Commission to investigate the aftermath of military conflicts
The U.S.–Russia Joint Commission on POWs/MIAs (USRJC) was established in 1992 by the presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin. The USRJC was established to determine the fates of the United States's and the Soviet Union's unaccounted-for service personnel from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War (as defined by the USRJC's directive to be specific "reconnaissance missions"), Afghanistan and the Vietnam War, Laos and Cambodia.
Information exchanged between the two parties is then investigated by a spectrum of governmental entities. In the U.S., the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is the lead agency responsible for personnel accounting.
The Commission, holds a formal plenary to discuss a spectrum of issues that involve Prisoners of War and Missing in Action such as; archival research, reported gravesites, loss incident reports, shoot-downs, archival reports, Soviet Bloc nation intelligence and reports, information passed on to the Commission and to establish the direction the USRJC and its Working Groups.
Commission Members and researchers interview former military personnel, civilians, former Internees, contract for archival access, research, search military museums and expand the investigative program in an effort to account for missing service members.
Joint Commission Support Division (JCSD), Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) provides administrative and analytic support to the U.S. Side of the U.S.–Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs (USRJC) and conducts research in Russia on missing U.S. service personnel. JCSD also assists the Government of Russia with efforts to account for its missing.
U.S. analysts have had access to many important Russian governmental archives for research on past conflicts including the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense in Podolsk, Russia—the largest military archive in Europe. After a period of decreased cooperation starting in 2006, U.S. President Obama and Russian President Medvedev revitalized the work of the USRJC in July 2009 with an exchange of Diplomatic Notes reaffirming their respective countries' commitment to strengthening bilateral cooperation on POW/MIA issues.
Retired Air Force General Robert H. "Doc" Foglesong has served as Chairman of the U.S. Side since April 2006. The most recent Russian Presidential Decree on the USRJC, issued in July 2014, appointed General-Colonel (retired) Valeriy A. Vostrotin as the Chairman of the Commission’s Russian Side and fills other vacant Russian commissioner seats.
The USRJC is broken down into four Working Groups which correlate to the four main areas of investigation. There is the World War II Working Group, the Korean War Working Group, the Cold War Working Group and finally, the Vietnam War Working Group, which deals with aspects of the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue.
History.
Efforts Relating to World War II.
JCSD analysts conduct research of Soviet military and captured German documents in Russian archives searching for information on specific American WWII losses that occurred in areas controlled or eventually captured by Soviet forces.
Efforts Relating to the Korean War.
Russian archives detail combat activities of Soviet air and anti-aircraft artillery units deployed to defend military targets in the northwest area of North Korea.
Thus far, Russian archival data has provided information that clarified the circumstances of loss for 336 cases involving missing U.S. servicemen from the Korean War. Researchers interviewed more than 1,000 Soviet veterans of the Korean War since the USRJC began its work in the former USSR.
Efforts Relating to the Cold War.
JCSD analysts investigate the air losses of U.S. servicemen missing during the Cold War between 1950 and 1965 that occurred along the periphery of the former Soviet Union. Since 1992, U.S. analysts assigned to JCSD have worked with Soviet-era veterans, Russian government officials, and archival researchers to gather data on the 126 U.S. service members who are still unaccounted for as a result of fourteen separate Cold War incidents. JCSD analysts continue to assist the Russians in accounting for Soviet soldiers missing from the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan and other Cold War-era incidents.
On July 6, 2009, the U.S. Government and the Government of the Russian Federation exchanged diplomatic notes reflecting their common understandings regarding the establishment of bilateral cooperation in the sphere of determining the fates of Soviet/Russian and U.S. service-members missing in action (MIA) during the Second World War and wars and armed conflicts thereafter, and expressing their mutual commitment to the humanitarian goal of determining the fates of Soviet/Russian and U.S. service members who are MIA as a result of wars and armed conflicts. Over the past 20 years, the USRJC advised the U.S. and Russian governments regarding the fates of U.S. and Soviet/Russian servicemen and civilians in the employment of their governments who are unaccounted for from World War II through Cold War military conflicts, during Soviet military operations in Afghanistan (1979-1989), and in other small-scale hostile encounters between opposing forces. This Charter reflects a consensus among relevant departments and agencies on how the USRJC will operate to realize most effectively the humanitarian goals expressed in that exchange of diplomatic notes and maximize the accounting for U.S. service members still listed as MIA.
Efforts related to the Vietnam War.
Since 1992, researchers interviewed more than 750 Soviet veterans of the Vietnam War. JCSD cultivates contacts with Russian veterans’ groups to identify possible interview subjects. JCSD continues to pursue declassification of Russia’s Vietnam War information that may help clarify the fate of missing U.S. service personnel from that conflict.
References.
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