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xii, 1223, [5] pages. Footnotes. Some cover wear. The POW/MIA issue has proven almost as emotional and controversial as the Vietnam War itself. The Committee has sought to transform this troubled atmosphere by encouraging all participants in the debate to join forces in an objective search for the truth. Because the overriding hope and objective of the Committee was to identify information that would lead to the rescue or release of one or more live U.S. POWs, the Committee gave first priority to investigation of issues related to our most recent war, the conflict in Vietnam. Nevertheless, substantial resources were devoted to seeking and reviewing information concerning Americans missing from World War II, the Korean War and the Cold War. The Committee has operated on a nonpartisan basis, with a nonpartisan staff, directed by Members equally divided between the two parties. The Committee sought the guidance of family members, activists, veterans' organizations and many others about how to conduct the investigation, where to focus, whom to consult and what issues to address. Former POWs were contacted and asked to share their knowledge and all previous inquiries and investigations on the subject were reviewed. The Committee requested, and received, access to the records of a wide range of U.S. Government agencies, including intelligence agencies and the White House. Unlike previous investigators, we refused to accept "national security" as grounds for denying information and obtained assurances from the highest levels of government that no relevant information would be withheld. The Select Committee was created because of the need to reestablish trust between our government and our people on this most painful and emotional of issues. It was created to investigate and tell publicly the complete story about what our government knows and has known, and what it is doing and has done on behalf of our POW/MIAs. It was created to examine the possibility that unaccounted for Americans might have survived in captivity after POW repatriations at Odessa in World War II, after Operation Big Switch in Korea in 1953, after Cold War incidents, and particularly after Operation Homecoming in Vietnam in 1973. It was created to ensure that accounting for missing Americans will be a matter of highest national priority, not only in word but in practice. It was created to encourage real cooperation from foreign governments. It was created, in short, to pursue the truth, at home and overseas. Whether the Committee has succeeded in its assigned tasks will be a matter for the public and for history to judge. Clearly, we cannot claim, nor could we have hoped, to have learned everything. We had neither the authority nor the resources to make case by case determinations with respect to the status of the missing. The job of negotiating, conducting interviews, visiting prisons, excavating crash sites, investigating live-sighting reports and evaluating archival materials can only be completed by the Executive branch. This job, long frustrated by the intransigence of foreign governments, will take time to complete notwithstanding the recent improvements in cooperation, especially from Vietnam. The Committee takes considerable pride, however, in its contribution, through oversight, to improvements in the accountability process, and in the record of information and accomplishment it leaves behind. That record includes the most rapid and extensive declassification of public files and documents on a single issue in American history. It includes a set of hearings and Committee files in which virtually every part of the POW/MIA controversy has been examined. It includes disclosure after disclosure about aspects of U.S. policy and actions that have never before been made public. It includes a rigorous, public examination of relevant U.S. intelligence information. It includes an exposure of the activities of some private groups who have sought inexcusably to exploit.
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