Commentary by Chip Beck
Political Graphics & News Service
Sent in by Bob Necci and Andi Wolos of AIIPOWMIAI Military Veterans, National Alliance, League of Families, and POW
activists will recall that Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) tried unsuccessfully
in
August 1997 to dismantle the Joint Commission Support Directorate (JCSD) and
eliminate Director Norm Kass' position as its Director and as an independent
investigator of the unanswered POW questions.
Only a concerted campaign on the part of this network successfully
turned the situation around, preventing that travesty from happening. As a
result, the
POW issue (as opposed to just the MIAs) continued to get a fair and honest
look by the few remaining investigators in DPMO who have not abandoned their
full mission or their honor, at least for another 18 months.
Now, newcomers DPMO DASD Bob Jones and Joint Commission Co-Director
James Lejoie, guided by the entrenched bureaucratic cadre that have bridled at
genuine POW investigations, have apparently decided to eliminate JCSD and
its programs one man at a time.
It has been rumored for more than a week, beginning with Lejoie's
premature call to Senator Smith's office circa 18 January, that Norm Kass will
again
be targeted for elimination, this time by having him "detailed" to another job
elsewhere in the Pentagon. Kass is one of the few managers there, in my
experienced opinion, who is keeping any semblance of administrative honesty
alive in the POW issue from the inside.
This administrative ploy against one of the most experienced and
knowledgeable Soviet-Russian era POW experts in the country should not be
allowed to happen. Once again, this POW network is probably the only entity
that stands any chance to stop this travesty from being revisited upon the
POWs in a more
"subtle" form than it was 18 months ago.
Had JCSD been disbanded then, the Volkogonov papers about the
hidden KGB orders to obtain US POWs may not have seen the light of day. Few
of you realize how long that little tidbit of information had been in the
pipeline
trying to "escape," how precarious was its existence even after its arrival
here, how it could have been intercepted and destroyed at any time by
persons on both the Russian and US sides, and how Volkogonov had purposely
inserted it into both his memoirs and his notes - notes that he carefully
arranged to
have shipped to the West before his death.
That was no accident. That was a pre-planned voice from the grave
speaking to all of you, from a Soviet General who was silenced while he was
alive. I
know. He was silenced just like this side wants Norm Kass silenced.
It was not DPMO management who arranged for the Volkogonov Memo to
surface, it was JCSD. In fact the DPMO front office was not even aware that
the memo was in the pipeline, because Volkogonov did not trust his
counterpart, James
Wold, any more than he did Yevgeny Primakov, the career KGB General who
suppressed the information about the KGB reports in the first place -- when
Volkogonov first tried to surface them as Joint Commission Russian Director.
Only a tight circle knew of Vokogonov's plan and how he was going to
carry it out after his death -- his way of saying he was "sorry" for not being
able
to surmount the obstacles that the intelligence system of the Soviet Union had
left in place even after the so-called collapse of Communism. Norm Kass
deserves more credit than you know for that information reaching a safe
repository in the US and becoming available to the Families and the
public.
Madeleine Albright would never have questioned Prime Minister
Primakov on the Volkogonov Memo and Al Gore would never have known to bring it
up had JCSD been dismantled 18 months ago as planned. You might never have
heard about it, at least not officially. (There was a fail-safe mechanism in
place to
thwart the intended cover-up on this side of the Atlantic too.)
Jones and Lejoie recently told Congressional members of the Joint
Commission and their staffers that Mr. Kass' management "style" is not
compatible with theirs, and that there is possibly a "personality clash," that
dictates Mr.
Kass should be "detailed" to another job, against his wishes and
preferences.
This action is against YOUR best interests. Management "style" has
nothing to do with it. It's about "integrity." Kass has it, and I'll let you
infer
as to who is lacking it.
As one who worked inside DPMO, and was maneuvered out when I
surfaced improperly "hidden" documents and notified the Oversight Committee of
other improprieties, I feel certain that the current management's statements
are
in fact prompted by the same holdovers in DPMO's cadre who have continually
suppressed POW information over the years and focused on the more
"politically correct MIA recovery programs."
On a related side note and example, I was recently in Cuba, where I
had direct and surprisingly candid conversations about our POWs in Vietnam and
the types of contact that non-Vietnamese intelligence services had with them.
Officials in Havana there called statements by Robert Destatte "ridiculous."
You will recall that in June 1996 Destatte claimed in writing that the
Cubans were either "not in Vietnam," "not involved with our POWs," or were
just
"English language teachers gone awry." When the Cuban military --
supposedly still our enemy according to the Clinton Administration -- is more
honest
and forthright than a DPMO officer, you know something has to be dreadfully
wrong inside DPMO. I'd say the enemy is somewhere other than Cuba.
After I left DPMO in 1996, I traveled to East Berlin in 1997, where
I debriefed East German intelligence officials who said two DPMO officials
working for Chuck Trowbridge, (Sy Downs and Sue Maziarz) had visited one of
their members 4 years previously, but that the DPMO officials performed in
such an incompetent fashion and bizarre manner that it left the East German
stunned and puzzled as to why they came in the first place.
When Downs and Maziarz told the member of the East German POW
operational team "not to bother people with his photographs," they were in
such a hurry to go home that they missed one of the greatest operational
stories I've heard
in years about the Soviet POW exploitation program and how it functioned
across international borders and throughout communist intelligence services.
It was not until Carol Hrdlicka approached me with the lead, that we got to
the bottom of what happened. (I will share the details of this story when I
can find a magazine, newspaper, or publisher willing to provide a forum.)
Three other fine people helped me in this effort, but shall remain anonymous
for now.
That kind of information from the East Germans, the Cubans and
others was what Norm Kass and I were seeking to find when I was working for
him in
JCSD. I had to wait until I was retired so that I could independently pursue
these
leads. That should not have had to happen.
But that's the kind of continuing disservice the Families will get if Norm
Kass is driven out of DPMO and JSCD. Those of us in JCSD could have learned
those above things, and more, officially, if Alan Liotta, Joe Harvey, Chuck
Trowbridge and Dick (Head of Finance) Conoboy had not willfully sabotaged
JCSD operations, as we learned from the "Conoboy Memo." (For details on this,
Families, the Alliance, and the League should insist that John Chapla do his
best to release the 1 October 1996 Unclassified testimony before the Dornan
Subcommittee by Chip Beck, Norm Kass, and Al Graham - all JCSD officers, and
Joe Douglass).
"Detailing" Mr. Kass anywhere else in the DOD system will be the
effective and planned death knell to JCSD, the only independent and objective
investigative unit that exists inside DPMO to probe what a growing number
of us "insiders-turned-out" know to be the Soviet Union's "crime of the
century" -- the exploitation and illegal detention of US military POWs from
1918
through 1975 and beyond.
It is not at all clear that Senator Bob Smith or Congressman Sam
Johnson are moving quickly or forcefully enough to prevent this second
travesty from
being completed. The POW activist network, families, and other concerned
people
need to make their voices heard, loud and clear, once again, to prevent Norm
Kass from being pushed out the door.
Those of us who have tried to serve honorably and with an objective
attitude toward the POW saga - Mike Peck, Paul Cole, Tim Castle, myself, and
even Bob Dornan - have all been targeted in the past. Norm Kass is next, and
Jim
Cannell in Moscow is believed to also be in line for administrative
elimination. We were the people who focused on the POW mystery -- the hard
target if you will.
Those who remain are feeding you only partial information, much of
which is incorrect and willfully misleading. In the past, I have challenged
DPMO
senior officials to debate and discuss the truth in public. The one time
that they were caught in a position where they were confronted by an insider
who
could dissect their statistics and distortions, (Bob Necci's POW panel where
I was invited), Alan Liotta went back to DPMO and informed Public Affairs
Officer Larry Greer that henceforth, the PAO would talk to Veteran Service
Organizations.
If you don't want only the "bone hunt" for MIA remains to continue,
but do want to someday find out the truth about the POWs who were part of
several
Soviet intelligence exploitation programs down through the decades, you must
voice your concern to Smith, Johnson, Buyer, your own representatives in
Congress, the VVA, American Legion, VFW, veterans groups and even the men
trying to perpetrate this unseemingly personnel act DASD Bob Jones, and
General Lejoie. Both of these latter two people are seeking to replace men
and women of integrity with their camp-follower bureaucrats who know who
butters their bread.
We know everyone is busy with the Impeachment process -- and that
may be one of the reasons this time to move was selected by DPMO's Front
Office.
Remember the last time they tried to dismantle JCSD when Congress was in
recess in August 1997. In didn't work then, and it shouldn't work now.
Don't let a good man go down. Keep Norm Kass in place.
CDR. Chip Beck, USNR (Ret)
This commentary may be reprinted in all or part with permission of PG&NS.
Other journalists welcome to pose questions.
Advocacy And Intelligence Index
For Prisoners Of War/Missing In Action, Inc.
Former JCSD Investigator
BeckChip@aol.com
PO Box 5573
Arlington VA 22205
