Bringing Missing Heroes Home – A Briefing With The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

NEW YORK FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, 799 UNITED NATIONS PLAZA, 10TH FLOOR

MODERATOR:  Thank you both for being here.  I’m really delighted to have this conversation.  It’s my first time having this organization here with us at the FPC.  And so we want to welcome Mr. McKeague – Mr. McKeague, the director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.  He’ll open with some remarks, and then we’ll have a time of Q&A.  We have a hard stop at 11:00, but, again, we’re thankful for your time and for your engagement with us.  We recognize this is a unique element of diplomacy, and we just look forward to this conversation.  So, sir, we’ll begin with you, and then we’ll just have a chat.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  Thank you.  Thank you, again, for joining us today.  This is something that the United States does and a commitment that we make not only to the servicemember who made the supreme sacrifice in war, but it’s also to their families.  And their families, as you can imagine, are no different than Nigerian and German families, because that not only do they grieve the loss of their loved one from past wars, but when there’s an uncertainty attached to it where they – they obviously know that the loved one died in World War II – but not knowing and having those remains makes it an exacerbating set of circumstances for the family.  

And so not only do we do this with great vigor throughout the world – we work in 45 countries, still looking for 81,000 Americans missing from World War II through the Persian Gulf Wars – and these losses, predominantly from World War II, 75 percent are in the Indo-Pacific region and the remainder are in Europe.  But those 45 countries, we actually get great cooperation from.  We look at this as a tool of diplomacy, a tool of engagement.  Not only do we work closely with former enemies, but we also work with allies and partners and even a China and a Russia, where the bilateral relationship may be tense, it may be at odds.  We see this as being what we call a diplomatic carve-out, and that countries are willing to help and assist the United States in this search.  

And a lot of this begins with research and analysis.  It migrates through field excavations, and then ultimately if we do find remains, we bring them back to one of two laboratories where our scientists will identify them and hopefully repatriate them to their loved ones.  But as you can imagine, it brings great joy, the fact that they are able to be home and more importantly get those – get that closure that has been lacking for decades.  

So with that, be glad to answer any questions, or, again, as Melissa pointed out, have a discussion.  

QUESTIONER:  How exactly does it work?  How do you find those people, I’m from Germany and so – in World War II, it’s all, like, it’s all buildings.  Is it sill possible to find people, and how will you do that?  

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yeah, absolutely.  One would think that as developed as Europe is that we would not be having successful missions.  We do all the time.  A lot of it begins with our historians conducting the research in order to take battlefield records, to go through archival information – either American or German – to look at, say, church records, and if they’re able to take an area of this size and narrow it down because of research – there’s something there – we will send a field investigation team.  And if they are able to, again, either talk to firsthand witnesses or even stories that have been handed down, then we will send an archaeologist or anthropologist to excavate.  We just had one – my colleague is – give it to Katy (ph).  She’ll – 

STAFF:  Now I’m going to butcher this place.  

QUESTIONER:  It’s called Wistedt.

STAFF:  Wistedt.

QUESTIONER:  Wistedt, yeah.

STAFF:  Wistedt, Germany.  That’s actually our guys digging out there.  

QUESTIONER:  Wow.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  So in that particular case, the information came from a landowner whose father had told him about the crash.  And it’s a B-24 bomber.  There’s actually ten Americans on it.  We were shocked.  It was the first instance of digging, finding the plane fully intact, and all ten crewmen were in their exact same positions on the aircraft, which was extraordinary.  And so we actually – because everything was concentrated – it wasn’t spread out over an area – we were able to find ten sets of remains.  And, again, that’s from Germany.  Now, I’m not sure how developed – is it Wistedt?  Wistedt?

QUESTIONER:  Yeah, I don’t think – I have to look where it is because I think it’s a small town.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  But, again, one – one thing that we find helpful is not only do we get great cooperation from the federal government in Germany, but the —   

QUESTIONER:  Oh, it’s outside of Hamburg.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  Outside of Hamburg? 

QUESTIONER:  Yeah. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Well, we get great cooperation from the state governments and from the local governments; to wit, we obviously have to be permitted.  We also have to meet environmental requirements, but tremendous cooperation at all levels of the German Government in terms of providing that support, providing that cooperation such that we were able to do that.  I fully expect the ten will be identified here in the next six months, which, again, 80 years have passed from that loss, and those ten families will now have answers.  

QUESTIONER:  So is it like their – the younger generations now, because probably, like, the parents —   

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yes. 

QUESTIONER:  — won’t be alive anymore, and probably —

MR MCKEAGUE:  Second, third generation.  

QUESTION:  Okay. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  But what’s – what we find interesting is that the dynamic of that story passed down through families maintains itself such that you’ll be talking to, say, a third generation family member – never met the American, the loved one before – but as you’re speaking to them, it’s as if you’re talking to a wife or you’re talking to the mother.  They know everything, everything about how they grew up, what they did in high school, what they did in the war, and more importantly the grieving of how the mother, the grandmother carried it through decades until they passed away.  They’re all unique stories.  

QUESTION:  And I have another question, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask it.  So the – so you apparently only find, like, the skeletons and bones?  Like, you don’t find, like, uniform?  Is it all gone?

MR MCKEAGUE:  We do. We do find what we call material evidence. 

QUESTION:  Yeah.

MR MCKEAGUE:  So we use seven lines of evidence.  So obviously, remains is what we’re looking for, but sometimes what we call material evidence is very important.  So for instance, if we find a wedding ring or we find a dog tag or some kind of personal effects that help us – so material evidence is one line.  But again, for a uniform – uniforms may be common.  So it may not help us to differentiate that particular individual.  However, if, again, a dog tag, a wedding ring, or what have you – those are helpful.  But DNA is obviously something that we use. 

We also use chest X-rays.  I never knew this, but —

QUESTIONER:  Wow. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Your clavicle, your collarbone, is as unique as a fingerprint.  (Laughter.)  Who knew?  So if we have the servicemember’s X-ray from when they entered the military – they were taken, they were given chest X-rays for tuberculosis – if we have that X-ray and we have a collarbone that we found, we can have – we can make a match.  We can also do it – we have this technique called isotope.  So what you eat and drink as a child stays in your bones for life.  

QUESTIONER:  So if they find out.  But, like, if there was right where they grew up — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Exactly. 

QUESTIONER:  — and where they came from —

MR MCKEAGUE:  Exactly. 

QUESTIONER:  — like, and identify? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  And we can differentiate.  So if we have a set of bones and we’ve taken the – and isotopes are cheaper and faster than DNA. 

QUESTIONER:  Oh, it is? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  It is. 

QUESTIONER:  I didn’t know that. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Very.  It’s about — 

QUESTIONER:  I thought it was so complicated. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  No, it’s about 10 percent of the cost and about 10 percent of the time it takes.  But — 

QUESTIONER:  Wow. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  — while that doesn’t guarantee an identification, we use it to separate and differentiate.  So – I’ll give you an example.  We will recover remains across World War II battlefields, and sometimes they’re mixed in with Japanese, sometimes they’re mixed in with Korean.  Because of isotopes, we can quickly determine is that person from the United States or is it from Asia?  Then, even within the United States, we can differentiate, did he grow up in the Midwest, did he grow up on the West Coast, did he grow up in New York state?  We can differentiate down to that.  So again, if – that’s another tool of engagement – or tool of evidence that we use.  But these seven lines of evidence help us to determine a particular individual.

And by the way, DNA has advanced so much that if we have somebody four generations down, that’s all we need.  It doesn’t need to be a direct relative.  Doesn’t need to be the parent.  It can be four generations removed.  If we have that person’s DNA, we can make the match. 

QUESTIONER:  Interesting.  May I ask what your background, your personal – are you a scientist or — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  I started out as an engineer in the Air Force.  This was my last job in the Air Force, was this organization.  We have people from all walks of life.  We have historians.  We have researchers.  We have public affairs, like Ashley.  Obviously, then, we have archaeologists and anthropologists.  Because it takes – it takes literally this multifaceted effort with which to make the identification.  So we have logisticians.  We have engineers.  You name it, we’re able to pull this – these expert – subject matter experts together to help determine these identifications. 

QUESTIONER:  At what cost?  Not just the – we know the emotional impact of it, but what physical or monetary costs to the U.S. Government? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  So our budget is 190 million, and again, with that we operate all over the world.  Of the 81,000 that are missing, we estimate 38,000 to be recoverable.  So we do pursue underwater losses, but we’re limited to about 200 feet – 200 feet of water.  

QUESTIONER:  And how does that work, if I can ask?  If it’s in the water, like, because it’ll move a lot — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  It moves, but it also preserves.  So yes, it moves.  But again, if the aircraft is intact – or, again, where the bodies are inside the aircraft or the ship or the submarine, then we’re able, obviously, to do that.  But you’re right, currents do move and wreckage will be dispersed.  However, saltwater acts as a preservative for DNA such that we’re able to find DNA more readily from an underwater loss than a terrestrial.  

And so, again, to answer your question, a lot of background – I don’t have a scientific background, but again, we have scientists that do.  

The other technique that is almost better than DNA is dental, is if we have – even if all we have is a chart of their dental exam, our dentists, forensic dentists, if we find teeth that we recover, are able to match – make a match, that’s almost 95 percent if not 99 percent more reliable than DNA.  

QUESTIONER:  What can other countries learn from you?  I mean, I’m from Nigeria.  We – look, my grandfather fought in the war.  We don’t even have – we – I’m sure we lost a lot of people then.  There’s been no way of recovering even more recent stuff.  Those things are not in place in my country, and I’m sure in tons of other countries, too.  So two questions.  Do you have an Africa – do you have an Africa side to this and any Africa-specific stories?  And then also, what can the rest of the world learn from you, from the U.S., in taking these great lengths and great measures to bring people back home? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yeah, great question.  So our losses in Africa are limited.  They’re limited to the northern parts of Africa, so we have losses, obviously, in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and so again, our work on the continent isn’t as extensive.  

What countries can learn?  It’s an interesting dynamic that countries that are – share our Western values don’t pursue this.  The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, where the servicemember died is where their final resting place is.  So they have – they have limited capability, so in other words, if somebody calls Great Britain and says, “We think we’ve found a British soldier in Tunisia,” they will send a small team.  But they don’t do it for the purpose of identifying.  They just do it to collect the remains and then take them back to a commemorative cemetery.  

Countries in Asia all of a sudden want to do this.  So South Korea came to us 21 years ago and said, “Can you help us develop this capability?”  I would say they rival our expertise.  They’ve just copied it with great abandon, and they do great work in South Korea.  Japan is actually – they were at one point missing 1.1 million from World War II.  They’ve since narrowed it down to 600,000.  However, what they do is when they find Japanese remains, they will take them back to Tokyo, cremate them, and inter them in the cemetery – until five years ago, when the Japanese, because of our example, changed their laws; now they’re developing the capability with which to identify. 

And then the third examplar I would give you is Vietnam.  So Vietnam had 350,000 lost in the Vietnam War.  Vietnam started cooperating with the United States for our missing 39 years ago.  In our work in Vietnam, we oftentimes will employ villagers, on the order of 20 to maybe 150, to help us, depending on the complexity of the site.  We think, over time, as these villagers – and by the way, they would readily help the United States.  There was never – our teams have never encountered bitterness, hostility, or regret that – and by the way, most of these people probably lost loved ones in the war.  But there would never be an instance of recriminations or what have you. 

We think, over time, those villagers began to ask their government, “What about our loved ones?”  And so eight years ago, Vietnam passed a law.  Four years ago they now establish a law to establish a capability like we have.  And so we’re helping them.  The United Nations – yeah, what’s the – what’s it called?  

STAFF:  (Off-mike.) 

MR MCKEAGUE:  There’s an organization in Geneva called the —

STAFF:  (Inaudible) Missing Persons? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Something like that.  Anyway, it’s an organization that specializes in just what you talked about, more current day, and – but they have scientists that will take the time to help a nation.  They cut their teeth, really, after the Yugoslavia war – the wars in Yugoslavia and Bosnia, with the mass graves and being able to help there.  And so together with us and this organization – I’ll think about it; Ashley, if you could Google it, please – we’re helping Vietnam establish this capability because their citizenry is asking them, “Hey, for five years all you did was find remains and you buried them in a” – what they call a martyr cemetery.  “We think now you need to help us – you need to help identify our loved ones.” 

So you have these pockets of countries that are interested.  But for the most part, most of them, where they fell in battle is where they will lie.  We work closely with the Volksbund; the Volksbund is the German war commission.  They’re located —

QUESTIONER:  How do you spell it? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  V-o-l-k-s-b-u-n-d.  

STAFF:  International Commission on Missing Persons. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yes, ICMP, International Commission on Missing Persons.  Thank you. 

QUESTIONER:  Do you also look, like, for people that might still be alive?  Because some —

MR MCKEAGUE:  There are none. 

QUESTIONER:  You know that for a fact? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  We know that for a fact. 

QUESTIONER:  That somebody would maybe, like, just live somewhere —

MR MCKEAGUE:  Oh, of course.  So – but we try —

QUESTIONER:  In Germany, for example, if somebody, I don’t know, (inaudible) or —

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yeah.  So those are considered what we call AWOL, Absent Without Leave.  So I’ll give you an example from the Vietnam War.  There are three that just left, went to – well, they’re not even sure where they are.  They’re not even sure if they’re alive.  There were six in Korean War; the last one, I think, died.  Went to, actually, North Korea – defected. 

QUESTIONER:  But what about people who get kidnapped?  Like, for example, like, they are missing, too, right?  Somebody is kidnapped at the war.  You don’t even know about it, and nobody knows where they are. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  We don’t track those.  

QUESTIONER:  Okay. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yeah.  The only ones we track are those that we know died in combat and are missing on a battlefield.  

QUESTIONER:  Will your office be in existence without conflict? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Well, the last conflict that we actually are tracking is one that ended in 2006.  If – there are – so the United States’s most recent conflict – this is extraordinary – the United States’s most recent conflict is, obviously, the war in Afghanistan.  Twenty years of combat.  Zero.  There’s not a single missing person from that war that we’re tracking.  The reason for that is most of our losses are from World War II, and they drop significantly in the Korean War.  They drop even further in Vietnam.  And for the Persian Gulf wars, there’s only six.  But think about this.  Twenty years of combat in Afghanistan; zero missing.  The reason for that is the United States spends a lot of time, energy, and effort recovering them when they die and are lost on the battlefield.  And again, this combat in Afghanistan was harsh.  It was in far-flung places.  But yet not a single missing American.  

So to answer your question, we don’t think so.  Obviously we will, obviously, but right now it’s past conflicts simply because we didn’t do back then as good of a job picking them up, the remains, when they had fell as much as we do now.

QUESTIONER:  Do you know where was the last person that you found in Germany? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  This one that we just did in the fall.  

STAFF:  Yeah, those ten remains —   

QUESTIONER:  The one you just showed me?  

STAFF:  Yes.

QUESTIONER:  Okay.  So that’s —  

MR MCKEAGUE:  That’s the last mission we had.  We were there from July through October.  

MODERATOR:  That was a news article, right?  You can send it to her?  

STAFF:  Yes, I can, actually. 

QUESTIONER:  Oh, then that’s good.  And another question.  Is there, like, an example where you found the most people in Germany where, say, that was the mission where you really could bring back home a lot of the soldiers from Germany —

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yeah, so —    

QUESTIONER:  — in one city, place?  

MR MCKEAGUE:  So the project right now we have was from the Battle of Hürtgen Forest.  So the losses are not concentrated in one area.  So we use this as a project because what happens is if we find one American, comparing history, where the person was lost – who – where there might be others nearby, it’s almost like a domino effect in that grabbing – identifying one leads us to do a better job historically with another, and so that’s an ongoing project.  I think Hürtgen, we’re up to 80, 88 – Ashley will get you confirmed.  

STAFF:  Yeah, last I remember it being around 50 this time last year. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Was it 50?  Okay. 

STAFF:  So —   

MR MCKEAGUE:  But I think we’ve had several since?  

STAFF:  Yes, we have, including some – great state of Alabama.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  We’ll get you that number.  The Hürtgen Forest was a battle that was quite intense, and the losses are spread out all throughout the forest because the battleline was rather large.  But again, because we’re treating everything as a project, we’re able to, again, continue to inform other losses that help us – historians focus more on this person.  And again, it’s very successful in terms of the numbers.  

QUESTIONER:  And is it, like, underground, or how do I have to imagine?  

MR MCKEAGUE:  It’s underground. 

QUESTIONER:  Okay. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  So when we – when we dig, depending upon the complexity of the site, you can have an airplane crash that is maybe under 20 feet – like this case in Wistedt, 20 feet of soil.  You may have a ground loss, a soldier maybe in a meter – shallow – but everything is underground.  

QUESTIONER:  Yeah, like an uncle of mine, he found a plane once in the forest from the Americans, and he found it because he’s, like, a nerd and he had plans, and he looked where it could be and he looked from above.  And then he felt like maybe there’s a plane, and he started grabbing.  But I don’t – I’m not sure if it was with people; I’d have to ask him.  Yeah.  But he was the same – it was underground, and it was big in the news.  And I was like, how did you do that?  Because you can’t see it.    

MR MCKEAGUE:  Right. 

QUESTIONER:  But he was also checking, I think, on maps —   

MR MCKEAGUE:  A lot of – and that’s how we — 

QUESTIONER:  — and kind of see how it kind of changed with the plans, right? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  And that’s how a lot of people in Germany – there are third party historians, third party researchers, what we call wreck hunters that – they like doing that work.  So they’ll take metal detectors, and they’ll, again, search an area.  And that information is passed to us, and that’s how we —   

QUESTIONER:  I think he even gave it because he has like a museum even like at home with all the things he found —   

MR MCKEAGUE:  He found.  Sure.  

QUESTIONER:  — from the war, from Americans.  And I think I did stories about – and then they – it was not a huge plane, like one made for two people.  I don’t know.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  Right. 

QUESTIONER:  I can find out.  But I mean, this is amazing.    

MR MCKEAGUE:  And I wonder if – again, a lot of – some – a lot of those crashes don’t have people associated with it.  In other words, the person may have parachuted out.  I’d be interested to know whether or not there is a person associated with that particular loss.    

QUESTIONER:  Yeah, I can ask that – but why is it underground?  Is it because stuff grew over it —    

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yes. 

QUESTIONER:  — or did it really dig it —  

MR MCKEAGUE:  Both.  So I’ll give you an example.  So in World War II, aircraft flew slower, and so when they hit the ground they created a creator that might be maybe three meters, maybe at most we find seven meters.  In Vietnam, because the jets were faster, some of these are ten meters, 20 meters deep.  And do you have – do you have a picture?  Oh, and do you have – do you have the  —    

STAFF:  The brief?

MR MCKEAGUE:  — the read-ahead?  The brief?  

STAFF:  Yeah, I can pull it up. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Can you just pull up the – that site.  

STAFF:  Yeah, give me a second here. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  So the picture she’s going to show you is an Air Force aircraft in Vietnam crashed in 1969.  The crater, as you will see, is 20 meters deep.  Because, again, it’s – I don’t know what the kilometers are, but 600 miles an hour into the ground.  

QUESTIONER:  If it’s today, I’m sure it’ll be deeper. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Right.  And you’ll see this picture right here.  Do you have my – do you have my —   

STAFF:  I have your phone.  Yes. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  No, do you have the read-ahead?  You don’t have the read-ahead? 

STAFF:  I do not.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  It’s your read-ahead.  With the picture? 

STAFF:  Well, I have the digital copy. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Okay.  

STAFF:  So I’m trying to get it to open up here.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  The ICMP, the International Commission on Missing Persons, they do incredible work —   

MR MCKEAGUE:  — all over the world.  

QUESTIONER:  Okay.  I’ll definitely have to check them out.    

MR MCKEAGUE:  In fact, we have scientists that left us that now work with them, and I’ve worked with them on projects – yeah, pull up the brief.  Pull up the brief, please.  But they’re a talented group, and so again – and they use a lot of the techniques we do with anthropology, with odontology, dentistry, with DNA that help countries.  

QUESTIONER:  What happens if you find, like, let’s say during World War II with the U.S. soldiers, a German one?  Would you give it back then to —   

MR MCKEAGUE:  We do.  

QUESTIONER:  And you just tell – you would find out — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Correct.  In fact, we actually have a case that – this Volksbund, the German War Commission, they found a case of what they believe to be an American and an Austrian buried in a mass German grave.  They notified us, and so we are sending scientists there, and they brought in Austrian scientists.  And we think it’s the American that we think it is, and then Austria believes it’s the Austrian, but again, they helped us with that.  But again, if we find German remains, we will turn them over to them and they will honor them at, I think they call it – there’s a special name that they use for German war cemeteries, and I’ve seen these cemeteries before.  They’re very beautiful.  They’re sort of – yeah.  

Okay, so look at that site on the left.  And you see the person in the blue shirt how – where he is?  Now look on the people on the upper level, how high that is.  So all of that was dug to get to the lowest part of that pit.

QUESTIONER:  How do those machines go on the top when you were – when you are seeing maybe a plane is downed, or, like, a metal detector.  Are they really strong to go really deep?  

MR MCKEAGUE:  They are, yes.  

QUESTIONER:  Oh, okay.  

STAFF:  We use ground-penetrating radar.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  We – we also – not just metal detection, but we use what Ashley pointed out, ground-penetrating radar.  So it’s a radar that sends a signal through the ground looking for anomalies.  And they’ll map out a plot of land and they’ll kind of show where the anomalies are, how deep they are.

QUESTIONER:  And does it happen that you’re wrong sometimes, that you think there’s something and then something – nothing —

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yes.  Absolutely.  Right, right.  

QUESTIONER:  I was just going to come to that.  Are there countries, are there places that you don’t have the same type of cooperation from — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  One.  You can guess.

QUESTIONER:  China?  

MR MCKEAGUE:  No.  

QUESTIONER:  China.  You have —

MR MCKEAGUE:  No.  

QUESTIONER:  Just did something in China.

MR MCKEAGUE:  One.  

QUESTIONER:  Afghanistan?  

QUESTIONER:  Iraq?  

MR MCKEAGUE:  North Korea.  

QUESTIONER:  Oh.  (Laughter.)  

QUESTIONER:  Are there – do their people, like – okay, yeah, I wanted to say that but I thought like — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  We have seven thousand — 

QUESTIONER:  (Inaudible) lost people.

MR MCKEAGUE:  We have 7,500 missing from the Korean War; 5,300 are in North Korea.  North Korea uses this as a weapon, as a tool.  They know how important it is to us.  We’ve had overtures, we’ve had – we actually worked inside with North Korea for 10 years from 1996 to 2005.  Very successful because, again, the remains in North Korea are really well preserved because there’s no development.  The soil, environmental conditions, the weather preserves the remains, but we haven’t had a team back there since 2005.  

When President Trump met Chairman Kim in Singapore in 2018, there were four commitments made.  We actually were commitment number four, which is not only to resume those field operations but also to repatriate remains that they are currently holding.  A month after Singapore, North Korea called us and said hey, we have 55 boxes, we – come get them.  We did.  In fact, that picture that you see there in the middle is our scientists in a North Korean airport.  The boxes are in front of them.  Those remains had been out of the ground for decades, probably recovered right after the war in 1953.  But there were 501 bones; when we did the DNA, there were 250 unique individuals.  We’ve identified 89 Americans, we’ve repatriated 90 South Korean, and we’re working on the rest.  

We had two face-to-face meetings, numerous phone calls, numerous letters, but the last communication we had with them was in March of 2019.  Again, even China and Russia – so we communicate with Russia on losses from World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cold War.  China mentioned that they resumed cooperation.  North Korea is the only one that uses it as a weapon, knowing how important it is to us, because theirs was always conditions-based.  If you want this, then you need to talk about taking denuclearization off the table.  If you want this, you need to remove all economic sanctions, all trade embargoes.  

And this was what’s interesting about Vietnam, was Vietnam, 10 years after the war, in the midst of economic sanctions, in the midst of trade embargoes, no diplomatic relations with the United States, approached the U.S. and said, “We’ll help you with this.”  Because they saw it as – well, they saw it for what it was.  They saw it as a means of cooperation, as a means of maybe restoring them – putting themselves in a better light.  And shortly after we began cooperation on the missing, U.S. missing, we normalized relations with Vietnam.  

It was funny – I’ll tell you this quick story.  So after Singapore, President Trump, Chairman Kim met in – at the demilitarized zone, and their third meeting was in Hanoi.  Vietnam hosted it.  We didn’t find this out until after, but the Vietnamese prime minister told – because Kim was bringing everybody, all his cabinet, all his ministers.  He was bringing them to Hanoi to meet with their Vietnamese counterparts.  

So the Vietnamese prime minister – actually, the party chief, head of the party – told all his ministers, when you meet with your North Korean counterpart, tell them about what we did; tell them about how we, in the midst of sanctions, trade embargo, everything else, cooperated on this humanitarian people-to-people mission.  And they did.  Minister of education, foreign minister, commerce, you name it – all of them spoke to their North Korean counterpart.  Didn’t move the needle at all.  

But again, if they had – and again, their point was we still have a single party; we’re still as communist as you are; we still – strong government; and look at the prosperity around you that despite – we maintained everything that we wanted to and have this economic prosperity that you could have as well.  Didn’t move them one inch.  

STAFF:  (Inaudible.)  I don’t know if you mentioned it, sir.  There was nine from Nigeria that are still missing as well –  

MR MCKEAGUE:  I didn’t know that. 

STAFF:  Yes, sir.

MR MCKEAGUE:  Okay.

STAFF:  So — 

QUESTION:  Also we have from Nigeria — 

STAFF:  Yes, there’s nine Americans missing and unaccounted for in Nigeria. 

MR MCKEAGUE:  But I don’t think we have – those are active cases from the standpoint of – because we don’t – we’re not in a – we haven’t been in Nigeria in a while.  I didn’t know that.  Interesting. 

QUESTIONER:  Could that be from – I know there were – oh, from wars?  Okay.

STAFF:  Yeah, I think from World War II.

MR MCKEAGUE:  World War II. 

QUESTIONER:  Okay. 

STAFF:  World War II, yeah.  I can actually send you guys this brief. 

QUESTIONER:  That would be awesome. 

STAFF:  If I could – I’d love to give you my card.  

QUESTIONER:  Yeah, sure.  

STAFF:  So — 

QUESTIONER:  Yeah, that’d be helpful.  

QUESTIONER:  And is there, like, a point when it’s too late?  Like, how many years do you have or does it – like, the bones and everything stays for, like — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  It depends on where the bones are.  So in Southeast Asia – Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos – the acidity of the soil is like a lemon, and so it eats away at bone, leaving often only time teeth, as your enamel of your teeth keep the – keep the material intact, but the bones are eaten away.  South Pacific Islands, Europe, Korea – fully preserved skeletons.  So it all depends upon the environmental conditions.  Obviously development is something that — 

QUESTIONER:  We find sometimes, like, there are 500 years old, right? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Oh, yeah.  

QUESTIONER:  So it’s — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Yeah. 

QUESTIONER:  So there’s still a chance (inaudible) from Germany.

MR MCKEAGUE:  There’s still a chance with DNA.  Right.  

STAFF:  Sometimes those remains are in better condition, the DNA of those. 

QUESTIONER:  Yeah, right?  

STAFF:  Yeah.

QUESTIONER:  Didn’t you find this – one that was, like, a million years old? 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Right.  

STAFF:  Mm-hmm.

QUESTION:  And it looked like — 

STAFF:  A little after the Korean War we decided to do some chemical treatment thinking we’d preserve the DNA.  Or, well, we didn’t know that it was — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  Preserve the remains. 

STAFF:  Preserve the remains.  We didn’t know DNA in the 1950s.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  Killed the DNA.

STAFF:  So – killed the DNA.  So our scientist partners at AFDIL came up with a new way to do it, and literally the Max Planck Institute, which I think is in Germany — 

QUESTIONER:  Yeah. 

STAFF:  — we sent some samples to them, and the 40,000-year-old Neanderthal DNA that they work with is in better condition than some of our Korean War remains – that we thought we were doing the right thing, just didn’t know what we didn’t know.  So — 

QUESTIONER:  So there have been missteps along the way and — 

MR MCKEAGUE:  There were, yeah. 

QUESTIONER:  — a learning process for the agency.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  So after the war – after the wars, and even Vietnam, DNA wasn’t around.  So people thinking that they would try to identify the remains back then would treat them with this chemical, like formaldehyde, and it destroyed DNA.  Kept the remains beautiful, but we can’t extract DNA.  It’s harder to extract DNA on.  

MODERATOR:  Well, we’ll have to end it here.  They’re racing off to another event.  Thank you, Director McKeague for coming.   

MR MCKEAGUE:  Oh, thank you very much.  I appreciate the questions and — 

MODERATOR:  And the transcript will be done at some point; I’ll send it to you for your records.  

MR MCKEAGUE:  And then we’ll follow up with some of the information that we owe you.