Dear Mr. Surles:

Thank you for your July 11, 1998 letter to President Clinton concerning our Government's efforts to account for our missing servicemen. As the Department of Defense (DoD) office responsible for prisoner of war/missing in action issues, we are pleased to provide the following information.

Mr. Surles, we are aware of the large amount of information being placed on the Internet concerning this important humanitarian issue. Regrettably, it appears that while some of the information is correct, the overwhelming majority is outdated, inaccurate, and grossly understates what our Government is doing to account for America's missing from our nation's wars. The DoD is vigorously working to account for our missing personnel in Southeast Asia. These Americans have not been forgotten. Since 1988, American teams have completed mroe than 2,000 investigations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in attempt to account for our countrymen lost during the war. These efforts have resulted in the recovery, identification, and return of 502 Americans for interment with full military honors. Such consistent and dedicated efforts by this Deartment are not indicative of a Government that is not devoted to accounting for its service members it has sent into harm's way.

At this writing, there are 2,081 American servicemen who remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. There also are more than 8,100 from the Korean War' approximately 78,750 from World War II; and 3,350 from World War I. We know that most of these men were killed in action, and the combat situation at the time of their deaths prevented American forces from recovering their remains. Regrettably, as is the nature of combat, there are many cases in which we simply do not know and will never know what happened to the men.

Our mission is not limited to the Vietnam War. The major key to unlocking most of the answeres we need in our accounting efforts for the Korean War lies in gaining access to North Korea. In the past two years, our long years of frustrating negotiations with the North Koreans have succeeded in completing four joint recovery operations. As a result of our efforts, we have recovered nine sets of remains believed to be those of American servicemen. To date, one of these has been formally identified and returned to his family for burial. Moreover, last August for the first time ever, and then again last month, American archivists from our agency conducted a concentrated research effort in North Korea's central military museum for information that may relate to unaccounted fro American servicemen. In December 1997, we concluded talks with North Korean officials in which we reached an agreement to conduct five joint recovery operations and at least on e archival research operation in 1998. The second of these operations is ongoing at this writing, and two sets of remains were recovered during the first operation. We are hopeful these efforts and those we hope to perform in the future will yield information on many of our lost men.

To find out more about our efforts to account for our unaccounted for Americans, you can contact our Internet site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo. This site contains a wealth of information including weekly updates and annual newsletters detailing our current operations worldwide. Also, I have enclosed the 1998 POW/MIA Accounting Book which covers numerous topics concerning our accounting efforts.

There are those who continue to speculate that Americans remain in captivity in Southeast Asia and other regions of the world where the United States has prosecuted war. Although such allegations make interesting conversation, those who would like to accept such as the truth should first demand to see the proof upon which the claimants base their charges. The truth is that no one has ever provided any credible evidence to support such claims. Further, all such allegations are consistently refuted by more than 20 years of aggressive investigation and intensive intelligence collection by our nation's intelligence community. Our investigative and intelligence collection efforts have found no credible evidence that live Americans are now, or were ever in captivity in Southeast Asia following Operation Homecoming in 1973.

Your concern for our missing countrymen is gratefully appreciated by the men and women of this office. We are committed to the mission of accounting for all our servicemen. Unfortunately, because of the very nature of war, we may never be able to provide all the answers to ease the pain for all the families. However, we will continue to strive to do so.