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- THE WEEK, Page 27WORLDA Presummit Gesture
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- Yeltsin confirms that the Soviets held American prisoners in
- the 1950s
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- "As the ancients used to say, the war is not over as long as
- the last slain soldier remains unburied." With these words
- Russian President Boris Yeltsin made an effort last week to help
- mend the scars of the cold war. In a letter to the Senate Select
- Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, Yeltsin confirmed that in the
- 1950s the Soviet Union shot down nine U.S. aircraft --
- incidents never made public by the Pentagon -- and held 12
- surviving Americans in prison or psychiatric clinics. He also
- reported that the Soviets held 716 American servicemen for
- varying periods during World War II and interrogated 59 American
- pows from the Korean War. He offered no significant information
- on the fate of missing servicemen from the Vietnam War era.
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- Senator John Kerry congratulated Yeltsin for "admitting
- the sins of the past." But Yeltsin's letter raised more
- questions than it answered. Were all 716 World War II pows
- released? And what happened to those 12 survivors captured in
- the 1950s? Yeltsin promised more details once the Russian
- investigation was complete.
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