Logic dictates that notwithstanding Soviet and Vietnamese claims to the contrary, Hanoi must have shared with Soviet specialists every scrap of actionable intelligence, down to and including what might be gleaned from American POWs under duress. The [Task Force Russia] 294 report provides rather convincing evidence to support this conclusion.... 

 It now seems highly likely that somewhere in Russia’s vast trove of Soviet-era archives, information about the interrogation of American POWs exists, information that might help to resolve a number of still-unresolved MIA cases, or at least cases dating from the general period of the [Task Force Russia] 294 report, when the need to acquire information about US electronic warfare was particularly acute. The unresolved cases of Navy Lieutenant Michael J. Estocin, shot down on 26 April 1967, and Navy Lieutenant James K. Patterson, shot down on 19 May 1967, immediately come to mind. And even if a review of the Soviet documents failed to help resolve these MIA cases, they might at least provide some “negative” evidence about the fate of these officers.

    But a new variant of the Cold War between Russia and the West makes it unlikely that lingering questions about American MIAs can be resolved.