a variety of propeller technology aircraft during World War II, the Soviets sought to avert the inevitable by systemized theft of design.

*          *          *

The air-focused Soviet priorities are perhaps best summed up by the comment of retired Colonel Aleksandr Semyonovich Orlov, a veteran of the 64^th [Soviet Fighter Aviation Corps], and the chief . . . of intelligence for one of its divisions. He casually dismissed the significance of ground forces personnel with the comment that he knew more about the operations of the American infantry battalion that a U. S. Army captain would. Orlov, himself a captain at the time of the Korean War, then described in painstaking details Soviet intelligence collection requirements which were focused on aircraft technical parameters.

*          *          *

A Special Air Force Unit. According to Dr. Paul Cole's interview with General Lobov, a special Soviet Air Force unit was organized and deployed, under the command of General Blagoveshchenskii, with the mission to capture F-86 pilots. Its mission was to force down Sabre jets in order to capture the pilots alive. The unit was composed of flyers from units in Mary, in the Turkmen SSR, and from the Primorskii Krai along the Pacific coast. Nine expert pilots were assigned to this mission, each of whom was required to sign a secrecy statement.

In light of the F-86 project alone, it is unarguable that American POW/MIAs were shipped to China, either as the end destination itself, or in trans-shipment to other Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union.

Indeed, General Mark W. Clark, Commander of U.N. forces during the final stages of the Korean War, was quoted in 1954 as stating categorically that “we had solid evidence” that POW/MIAs were withheld by the Chinese and North Koreans when the armistice was signed.

Besides Clark, countless American officials knew that many of our POW/MIAs had been shipped through China to the Soviet Union.  For example, a March 16, 1954 report from our Air Liaison Office in Hong Kong to the U.S. Air Force G2 in Washington stated that:

This office has interviewed refugee source who states he observed hundreds of prisoners of war in American uniforms being sent into Siberia in late 1951 and 1952. Observations were made at Manchouli (Lupin), 49 degrees 50'-117 degrees 30' Manchuria Road Map, AMSL 201 First Edition, on USSR-Manchurian border. Source observed POWs on railway station platform loading into trains for movement into Siberia. In railway restaurant source closely observed three POWs who were under guard and were conversing in English. POWs wore sleeve insignia which indicated POWs were Air Force noncommissioned officers. Source states that there were a great number of Negroes among POW shipments and also states that at no time later were any POWs observed returning from Siberia. Source does not wish to be identified for fear of reprisals against friends in Manchuria, however is willing to cooperate in answering further questions and will be available Hong Kong for questioning for the next four days.

Upon receipt of this information, USAF, Washington, requested elaboration of the following points:

1. Description of uniforms or clothing worn by POWs including ornaments.

2. Physical condition of POWs.

3. Nationality of guards.

4. Specific dates of observations.

5. Destination in Siberia.

6. Presence of Russians in uniform or civilian clothing accompanying movement of POWs.

7.  Complete description of three POWs specifically mentioned.

The Air Liaison Office complied by submitting the telegram quoted below.

FROM USAIRLOSGN LACKEY. CITEC4. REUR 53737 following answers submitted to seven questions.

(1) POWs wore OD outer clothing described as not heavy inasmuch as weather considered early spring. Source identified from pictures service jacket, field, M1943. No belongings except canteen. No ornaments observed.

(2) Condition appeared good, no wounded all ambulatory.

(3) Station divided into two sections with tracks on each side of loading platform. On Chinese side POWs accompanied by Chinese guards.  POWs passed through gate bisecting platform to Russian train manned and operated by Russians. Russian trainmen wore dark blue or black tunic with silver colored shoulder boards.  Source says this regular train uniform but he knows the trainmen are military wearing regular train uniforms.

(4) Interrogation with aid of more fluent interpreter reveals source first observed POWs in railroad station in spring 1951.  Second observation was outside city of Manchouli about three months later with POW train headed towards station where he observed POW transfer.  Source was impressed with second observation because of large number of Negroes among POWs.  Source states job was numbering railroad cars at Manchouli every time subsequent POW shipments passed through Manchouli.  Source says these shipments were reported often and occurred when United Nation forces in Korea were on the offensive.

(5) Unknown.

(6) Only Russian accompanying POWs were those who manned train.

(7) Three POWs observed in Station restaurant appeared to be 30 or 35.  Source identified Air Force non-commissioned officer sleeve insignia of Staff Sergeant rank, stated that several inches above insignia there was a propeller but says that all three did not have propeller. Three POWs accompanied by Chinese guard. POWs appeared thin but in good health and spirits, were being given what source described as good food.  POWs were talking in English but did not converse with guard.  Further information as to number of POWs observed source states that first observation filled a seven passenger car train and second observation about the same.  Source continues to emphasize the number of Negro troops, which evidently impressed him because he had seen so few Negroes before.

Comment Reporting Officer: Source is very careful not to exaggerate information and is positive of identification of American POWs.  In view of information contained in Charity Interrogation Report No.619 dated 5 February 54, Reporting Officer gives above information rating of F-2.  Source departing Hong Kong today by ship.  Future address on file this office.

Years later, authors Rochester and Kiley would write in Honor Bound, American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia 1961-1973, that “[a]s late as 1970, U.S. representatives would still be lamenting the lack of Chinese cooperation in resolving the cases of some 389 missing Americans whose fate remained uncertain [approximately] 20 years after the Korean armistice.”

Yet, despite all this and substantially more intelligence information that American POW/MIAs were held in, and transshipped from, China, for more than half a century the Chinese Communists denied, denied, denied.

They no longer have to deny, deny, deny.

Because, apparently, for a long time no one has asked the Chinese -- or the North Koreans, Russians, Vietnamese -- or others who held American Prisoners of War, what happened to them.

"Missing in Action" should never be the final word about any American Prisoner of War.

The Secretary of State should ask the Chinese Communists and their Vietnamese comrades.

At the next cocktail party!