FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
Mark S. Zaid, Esq.
(202) 498-0011 cell
Mark@MarkZaid.com
ANNOUNCEMENT OF LAWSUIT AGAINST U.S. GOVERNMENT
TO COMPEL DECLASSIFICATION OF RECORDS FROM KOREAN
& COLD WARS REGARDING POW/MIA SERVICE MEMBERS
Families of Those Missing To Demand President Trump/Congressional Leaders
to Seek Answers from Moscow/Beijing & Revamp POW/MIA Agency
Arlington, Virginia –
On Wednesday, August 9, 2017, at 2:30 P.M. EDT at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel, Studio D (2nd floor), 2800 Potomac Ave, Arlington, VA 22202, families from the major groups representing POW/MIA from the Korean and Cold Wars will announce the filing of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to force multiple federal agencies to release government records kept classified since the 1950s. They will also ask President Trump and Congress to put pressure on Moscow and Beijing to release their records on missing Americans, plus revamp the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which has been without a director for more than a year.
“We’ve run out of patience and we’re running out of time,” says Bob Moore, whose brother, Capt. Harry Moore was shot down over North Korea in 1951 and evidence shows may have been taken to the Soviet Union with other American aviators, according to now declassified US intelligence records and former Soviet officials. Moore said, “We’re asking our elected representatives to stand up for military families who’ve sacrificed so much for our country.”
“It is astonishing the U.S. government is still keeping information classified on these lost heroes, from intelligence documents withheld as Top Secret just this year to operational files from the 1950s,” said Mark S. Zaid, the Washington, D.C. attorney who is handling the litigation on behalf of the Moore family and others. “We hope this lawsuit will help compel the Trump Administration to finally bring these men home,” said Zaid.
The three major family groups – the Coalition of Families of Korean & Cold War POW/MIAs, the Korea-Cold War Families of the Missing, Inc., and the National Alliance of Families are in town for an annual briefing with the Pentagon and will join with the Moore family to issue three demands:
- Declassify U.S. files that continue to be held by agencies such as the Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, National Archives & Records Administration and the Department of State;
- Pressure Moscow and Beijing to release their dossiers on U.S. POW/MIAs, including files said by declassified US reports to be in closed Russian KGB and GRU (military intelligence) archives, as well as files that the Pentagon paid China for, but never received, regarding Americans held by the Chinese but never repatriated;
- Name a respected leader for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and re-start the now languishing program to follow leads on U.S. prisoners reported held in the former Soviet Union, China and North Korea after the Korean and Cold Wars.
“We want the American government to show the same faith to our missing loved ones that they showed to the U.S. government during their service,” stated Pat Dickinson, whose brother Jack and his fellow crewmen were shot down by the Soviets and possibly captured during the Cold War. She added “There may not be much chance our loved ones are still alive, but there remains hope we can still find out what really happened to them.”
Multiple family members, legal counsel and experts on the POW/MIA history of the era will announce the lawsuit and be available for questions, as will Norman Kass, who from 1992 – 2010, served as the Staff Director for the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs.
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