Probably No POWs Still Held in Ex-Soviet Lands, U.S. Envoy Says

President Bush’s special envoy said Tuesday that there probably is no living American POW involuntarily inside the former Soviet Union.

Malcolm Toon said he had encountered “some puzzlement” among Russian officials about why President Boris N. Yeltsin had suggested that there were Americans still in captivity.

Toon, just back from a weeklong mission to Moscow, told President Bush that the Russians had promised to release a definitive statement within two weeks on whether any American soldiers were still alive in Russian prisons, psychiatric hospitals or other facilities.

“There probably is no living American POW detained against his will,” the former envoy to Moscow said.

“There may be former American POWs living in Russia or the former Soviet Union voluntarily. We don’t know that,” Toon said.

The envoy’s pronouncement left MIA activists unconvinced.

Bush said later, “We’re going to pursue every credible account of American POWs or MIAs held by the Soviet regime.”

Bush said Toon’s report “makes clear that Boris Yeltsin stands by his pledge, providing us access to Russian officials and opening up the KGB archives.”

Bush noted that Toon left U.S. investigators behind. “We are going to try to get to the bottom of this,” he added.

Dolores Apodaca Alfond of Seattle, chairperson of the National Alliance of Families, said, “Malcolm Toon has not spent enough time in the Soviet Union to come back with a statement like that.”

Meanwhile, the Itar-Tass news agency reported that the grave of an American POW had been found in southern Russia by a group that searches for soldiers missing from World War II. The GI was identified only as Francesco Luigi Di Bartolomeo.