President Trump promised to focus the US government on America’s “forgotten men.” None so deserve that title as the GIs imprisoned by China but never returned at the end of America’s “Forgotten War” in Korea, along with their loved ones, still fighting to get answers on fates of this missing American heroes.

The President must raise this issue with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during their meetings this week, since we’ve learned Beijing has actually increased its stonewalling on the issue over the past year.

According to a recent Pentagon statement to us, the Chinese government suddenly cancelled the China/US (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency/DPAA) scheduled for last November 2016).

IN 2008, the Pentagon agreed to pay China up to $150,000 a year to do research into its archives on US POW/MIAs. But the Pentagon later admitted it had been snookered when China claimed the most-important information – on Americans held but never released by China – was still classified.

Beijing is still refusing to release files on those Americans; secret camps in China from which, according to wartime CIA and Army intelligence reports, no American prisoners returned; and the cases of American military aviators reported captured during the Cold War.

“We requested any help with cases from all conflicts and also requested any

Korean War documents from the PLA Archives. The MFA stated that these

records were going through a slow declassification process,” the DPAA spokesman told us on March 21st.

Meantime, declassified CIA reports posted online in January provide yet more information on the presence of US POWs in secret Chinese camps from which none returned. Titles of the newly available reports include: “Movement of UN POWs to Tunghua, Manchuria;” “Use of United Nations POW’s (in China) by Communists for Propaganda Purposes” and “Conversion of City Prison for United Nations POW’s, Liaoyang (China).”

Background:

Harry Moreland “escaped” from his mountain prison in enemy territory, China claims, with both legs amputated.

Gerald Glasser wrote home from his Chinese-run POW camp to order a new Studebaker car; soon after, he “was taken away in a jeep by Chinese officers.”

U.S. Navy aviators Lloyd Smith, William McClure and Lt. (j.g.) James Deane were reported captured by China after Cold War shoot downs.

The most astonishing case is Sgt. Richard Desautels, a Vermont farm boy who learned Chinese while held by in Chinese camps. He got in trouble for translating for his fellow prisoners. “He told me that the (Chinese) would not let him come in contact with other POW’s as he knew too much,” one buddy reported. Just months before the return of POWs, Desautels begged a fellow POW “if he should disappear to make inquiries concerning his whereabouts with the proper military authorities.”

When he failed to return, Beijing claimed Desautels had “escaped.” Then, for reasons unclear to this day, the Chinese made an astonishing admission. According to US officials, during a 2003 meeting: “The People's Liberation Army representative stated that he had found a complete record of 9-10 pages on this case in the Chinese Archives, which are still classified. The Chinese People's Liberation Volunteer Army captured Sergeant Desautels and he was known to be a POW. According to the Chinese, Sergeant Desautels became mentally ill on April 22, 1953 and died on April 29, 1953. He was buried in a cemetery near Shenyang. The graves were moved when construction activity was conducted in the area and there is no record of where Desautels' remains were reinterred.”

In other words, Beijing admitted that its 5 decades of denials were a lie. Desautels had indeed been taken out of North Korea to Shenyang, China, and never returned. Now the Chinese were asking America to believe a new story: Desautels had died within days of a “mental illness” and China had lost his body. As to the details, China refused to release its files, calling them classified.

Beijing concedes it secretly took Richard Desautels to China and has a “classified file” on him – but refuses repeated US requests for that file and those on other GIs who disappeared. North Korea taunts America on the POW issue, at one point admitting it kept POWs, then denying it.

Aside from the implausible cause of death and convenient loss of Desautels’ body, the Chinese story raised another issue. Shenyang, then called Mukden, was “confirmed” by US intelligence during the war as the location of a secret Chinese prison camp and shipping point for American prisoners being sent to the Soviet Union. Except for a handful of special cases, none of the hundreds of Americans reported in Mukden returned home.

Statement provided to us by DPAA

Livick, Todd S Sr CIV DPAA DPAA (US)

Director, Outreach and Communications at Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

QUESTION: Re the Chinese archive issue: Any developments/color on attempts

to get Beijing to provide files on US POWs last known in their custody but

not returned?

ANSWER: A DPAA delegation traveled to China from October 25-26, 2016, and

met with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the

People's Liberation Army's Archives Department (PLA) to discuss proposed

operations for FY17, and recent site investigations conducted by the PLA.

This is an annually scheduled meeting between DPAA and MFA.

The MFA expressed their support of our noble mission, and stressed the

importance that China and the MFA places on this mission.

At this meeting DPAA's mission into China scheduled for November, 2016 was

canceled. During Director Linnington's April 2016 visit, the Chinese also

notified us that they would cancel a mission scheduled for later that year.

To ensure that we could be notified of mission cancellations sooner in the

fiscal year we proposed starting the mission request process much earlier.

The MFA agreed that this may be beneficial, and related that many of the

cancelations are due to the local governments informing MFA late that they

are unable to assist but do support future operations.

We requested any help with cases from all conflicts and also requested any

Korean War documents from the PLA Archives. The MFA stated that these

records were going through a slow declassification process.

QUESTION: Anything new on the Desautels, Glasser, or related cases?

ANSWER: There is no new information on the Sergeants Desautels and Glasser

cases from the Chinese.