ARMY TEAM TO HELP IN INVESTIGATION OF KOREAN WAR DEATHS

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Army is sending an investigative team to South Korea today to consult with government officials on how to cooperate in investigating allegations of a Korean War massacre of civilians by U.S. soldiers.

The investigators, headed by the Army’s inspector general, Lt. Gen. Michael Ackerman, plan one day of talks with their South Korean counterparts on Friday before returning to Washington, defense officials said. Kenneth Bacon, Defense Department spokesman, said Tuesday the meeting will mark the start of the information-sharing that the U.S. promised President Kim Dae-jung.

On Sept. 30, The Associated Press reported accounts by American veterans and South Korean villagers that U.S. soldiers killed up to 400 civilians at Nogun-ri, South Korea, early in the war. A subsequent AP report said that in addition to the Nogun-ri incident in late July 1950, the Army a short time later destroyed two strategic bridges as South Korean refugees streamed across, killing hundreds of civilians.

The Pentagon has said it will take a broad look into the matter, although it has not spelled out the scope, timing and guidelines of its investigation.

Before publication of the AP accounts, U.S. officials said previous examinations of military records found no evidence of a massacre. The earlier inquiries were the basis for U.S. and South Korean rejections of requests from victims’ families and survivors seeking acknowledgement of the killings and compensation.