WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Newly disclosed documents suggest that as many as 900 U.S. servicemen were left behind in North Korea after the United States and North Korea exchanged prisoners following the Korean War. The declassified papers were released by the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library.
The public didn't know about those left behind, but it is clear that Eisenhower did. Five months after the war, in a document dated December 22, 1953, Army Secretary Robert Stevens met with President Eisenhower and told him the Defense Department had the names of 610 Army people and over 300 Air Force prisoners still held by the North Koreans.
corso
A number of people confirmed the reports, citing their own experiences. Retired Colonel Phillip Corso, a former intelligence aide to Eisenhower, watched the exchange of prisoners at Panmunjon, and talked with some of those who came back. "Our own boys told me there were sick and wounded American boys not 10 miles from the camp, and they were not exchanged," he said.