An Mia Breakthrough?

By DAVID ELLIS

Postcoup reforms in the Soviet Union may solve a long-standing mystery: What happened to the thousands of U.S. servicemen listed as missing in action in the Korean War and World War II? Over the years, reports have surfaced that some of the 8,177 men missing in Korea and significant numbers of the 78,000 soldiers unaccounted for in Europe wound up in the Soviet Union. POW/MIA organizations see positive signs in the appointment of Vadim Bakatin as head of the KGB. Bakatin is a reformer who, as Interior Minister, pledged to search secret files that are believed to exist on misplaced Americans.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart