Dear Mr. Surles:

Thank you for your May 27, 1998 electronic letter to President Clinton requesting information on the Government's efforts to account for missing Americans from our nation's wars. The White House forwarded your letter to our office since we are the Department of Defense (DoD) agency responsible for accounting for our nation's missing servicemen, and we are pleased to respond.

President Clinton, like Presidents Reagan and Bush before him, has declared accounting for our countrymen to be a matter of the highest national priority. To support the President, DoD has assigned more than 500 men and women to work this issue. The mission of our agency is to lead and oversee the DoD effort to locate, account for, and repatriate Americans missing or captured as a result of past, current, and future hostile actions. Operations to recover remains from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, China, Armenia, the Netherlands, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Burma, the Kuril Islands, and Tibet illustrate the United States Government's commitment to recover American remains wherever they may be located and to determine the fates of all our accounted-for Americans.

At this writing, 2,087 American servicemen are unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. There also are more than 8,100 servicemen who are unaccounted for 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.

DoD is vigorously working to account for missing Americans in Southeast Asia. Since 1988, American teams have completed more than 2,000 investigations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to account for Americans lost during that war. As a result of the United States Government's commitment to the fullest possible accounting since 1973, 496 American servicement who were unaccounted for in Southeast Asia have been repatriated, identified, and interred with full military honors.

The key to unlocking most of the answers 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 completion of five joint recovery operations. As a result of our efforts, the remains on nine American Servicement have been recovered.

Unlike our efforts to account for Americans lost during the Vietnam and Korean Wars, we do not actively seek locations of World War II losses due to that war's global scale. Nevertheless, once possible American remains are discovered and we are notified, we make every effort to recover and identify the remains and return them to their families. Since 1992, the remains of 96 serivement from World War II have been recovered. Of those 96 men, 28 have been identified, returned to their families, and interred with full miiltary honors.

Some continue to speculate that Americans remain in captivity in Southeast Asia and other countries where the United States has engaged in war; however, the Government has uncovered no credible evidence that Americans are in captivity as POWs anywhere in the world. This, despite the fact that we have at our disposal the most advanced intelligence collection systems known to mankind. Neverthless, our top priority is live Americans. If we receive any information concerning the possibility of Americans being held, we investigate to the fullets possible extent. To learn more about our efforts to account for our missing and to stay abreast of our current operations throughout the world, I reccomend you contact our Internet site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo.

Your concern for our nation's missing service members is appreciated by the men and women of this office, the majority of whom are members or former members of the military. President Clinton and his Administration are committed to the mission of accounting for all our servicement. Unfortunately, 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.