U.S. RENEWING INQUIRIES ABOUT KOREAN WAR MIAS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 14, 1993                   TAG: 9302140079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
U.S. RENEWING INQUIRIES ABOUT KOREAN WAR MIAS
The search for unaccounted-for U.S. servicemen from the Vietnam War has broadened into renewed inquiries and talks with North Korea on the fate of the 8,200 Americans missing in that war.
The families of those missing in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 have pressed for information over the past 40 years.
Their efforts have been overshadowed by the 2,264 unaccounted-for Americans in Vietnam. Families of MIAs from both conflicts say their own government lied to them and the Washington bureaucracy rebuffed them when they sought answers.
"One must review the past wars to understand that the U.S. government handled the Vietnam POW-MIA issue in the same manner as it did after World War II and the Korean War," says Dolores Apodaca Alfond, a spokeswoman for families of missing from World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
"It was just a continuance of how the U.S. government would manipulate the POW-MIA issue for Vietnam," says Alfond, of Bellevue, Wash., national chairwomen for the National Alliance for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen. "There have been organizations concerned about their loved ones from past wars, such as the Korean War `Home Folk.' "
Alfond says that if the Vietnam veterans and families of the MIAs had not been pursuing the issue, the U.S. Senate never would have created a select committee to look into it last year.
The Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs conducted a yearlong inquiry into Americans unaccounted for in Vietnam and broadened it to Korea and World War II before its term expired at the end of 1992. There are 78,750 Americans listed as missing in World War II.
Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., vice chairman of the committee, met with North Korean leaders in Pyongyang in mid-December. He said afterward he hoped more Americans would be accounted for as a result of the talks.
Smith said North Korean officials pledged to search the country for additional records and personal artifacts. He said they reaffirmed commitments made to him in September 1991 to continue to recover and return the remains of U.S. servicemen from cemeteries in former POW camps and on battlefields in North Korea.
"I expect that in the coming weeks North Korea and the United States will be able to formalize joint working level efforts at Panmunjom, Korea, which will lead to the repatriation of the remains of these brave servicemen," said Smith.
"They have not been forgotten."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB