U.S. Officials Investigating Report of American MIA in Soviet Union

The Bush Administration is investigating a report by a Soviet newspaper that a U.S. airman, shot down in Vietnam in 1967, is living in Kazakhstan, the State Department said Wednesday.

Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that the business newspaper Kommersant reported earlier this month that an American pilot, who was shot down on May 19, 1967, was brought to Alma Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, in September, 1967.

The newspaper said that the pilot, who was not identified by name, later was taken to a provincial town where he is still living.

“When we got this information, we instructed our embassy in Moscow to dispatch an officer to the area to attempt to confirm the report,” Boucher said. “The embassy was also asked to attempt to contact a Soviet citizen who was quoted in the article as having been involved in the transportation of American prisoners of war out of South Vietnam in 1962.

“At this point, we don’t have any report back from those efforts,” he said.

An investigation by a special congressional committee has focused new attention on speculation that some American POWs in Vietnam were sent to the Soviet Union before the peace settlement and might still be there. At a hearing last week, a former high-ranking North Vietnamese officer testified that he knew some U.S. prisoners were questioned by Soviet advisers during the war but had no idea what became of them.

Boucher said that the State Department has raised the issue of American POWs with officials of both the Soviet central government and the Russian Federation. He said that Secretary of State James A. Baker III inquired as recently as the Oct. 23 meeting in Paris with the Soviet foreign minister.

“Soviet and Russian officials have promised to look into the situation, but at this point we don’t have a complete report back from them,” Boucher said.