Communist attempts to elicit false confessions from Air Force prisoners of war.

5HE United States Air Force has expended considerab)le effort to get a full, accurate and meaningful account of what happened to its personnel wvvho wvere captured in Korea. I have been associated xvith these studies since , their beginnings three years ago. 13Zcause we believe the experiences of our returned prisoners of war can tell us much about the nature of a potential enemy, about the soldier and airman, and about man, generally, these studies are continuing. Of the 235 Air Force men who were returned by the Chinese Communists after the Korean Armistice-twvo years after, in the case of 15 of these men-about half had some direct personal experience with Communist attempts to extort false confessions. \We know one airman died during suclh an attempt. There may have been others. The attempts made against these men, the reasons for these attempts and the reactions of the men themselves comprise a very involved series of stories. The record of each of the long interviews conducted with these men after their return w\vould engross vou, I am sure. Almost all are exciting stories of individual heroism and perseverance. There is an almost unmatched drama in these airmen's efforts to protect principles, dignity and self-respect w\ith only their own inner resources to sustain them. A few of the stories do not lave completely happy endings and all of them reveal something about human imperfection. Our objective here is science, however, not drama. Therefore I won't attempt wlhat in any event I could probably not do w\ell; that is, to relate in the space of a fewr minutes the meaning of these experi-