[cobra bill]

BOTH KOREA AND VIETNAM

According to sources, some of the same KGB agents and their associates, often the latter posing as foreign journalists, were involved in attempting to exploit American POWs for intelligence and propaganda purposes in both Korea and Vietnam. To cite as just one example, Australian communist journalist Wilfred Burchett, well known to American POWs for this activity in Korea, later appeared in the same role in Vietnam.

Pentagon files regarding exploitation of U.S. prisoners of war in Indochina are kept secret, except from the hierarchy of the U.S. intelligence community and some high U.S. government officials. It of course also remains in the files of the communist exploiters of the POWs.

As it stands, the American people will never know the truth about this exploitation in Vietnam, unless some official body, such as the Senate Select Committee, subpoenas the files from the Pentagon. As an example, the Senate Select Committee has never followed up on the explosive testimony of former KGB Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, who testified, under oath, that the KGB interrogated U.S. POWs in Vietnam.

Kalugin stated that one of the POWs worked on by the KGB was a "high-ranking naval officer," who, according to Kalugin, agreed to work with the Soviets upon his repatriation to the United States and has frequently appeared on U.S. television.

Whether this is true or not it certainly begs to be investigated and, like it or not, Sen. John McCain fits the description, and his behavior, also like it or not, raises serious questions. The fact that he is a United States Senator should not be a factor, alas, "The Manchurian Candidate" possibility.

When it comes to matters of national security and the welfare of every man, woman and child in the United States, there should be no sacred cows, and it must not be forgotten that Sen. McCain was being considered for higher office, prior to his numerous appearances on national television defending his involvement in the Savings and Loan scandal.

In November of 1991, when Tracy Usry, the former chief investigator of the Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, testified before the Select Committee, he revealed that the Soviets interrogated U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam. Sen. McCain became outraged interrupting Usry several times, arguing that "none of the returned U.S. prisoners of war released by Vietnam were ever interrogated by the Soviets." However, this was simply not true and Sen. McCain knows that from firsthand experience.

Col. Bui Tin, a former Senior Colonel in the North Vietnamese Army, testified on the same day, but after Usry, that because of his high position in the Communist Party during the war, he had the authority to "read all documents and secret telegrams from the politburo" pertaining to American prisoners of war. He said that not only did the Soviets interrogate some American prisoners of war, but that they treated the Americans very badly.

Bui Tin, who indicated he favored a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, also offered the committee his records concerning his personal interrogations of American POWs.