Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Meeting with Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense
Ambassador Charles Ray
And
Defense Dept. POW/Missing Personnel Office
2006 Annual Korean War POW/MIA Family Update Meeting
Arlington,VA
October 2006
Brief by Bill Dumas
On Monday, October 15th, I met with Ambassador Charles Ray, the former US ambassador to Cambodia and now Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) and director of the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO.)
Amb. Ray asked DPMO Public Relations Director, Larry Greer, and Special Asst. to the Director of DPMO, Adrian Cronour (who is the Army radio disc jockey that Robin Williams portrayed in Good Morning Vietnam) to sit in on the meeting.
In a phone conversation with Amb. Ray three weeks prior, I had requested he view my documentary film, Missing Presumed Dead: The Search For America’s POWs and asked if we could meet to discuss the issues examined in the film. He agreed and a 30-minute meeting was scheduled during the week of the annual DPMO Korean War POW/MIA Family Update conference.
I would be attending the conference as a family member (my uncle is Cpl. Roger Dumas, a POW and a Last Seen Alive case) and I was also representing the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America’s Missing Servicemen.
Amb. Ray began the meeting by asking what I would like to talk about. I asked if he had screened the film. He said he had and found it “interesting.” I responded that in the Hollywood film world “interesting” is not a critique we hope for (this is usually a default description one uses because they don’t have anything positive to say about a film.) Amb. Ray stood by his one-word review.
I then decided I would have to get right to the point so I said, “I want to tell you how many of the POW/MIA advocates and organizations working outside the government feel about the DPMO’s efforts to find live POW/MIAs and the general impression of our government’s handling of the POW/MIA issue.
I assumed that at Amb. Ray’s very recent Presidential appointment to this position hadn’t allowed him the opportunity to confer in depth with many (if any) NGO POW/MIA heads.
I began the discussion by giving an overview of Cpl. Roger Dumas’ case, explaining that this was not a unique case and there are perhaps many others like it. The Roger Dumas case is an especially poignant example of the issue of abandoned POW/MIAs because it has the validity bestowed upon it by an unprecedented Federal Court ruling. In the trial, Robert Dumas v. U.S. Sec. of the Army (originally against Ronald Reagan), the judge ruled in Bob Dumas’ favor and ordered the Army to reclassify Roger from KIA (Killed-In-Action) to POW.
Amb. Ray listened intently as I described story of Roger’s disappearance on Nov. 4,,1950 and the continual government denials that Roger was ever captured and held as a POW even when his name appeared on the 389 list of Last Seen Alive POWs. And how they claimed Roger’s records were burned in the St. Louis Records Repository fire when, in fact, they had a complete set of his records on file.
I explained how all of Bob’s ex-POW witnesses had been intimidated by FBI agents and Army officials who warned them not to testify in court and that two of the witnesses died of heart attacks weeks before the trial and two others became too ill to travel. The only witness that made it to the courtroom was approached by an Army Major who warned the ex-POW that if he testified his mother’s indiscretions as a youth would be made public.
I questioned the Ambassador why the Army and the U.S. Attorney would go to such extremes and take such legal risks to prevent Roger from being reclassified a POW. I said I believe the answer is, that to reclassify Roger a POW would lead to an investigation that would reveal hundreds and maybe thousands more were also left behind in North Korea.
Amb. Ray interjected explaining his extensive background in the military, service in South Korea (his wife of 35 years is from South and his in-laws still live there) and his work at the State Department, etc. Amb. Ray vehemently denied that soldiers would knowingly be left behind followed by a systematic government cover-up.
Mr. Cronour assured me that for the six years he’s worked at DPMO he’s never seen any evidence of mismanagement in the handling of DPMO’s mandate to resolve all missing personnel cases.
Amb. Ray said it’s clear that the Dumas family was “jerked around” by the government in the past and pointed out that there are a lot of (stupid) people in government. He said that he cannot respond to anything his predecessors did or said, or what the future DASD will do but he assured me that he would ensure that all that can be done to account for missing servicemen will be done while he’s in charge.
I responded that in two years he’ll be replaced by another Presidential appointee and I’ll be sitting here telling this story to his replacement and on and on it goes while very little ever gets resolved.
By now the 30-minute scheduled meeting was approaching two hours when Mr. Cronour interjected with a request to change direction of the discussions.
He was actually proposing a topic I was about to segue into. Mr. Cronour remarked that DPMO receives a lot of criticism from some of the POW/MIA organizations but whenever their detractors are asked what specifically they would like DPMO to do, they have no ideas and then revert to criticizing DPMO.
I expressed agreement with the concept of finding common ground on which to move forward and in fact came to the meeting prepared with a plan that I would like them to consider.
Mr. Cronour bluntly asked, “What would you like us to do?” Amb. Ray picked up on this bottom line approach emphasizing the leading question, “What do you want us to do about Roger?” I reflected his tone, “Find him!” “Okay,” said Amb. Ray, “That’s what we’re going to try to do. We don’t know what the outcome will be but we’ll do all that we can.”
I then presented my thoughts and ideas including the need to get documents declassified, which Amb. Ray said was a very frustrating problem for everyone at DPMO as well.
I finally came to the point that had very recently become my prime objective for this meeting and it concerned a recent confluence of thoughts I’d been ruminating on for the past couple weeks prompted by the continuous news, commentary, political maneuvering and rhetoric surrounding the North Korean (DPRK) nuclear tests.
During the previous week, the U.S. public had an extremely rare occasion to hear the voice of DPRK U.N. Ambassador Pak Gil Yon expressing how the nuclear bomb test was a proud moment for his nation.
In 1985 Amb. Pak Gil Yon made a very unusual overture by calling Bob Dumas at his home after hearing about Bob’s federal court case to reclassify Roger a POW. Amb. Pak invited Bob to meet with him in New York to discuss how the POW/MIA issue could be negotiated on a presidential one-on-one level.
This was the start of a 10-year relationship between Bob and Amb. Pak and other ambassadors at the North Korean Mission to the U.N. Bob had several meetings with Amb. Pak, Amb. Ho Jong and over 250 phone conversations with Pak, Ho and other DPRK ambassadors and embassy staff.
Bob asked Amb. Pak in 1994, “Would your country ever use a nuclear weapon against South Korea, Japan or the U.S.?” Amb. Pak replied,
“If we used a nuclear weapon we know our country would be destroyed in 20 minutes and be reduced to water. We’re not that stupid.”
From my knowledge of these meetings and taped conversations I have listened to, I have a strong opinion that North Korea has always desired direct one-on-one negotiations with the U.S. president, a non-aggression pact and ultimately a signed peace treaty to officially end the Korean War.
As for saber rattling in the form of nuclear bomb testing, my belief is that this extreme measure seeks to force the U.S. into direct negotiations and because there really is no military option for the U.S. in Korea, these direct talks are going to happen and the Korean War peace treaty will be signed.
I told Amb. Ray that this will give us the best (and maybe the only) opportunity to achieve resolution to the POW/MIA issue and receiving a full accounting of all the Last Seen Alive POW cases, all unaccounted for MIA cases and recovery of remains.
As the White House has been getting pressure to engage in direct talks with North Korea, President Bush has indicated that signing the Korean War Peace Treaty is a necessary step in normalizing relations with the DPRK.
I gave Amb. Ray an overview of the Korean War peace negotiations breakdown based on my research while producing my documentary.
The issue of prisoner exchange was the final stalemate in the peace negations during the war. In fact, for over half of the three-year war, POW repatriation was the last issue to be resolved.
Since South Korean President, Sygmund Rhee allowed thousands of DPRK and Chinese POWs that the U.N. Command was holding to defect and not return to the north or China, the North Korean government considered this tantamount to not returning all of their POWs and in retaliation would not return all of the U.N. Command POWs it was holding.
Without ever resolving the POW repatriation issue a peace treaty could not be signed and instead the hostilities ended by the compromise signing of an Armistice.
To this day, North Korea and the United States are technically still at war.
Amb. Ray appeared thoughtful and intrigued and said this was an interesting idea. He asked Mr. Cronour and Mr. Greer to verify that the prisoner exchange was not resolved when the Armistice was signed.
Amb. Ray said that DPMO could make such a recommendation to the President but it would be up to the President to consider it in any peace treaty negotiations that may occur.
As the meeting winded down I felt as if something very substantial had been achieved at this meeting.
While we made our way to the office door I asked Amb. Ray how long he would be director of DPMO. He said he didn’t know and that it depended on who would be the next President and when/if he gets called back to the State Dept. (Amb. Ray informed me earlier he was “on loan” from the State Dept.) He said he thought he would be in this position for at least two years.
At the end of the week, on Friday during the final plenary session Q&A of the DPMO Korean War POW/MIA Family Update Meeting, all the department heads and key support staff were on the stage to answer any questions in this final open forum.
I waited until there were no other questions from the audience before I made my final inquiry.
Throughout the three-day conference I would often throw hardball questions at the panelists. Usually I already knew the answers but I wanted the family members to hear these issues and the official responses that often are not satisfactory. Over half of the 400-plus family members in attendance were attending the conference for the first time and have no idea there is a continuing controversy concerning abandoned POW/MIAs and the live POW/MIA issue.
After the Army sergeants who brought wireless microphones to those wishing to ask questions joked that I was “shut off” from asking questions I did finally rise to make a plea as opposed to making a point.
I could see everyone was bracing for my final assault but I disarmed the DPMO officials by thanking them for a productive conference explaining that I spent several hours with DPMO analyst Phil O’Brian and Army Casualty officer, Lt. Col. Schuneman and we exchanged some crucial information concerning Roger Dumas which also shed light on other aspects of the general POW investigation.
I then described the meeting with Amb. Ray and my idea for DPMO to advise President Bush or his successor that the POW repatriation issue must be resolved before a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War can be signed.
I made an impassioned plea that this may be the only opportunity to ever achieve a resolution for live POWs, MIAs and the return of remains. I requested that DPMO should have as strong a case as possible ready to present to the President in order to achieve this goal.
Finally I posed the question, “What can we do to make this happen?”
Q&A moderator Chuck Henley responded by saying, “The key word you said is, ‘We.’” Mr. Henley explained that DPMO takes orders from above and their orders come from Congress. Mr. Henley suggested I disseminate this POW/MIA resolution proposal to all the veterans, POW/MIA organizations and family members and urge them to contact their Congressmen to support this resolution.
I think at lease some of us came out of this meeting with a sense that this peace treaty idea may provide an opportunity for all POW/MIA organizations, veterans groups, family members and DPMO to work together for a common goal.
This may be overly optimistic but I think we can all learn more and become more effective in our ultimate mission to account for our POW/MIAs if we can take advantage of this little piece of common ground that we can all find safe for mutual cooperation.
At this point I will draft a POW/MIA peace treaty initiative that can be directed to our legislators who will hopefully direct the Defense Dept. and DPMO to present a formal request to the President that a POW/MIA resolution must be a part of the requirements to sign the Korean War Peace Treaty.
Ambassador Charles Ray
And
Defense Dept. POW/Missing Personnel Office
2006 Annual Korean War POW/MIA Family Update Meeting
Arlington,VA
October 2006
Brief by Bill Dumas
On Monday, October 15th, I met with Ambassador Charles Ray, the former US ambassador to Cambodia and now Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) and director of the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO.)
Amb. Ray asked DPMO Public Relations Director, Larry Greer, and Special Asst. to the Director of DPMO, Adrian Cronour (who is the Army radio disc jockey that Robin Williams portrayed in Good Morning Vietnam) to sit in on the meeting.
In a phone conversation with Amb. Ray three weeks prior, I had requested he view my documentary film, Missing Presumed Dead: The Search For America’s POWs and asked if we could meet to discuss the issues examined in the film. He agreed and a 30-minute meeting was scheduled during the week of the annual DPMO Korean War POW/MIA Family Update conference.
I would be attending the conference as a family member (my uncle is Cpl. Roger Dumas, a POW and a Last Seen Alive case) and I was also representing the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America’s Missing Servicemen.
Amb. Ray began the meeting by asking what I would like to talk about. I asked if he had screened the film. He said he had and found it “interesting.” I responded that in the Hollywood film world “interesting” is not a critique we hope for (this is usually a default description one uses because they don’t have anything positive to say about a film.) Amb. Ray stood by his one-word review.
I then decided I would have to get right to the point so I said, “I want to tell you how many of the POW/MIA advocates and organizations working outside the government feel about the DPMO’s efforts to find live POW/MIAs and the general impression of our government’s handling of the POW/MIA issue.
I assumed that at Amb. Ray’s very recent Presidential appointment to this position hadn’t allowed him the opportunity to confer in depth with many (if any) NGO POW/MIA heads.
I began the discussion by giving an overview of Cpl. Roger Dumas’ case, explaining that this was not a unique case and there are perhaps many others like it. The Roger Dumas case is an especially poignant example of the issue of abandoned POW/MIAs because it has the validity bestowed upon it by an unprecedented Federal Court ruling. In the trial, Robert Dumas v. U.S. Sec. of the Army (originally against Ronald Reagan), the judge ruled in Bob Dumas’ favor and ordered the Army to reclassify Roger from KIA (Killed-In-Action) to POW.
Amb. Ray listened intently as I described story of Roger’s disappearance on Nov. 4,,1950 and the continual government denials that Roger was ever captured and held as a POW even when his name appeared on the 389 list of Last Seen Alive POWs. And how they claimed Roger’s records were burned in the St. Louis Records Repository fire when, in fact, they had a complete set of his records on file.
I explained how all of Bob’s ex-POW witnesses had been intimidated by FBI agents and Army officials who warned them not to testify in court and that two of the witnesses died of heart attacks weeks before the trial and two others became too ill to travel. The only witness that made it to the courtroom was approached by an Army Major who warned the ex-POW that if he testified his mother’s indiscretions as a youth would be made public.
I questioned the Ambassador why the Army and the U.S. Attorney would go to such extremes and take such legal risks to prevent Roger from being reclassified a POW. I said I believe the answer is, that to reclassify Roger a POW would lead to an investigation that would reveal hundreds and maybe thousands more were also left behind in North Korea.
Amb. Ray interjected explaining his extensive background in the military, service in South Korea (his wife of 35 years is from South and his in-laws still live there) and his work at the State Department, etc. Amb. Ray vehemently denied that soldiers would knowingly be left behind followed by a systematic government cover-up.
Mr. Cronour assured me that for the six years he’s worked at DPMO he’s never seen any evidence of mismanagement in the handling of DPMO’s mandate to resolve all missing personnel cases.
Amb. Ray said it’s clear that the Dumas family was “jerked around” by the government in the past and pointed out that there are a lot of (stupid) people in government. He said that he cannot respond to anything his predecessors did or said, or what the future DASD will do but he assured me that he would ensure that all that can be done to account for missing servicemen will be done while he’s in charge.
I responded that in two years he’ll be replaced by another Presidential appointee and I’ll be sitting here telling this story to his replacement and on and on it goes while very little ever gets resolved.
By now the 30-minute scheduled meeting was approaching two hours when Mr. Cronour interjected with a request to change direction of the discussions.
He was actually proposing a topic I was about to segue into. Mr. Cronour remarked that DPMO receives a lot of criticism from some of the POW/MIA organizations but whenever their detractors are asked what specifically they would like DPMO to do, they have no ideas and then revert to criticizing DPMO.
I expressed agreement with the concept of finding common ground on which to move forward and in fact came to the meeting prepared with a plan that I would like them to consider.
Mr. Cronour bluntly asked, “What would you like us to do?” Amb. Ray picked up on this bottom line approach emphasizing the leading question, “What do you want us to do about Roger?” I reflected his tone, “Find him!” “Okay,” said Amb. Ray, “That’s what we’re going to try to do. We don’t know what the outcome will be but we’ll do all that we can.”
I then presented my thoughts and ideas including the need to get documents declassified, which Amb. Ray said was a very frustrating problem for everyone at DPMO as well.
I finally came to the point that had very recently become my prime objective for this meeting and it concerned a recent confluence of thoughts I’d been ruminating on for the past couple weeks prompted by the continuous news, commentary, political maneuvering and rhetoric surrounding the North Korean (DPRK) nuclear tests.
During the previous week, the U.S. public had an extremely rare occasion to hear the voice of DPRK U.N. Ambassador Pak Gil Yon expressing how the nuclear bomb test was a proud moment for his nation.
In 1985 Amb. Pak Gil Yon made a very unusual overture by calling Bob Dumas at his home after hearing about Bob’s federal court case to reclassify Roger a POW. Amb. Pak invited Bob to meet with him in New York to discuss how the POW/MIA issue could be negotiated on a presidential one-on-one level.
This was the start of a 10-year relationship between Bob and Amb. Pak and other ambassadors at the North Korean Mission to the U.N. Bob had several meetings with Amb. Pak, Amb. Ho Jong and over 250 phone conversations with Pak, Ho and other DPRK ambassadors and embassy staff.
Bob asked Amb. Pak in 1994, “Would your country ever use a nuclear weapon against South Korea, Japan or the U.S.?” Amb. Pak replied,
“If we used a nuclear weapon we know our country would be destroyed in 20 minutes and be reduced to water. We’re not that stupid.”
From my knowledge of these meetings and taped conversations I have listened to, I have a strong opinion that North Korea has always desired direct one-on-one negotiations with the U.S. president, a non-aggression pact and ultimately a signed peace treaty to officially end the Korean War.
As for saber rattling in the form of nuclear bomb testing, my belief is that this extreme measure seeks to force the U.S. into direct negotiations and because there really is no military option for the U.S. in Korea, these direct talks are going to happen and the Korean War peace treaty will be signed.
I told Amb. Ray that this will give us the best (and maybe the only) opportunity to achieve resolution to the POW/MIA issue and receiving a full accounting of all the Last Seen Alive POW cases, all unaccounted for MIA cases and recovery of remains.
As the White House has been getting pressure to engage in direct talks with North Korea, President Bush has indicated that signing the Korean War Peace Treaty is a necessary step in normalizing relations with the DPRK.
I gave Amb. Ray an overview of the Korean War peace negotiations breakdown based on my research while producing my documentary.
The issue of prisoner exchange was the final stalemate in the peace negations during the war. In fact, for over half of the three-year war, POW repatriation was the last issue to be resolved.
Since South Korean President, Sygmund Rhee allowed thousands of DPRK and Chinese POWs that the U.N. Command was holding to defect and not return to the north or China, the North Korean government considered this tantamount to not returning all of their POWs and in retaliation would not return all of the U.N. Command POWs it was holding.
Without ever resolving the POW repatriation issue a peace treaty could not be signed and instead the hostilities ended by the compromise signing of an Armistice.
To this day, North Korea and the United States are technically still at war.
Amb. Ray appeared thoughtful and intrigued and said this was an interesting idea. He asked Mr. Cronour and Mr. Greer to verify that the prisoner exchange was not resolved when the Armistice was signed.
Amb. Ray said that DPMO could make such a recommendation to the President but it would be up to the President to consider it in any peace treaty negotiations that may occur.
As the meeting winded down I felt as if something very substantial had been achieved at this meeting.
While we made our way to the office door I asked Amb. Ray how long he would be director of DPMO. He said he didn’t know and that it depended on who would be the next President and when/if he gets called back to the State Dept. (Amb. Ray informed me earlier he was “on loan” from the State Dept.) He said he thought he would be in this position for at least two years.
At the end of the week, on Friday during the final plenary session Q&A of the DPMO Korean War POW/MIA Family Update Meeting, all the department heads and key support staff were on the stage to answer any questions in this final open forum.
I waited until there were no other questions from the audience before I made my final inquiry.
Throughout the three-day conference I would often throw hardball questions at the panelists. Usually I already knew the answers but I wanted the family members to hear these issues and the official responses that often are not satisfactory. Over half of the 400-plus family members in attendance were attending the conference for the first time and have no idea there is a continuing controversy concerning abandoned POW/MIAs and the live POW/MIA issue.
After the Army sergeants who brought wireless microphones to those wishing to ask questions joked that I was “shut off” from asking questions I did finally rise to make a plea as opposed to making a point.
I could see everyone was bracing for my final assault but I disarmed the DPMO officials by thanking them for a productive conference explaining that I spent several hours with DPMO analyst Phil O’Brian and Army Casualty officer, Lt. Col. Schuneman and we exchanged some crucial information concerning Roger Dumas which also shed light on other aspects of the general POW investigation.
I then described the meeting with Amb. Ray and my idea for DPMO to advise President Bush or his successor that the POW repatriation issue must be resolved before a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War can be signed.
I made an impassioned plea that this may be the only opportunity to ever achieve a resolution for live POWs, MIAs and the return of remains. I requested that DPMO should have as strong a case as possible ready to present to the President in order to achieve this goal.
Finally I posed the question, “What can we do to make this happen?”
Q&A moderator Chuck Henley responded by saying, “The key word you said is, ‘We.’” Mr. Henley explained that DPMO takes orders from above and their orders come from Congress. Mr. Henley suggested I disseminate this POW/MIA resolution proposal to all the veterans, POW/MIA organizations and family members and urge them to contact their Congressmen to support this resolution.
I think at lease some of us came out of this meeting with a sense that this peace treaty idea may provide an opportunity for all POW/MIA organizations, veterans groups, family members and DPMO to work together for a common goal.
This may be overly optimistic but I think we can all learn more and become more effective in our ultimate mission to account for our POW/MIAs if we can take advantage of this little piece of common ground that we can all find safe for mutual cooperation.
At this point I will draft a POW/MIA peace treaty initiative that can be directed to our legislators who will hopefully direct the Defense Dept. and DPMO to present a formal request to the President that a POW/MIA resolution must be a part of the requirements to sign the Korean War Peace Treaty.
