A Presummit Gesture

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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.

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.