Soviets Asked to Help U.S. in Old MIA Cases

WASHINGTON —  The United States is using improved relations with the Soviet Union to request information on U.S. servicemen who have been missing in action for 50 years, the State Department says.

“There is no credible evidence that American POWs are being detained in the Soviet Union,” said State Department spokesman David Denny. The department is asking because “some of these cases were never satisfactorily settled.”

In particular, the gov ernment asked April 9 for information on the downing of a Navy Privateer over the Baltic Sea on April 8, 1950, and an Air Force B-29 over the Sea of Japan or the Kamchatka Peninsula of the Soviet Union on June 13, 1952.

The Privateer, the Navy version of the Air Force B-24, carried 10 people and the B-29 carried 12. No bodies or wreckage were returned.

Regarding those two incidents, the Soviet government said “it had established that no U.S. Navy or Air Force personnel were on the territory of the Soviet Union,” Denny said.

“We also requested that the government provide us with any additional information on any other U.S. citizens who may have been detained as a result of World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War,” Denny said.

The State Department’s action “is quite significant,” said Dolores Alfond of Seattle, who heads the National Alliance of Families, a group devoted to solving questions of missing military personnel.