Jeremiah Smith: “I also thank Congressman Sam Johnson, who, as many of my colleagues know, was a POW, along with Senator McCain, and…”

“I also thank Congressman Sam Johnson, who, as many of my colleagues know, was a POW, along with Senator McCain, and others, during the Vietnam war. Congressman Johnson and I have traveled to Prague, Warsaw, and to Moscow together in search of answers, along with former Ambassador Malcolm Toon, as part of the U.S.-Russia commission to seek answers on our missing. There is a great window of opportunity here in the old eastern bloc countries as well as Russia to get some answers as to what may have happened to these Americans. I think as we went out and searched the countryside and met in the capitals of these countries, we received some cooperation. I want to make that very clear. But, Mr. President, there is much more to be done. There are clearly answers in these archives. I think it is very important that, if we are going to say that our military--our men and women in uniform--is going to be asked at some point, if NATO expansion occurs, to shed their blood, possibly, or defend these countries, I think it behooves these countries to provide us the fullest possible accounting of any service personnel who may have crossed their borders during the time the Communists held, basically, and controlled these countries. I wish that I could say that all follow-up action to our trip had occurred properly and that we had every satisfactory answer that we wanted, but that is not true. It is disturbing because of the reasons that I gave.…”