| John D., Hmm. What I don't think these authors were interested in was an objective evaluation of the problem or the times, and they seem to have a distrust of the UCMJ. I have gone through a lot of those procedures (six readings of Article 31, no convictions...!) and the more rigorous Article 32 (pretrial version of a grand jury, deciding whether or not there are sufficient grounds to go to courts martial) as both witness and defendent. In the clear light of day, the basic charges would probably have been oriented on treason (hard to prove) or aiding and abeting the enemy (not so hard to prove). But I think when the debriefers started to see what some of the POWs were up against, they shied away from a lot of nasty courts martial due to what the public reaction would be to finding out out nasty the Communists had been. (Under the McCarthy spirit of the times, it may have been enough to push some pundits to call for immediate nuking of at least the Chinese.) As I noted earlier, the main thing which came out of the problematic confessions was the creation of the six article version of the Code of Conduct, which covered the actions of POWs when in these situations. Cookie Sewell AMPS |