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nation and world Chinese buried Korean War POW Officials admit for the first time that a captured U.S. soldier was moved into Chinese territory. By Robert Burns
The Associated Press Article Last Updated: 06/19/2008 11:42:48 PM MDT

The Pentagon was told about the fate of Army Sgt. Richard G. Desautels in 2003 after the Chinese said they found a record in classified archives. ( The Associated Press )

WASHINGTON — After decades of denials, the Chinese have acknowledged burying an American prisoner of war in China, telling the U.S. that a teenage soldier captured in the Korean War died a week after he "became mentally ill," according to documents provided to The Associated Press.

China had long insisted that all POW questions were answered at the conclusion of the war in 1953 and that no Americans were moved to Chinese territory from North Korea.

The little-known case of Army Sgt. Richard G. Desautels, of Shoreham, Vt., opens another chapter in this story and raises the possibility that new details concerning the fate of other POWs might eventually surface.

Chinese authorities gave Pentagon officials intriguing details about Desautels in a March 2003 meeting in Beijing, saying they had found "a complete record of 9-10 pages" in classified archives.

Until now, this new information had been kept quiet; a Pentagon spokesman said it was intended only for Desautels' family members.

The details were provided to Desautels' brother, Rolland, who passed them to a POW-MIA advocacy group, the National Alliance of Families, which gave them to AP.

In a telephone interview Thursday, the brother said he did not follow up on the information he got in 2003 because he did not believe it. He was not aware that it marked the first time China had acknowledged taking a U.S. POW from North Korea into Chinese territory or burying an American there.

The revelation raises the possibility that wartime Chinese records could shed light on the fate of other U.S. captives who were known to be held in Chinese-run POW camps but did not return when the fighting ended in 1953.

And it appears to undercut the Pentagon's public stance that China returned all POWs it held inside China. The Pentagon has focused more on the related issue of China's management of POW camps inside North Korea during the war, which Chinese troops entered in the fall of 1950 on North Korea's side.

Larry Greer, a spokesman for the POW-MIA office at the Pentagon, said Thursday that he did not know whether U.S. officials received additional information after the March 2003 meeting.

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