Today's hypocrisy: Rights in Russia

 Allegedly, Brittney Griner, well known basketball player not known for demonstrably loving the United States of America, is alleging her rights have been violated in Russia: "July 27 (Reuters) - U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who is on trial in Russia on drug charges, said in court on Wednesday that her rights were not read to her when she was detained at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17."

What "rights" were those?

Those we enjoy under Amendments I - IX? 

Hardly.

Apparently, Ms. Griner thought she was still in the good-old U S of A, instead of Russia, the bastard child of the former Soviet Union, where she has been playing off-season basketball since 2014..

If you lie down with dogs, eventually you'll end up with fleas.

 

 

Saudi Arabia's American Hostages

 

Since September 11, 2001, much information has come to light about our so-called ally, the family business called Saudi Arabia: its quaint customs, like decapitation; its degradation of women; its subservience to Wahhabism; its being an incubator for terrorists; its financing terror attacks. What has not received enough attention, however, despite the efforts of a few politicians and journalist, is the Saudi kidnapping of American citizens.

The House of Representatives’ Government Reform Committee of Rep. Dan Burton (R. Indiana) has established beyond any doubt that nearly a hundred American citizens are being held against their will in Saudi Arabia – most of them girls or, by now, women. Many, some of whom are boys, were abducted from their American mothers decades ago by Saudi fathers. In Saudi Arabia, many have been physically abused (e.g., rapes, beatings,) psychologically deprived (e.g. no contact with mothers and siblings), forced to convert to Islam, and, if female, dumped into arranged marriages even at the age of twelve.

Despite heroic efforts by the captives’ American parents, lawmakers, journalists, and others – the bureaucrats in our Saudi-coddling State Department have, once again, proved to be willingly impotent – United States citizens cannot leave Saudi Arabia. Indeed, probably alone among nations of the world, Saudi Arabia prohibits all females from leaving the country without the written consent of their husbands or fathers.

Is there no way to help our countrymen, de facto imprisoned by a primitive regime that has not the slightest conception of human rights? Perhaps.

In 1868 Congress enacted a statute referred to as the "Hostage Act." It provides:

"Whenever it is made known to the President that any citizen of the United States has been unjustly deprived of his liberty by or under the authority of any foreign government, it shall be the duty of the President forthwith to demand of that government the reasons of such imprisonment; and if it appears to be wrongful and in violation of the rights of American citizenship, the President shall forthwith demand the release of such citizen, and if the release so demanded is unreasonably delayed or refused, the President shall use such means, not amounting to acts of war and not otherwise prohibited by law, as he may think necessary and proper to obtain or effectuate the release; and all the facts and proceedings relative  thereto shall as soon a practicable be communicated by the President to Congress." (Emphasis added).

Facially, the Hostage Act applies to the shameful situation created and fostered by the Saudi government: President Bush, through his Department of State, has official knowledge that American citizens are being unjustly deprived of their liberty by a foreign government. Even conceding for purpose of argument, but only for that purpose, that the President has discharged his duty under the Act by demanding to know the reasons why these Americans are being held by Saudi Arabia, no case-by-case official explanation has been forthcoming from the Saudi government. This means the President has the statutory duty "forthwith to demand of [the Saudi] government the reasons of such imprisonment."

But who can force him to, especially in light of the fundamental constitutional principle of separation of powers, making the three branches of government co-equal? In other words, can either Congress or the courts compel the President to demand information from the Saudis – especially in light of the impending attack on Iraq? Certainly, Congress can’t, since it possesses the power only to legislate. That leaves the courts.

Only six cases, not one of them in the Supreme Court of the United States, have addressed the interpretation of the Hostage Act. Of those six, only four shed any light on the courts’ power to interfere with the president, either as Chief Executive or Commander-in-Chief under Article II of the Constitution.

While in Worthy v. Herter, decided in 1959, a federal appellate court ruled that extricating a United States citizen from a foreign country was within the powers of the President to conduct foreign affairs, the case tells us nothing about how his duty under the Hostage Act is to be discharged, nor how far a court can go to compel him to discharge that duty.

In Smith v. Regan, a 1988 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, relatives of Vietnam MIAs tried to get a federal court to conduct an independent investigation into the status of their missing loved ones. The appeals court held that the case presented a non-judicial "political question" – an issue within the province and competence, not of the judiciary under Article III of the Constitution, but rather the business either of Congress under Article II, or the Chief Executive/Commander-in-Chief under Article II.

It is the third and fourth cases that provide the only available guidance concerning the President’s duty under the Hostage Act.

In Redpath v. Kissinger, decided in 1976 by a federal district court in Texas, an American citizen was jailed in Mexico. The Department of State conducted an investigation. Not surprisingly, the paper-pushers concluded that their imprisoned countryman’s arrest and conviction were lawful, and that his treatment was acceptable (at least to the bureaucrats safe in Washington, DC). Redpath went to court. The court ruled that there was nothing more it could do because, in inquiring about Redpath’s situation, the government had discharged its duty "to demand of [the Mexican] government the reasons of such imprisonment." Since, per the Hostage Act, the government had not found that imprisonment have been "wrongful and in violation of the rights of American citizenship," under the statute there was nothing more to be done.

In the 1984 case of Flynn v. Schultz, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the political question doctrine did not prevent a federal court from considering Flynn’s claim that, under the Hostage Act, the Secretary of State had the duty to inquire whether the deprivation of liberty of an American citizen convicted and imprisoned in Mexico was wrongful, and that in fact the Secretary had failed to satisfy the Executive Branch’s duty of inquiry.

Together, the Redpath and Flynn cases provide a glimmer of hope for the Americans currently held against their will in Saudi Arabia because those courts ruled that they did possess jurisdiction, at least to the extent of assuring that the Executive Branch had done its job –reasonable inquiry – under the Hostage Act.

On behalf of our countrymen and women held against their will in Saudi Arabia – some still minors – we must insist that the Executive Branch of the United States government, through the Department of State, "forthwith . . . demand" of the Saudis an explanation of each case, and why our people cannot leave that country. If their status "appears to be wrongful and in violation of the rights of American citizenship," our President must "forthwith demand the release of such citizens." If no inquiry is made, he must be taken to court. If one is made, and – as will certainly be the case because Saudi Arabia treats people, especially women and children as chattel – their detention is found to be unjustified, and "the release so demanded is unreasonably delayed or refused," then, under the Hostage Act, "the President shall use such means, not amounting to acts of war . . . as he may think necessary and proper to obtain or effectuate the release" of our people.

While the claims of unlawful detention of Americans in some countries may be without merit, the cries of our citizens from behind the walls of Saudi Arabia’s closed society are now too loud and anguished for our government to ignore – especially given the key to their release provided by the venerable Hostage Act.

Hillary Clinton: Immoral or Amoral?

 

HILLARY CLINTON: IMMORAL OR AMORAL?

Pundit Dick Morris – who predicted Mitt Romney would beat Barack Hussein Obama – now predicts that Hilary Rodham Clinton would seek the Democrat nomination for president in 2024.

The corrupt Democrat Party leaders may be stupid (or desperate) enough to run her, despite the heavy baggage she carries.

She has been a poseur, playing the role of victimized, yet forgiving, wife during the Lewinsky scandal. She has been a victim, complaining to those who would listen (and those who tuned out) about losing to Obama in a primary and Trump in the general election. She has been a hypocrite, castigating the government for warrantless surveillance but using purloined tapes to her own political advantage. She has a been a criminal, for destroying evidence of crimes. She has been a paranoid, complaining to the world about the alleged “right wing conspiracy.” She has been a conniver, ousting career White House travel office employees in favor of her cronies. She has been a dilettante, presuming to make over America’s health care system.  

 

While this conduct, and much more like it, has been unseemly and at odds with the image that had been projected by modern-era First Ladies from Eleanor Roosevelt to Barbara Bush, to Melania Trump, none of her conduct, as unseemly as it was, raised serious moral questions.

 

But Hillary Clinton has done many things that have reeked with immorality.

 

She was party to a sham commodities transaction that turned lead into gold, cattle into cash.  She stung lenders in the Whitewater scheme.  She bought votes with criminal pardons issued by her husband.  She lied about Chinese contributions to her political campaigns.  She participated in slandering and intimidating women whom her husband had abused. She desecrated the presidency by selling the Lincoln Bedroom. She stole furniture and furnishings from the White House. And much more—conduct that without doubt rose to the level of moral wrongdoing.

 

Her conduct is infamous and has been detailed on the public record for decades. Until recently, Hillary Clinton has lived with the benefits and detriments that have flowed from her behavior.

 

During her campaigns for the Democrat Party presidential nomination and her presidential race against Donald Trump, the question arose about whether Clinton’s decades-old character traits and conduct demonstrate that she is immoral or whether she is amoral—and whether there is any significant difference between the two concepts.

 

The answer is that there is a difference, a profound one, and it is crucially important for the future of the United States of America if again she runs for president that the voters of this country understand it.

 

I begin with the concept of “morality” itself, one which Americans instinctively understand.  Rooted in fundamental notions of “right” and “wrong,” we know that it is right to pay our bills and protect our loved ones.  Equally, we know that it is wrong to defraud creditors and abuse children.

 

Thus, immorality bespeaks of conduct antithetical to the “right”: lying to investigators, releasing terrorists, violating the law, attacking the defenseless, stealing from the President’s home—all conduct Hillary Clinton participated in—as well as countless other actions that, by anyone’s definition, must be characterized as immoral.  That this former candidate for the presidency of the United States has acted immorally repeatedly is clear beyond any argument.

 

But what about “amorality”—defined as “being neither moral nor immoral; specifically: lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply; lacking moral sensibility . .  . .”  (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10^th ed.); emphasis in original.)

 

A person who is amoral does not accept any moral standard by which her conduct is to be judged.  She simply does not care about the concept of morality, about right or wrong, in what she thinks, says, or does. Morality does not apply to such a person.

 

Thus, the questions: Does all of Hillary Clinton’s dubious conduct over the course of decades reflect a simple, garden-variety immorality, eschewing the right and doing the wrong?  Or can it be said that so much immorality, and of such a nature, has a cumulative weight that lowers her conduct to the level of amorality?  Does the leading candidate of the Democrat Party for the 2024 presidential election at root care nothing about morality and consider it as having no application to her?

 

Regrettably, Hillary Clinton’s record leaves no doubt about the answer.  Hillary Clinton is manifestly immoral, but to such a degree that it amounts to her being amoral.

 

Sad to say about a former First Lady, United States Senator, and former (and perhaps) presidential candidate.

 

Sad for America.

 

But if Dick Morris’s prediction is correct, it could get much worse.

 

Today is another "Day of Infamy!

 

CHICOMS FINALLY CONFESS ABOUT KOREA POW/MIAS

 

Today marks sixty-nine years of the signing of the Korea War Armistice. Sixty-nine years of

our trading partners, the Chinese Communists, adamantly claiming that at the conclusion of the War 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.

 

Many in and out of our government, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, knew that the Chicoms were lying, not least because of the 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 each those conflicts we never recovered thousands of American POWs and MIAs. And do not allow anyone to tell you otherwise.

 

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 all 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 non-repatriation by the Chinese of thousands of POW/MIAs after the armistice that ended the fighting in 1953.  (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 unwounded 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.”

 

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 other 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 transshipment 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.

Until five years ago—although the information was not public for years.

 

At a March 2003 meeting in Beijing, the Chinese told Pentagon officials that in classified archives they had somehow come across “a complete record of 9-10 pages” of what had happened to POW United States Army Sergeant Richard G. Desaultels.  (Although the information was given to Desaultels’s brother, he disbelieved the Chinese and kept it to himself for years.)

 

That record apparently shows that after being captured Sgt. Desaultels was taken from North Korea to China—actually to Mukden (now Shenyang), far from the North Korea-China border—where he died and was buried.

 

The importance of this revelation cannot be understated even though it concerns only one American serviceman, because it is finally a confession from the Dragon’s own forked tongue. 

 

If United States Army Sergeant Richard G. Desaultels, admittedly, was shipped to Communist China, what then of the many others?

 

Perhaps some American officials who are busy earning as many "woke" points as possible can take time off and try to find out.

 

Perhaps if former President Trump regains that office, he can order the Pentagon, State Department, and CIA to make public every page of what happened to American Prisoners of War in Korea and Vietnam. 

 

They know.

 

So should their families.

 

And the American public.