A decision is expected next week on whether bones from the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery should be DNA-tested to see if they can be identified.
The bones have lain in the much-visited tomb since 1984, when they were interred in a solemn ceremony as the remains of an unknown serviceman killed in the Vietnam war. They lie beside the remains of unknown soldiers from the two world wars and the Korean war.
The inscription on the tomb reads: "Here rests in honoured glory an American soldier known but to God".
Pentagon officials have recommended to the Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, that the bones of the Vietnam serviceman should be exhumed and tested with DNA samples to see if they match the families of nine servicemen who were reported missing in the same area of Vietnam in 1972.
The recommendation follows queries last January by the family of Michael Blassie, a pilot who was shot down 60 miles north of Saigon on May 11th, 1972, but whose remains could not be recovered until five months later.
For eight years the remains were labelled "believed to be" those of Lieut Blassie because his ID card and other remnants were found near the bones. But further tests at the Pentagon's identification laboratory in Hawaii apparently showed that the blood group and bone sizes did not correspond to Lieut Blassie.
When the Reagan administration wanted to add a Vietnam war body to the Tomb of the Unknowns in 1984, these six bones were chosen for interment at a solemn ceremony to honour all the US servicemen killed in Vietnam.
The Blassie family was never happy with this decision and forced an inquiry four months ago which has now resulted in the recommendation by officials for exhumation and further testing. The officials say that the bones could belong to one of nine servicemen shot down in the An Loc area in 1972 but the two most likely candidates are Lieut Blassie and a helicopter pilot, Capt Rodney Strobridge.
Maternal family members of the nine missing men are being asked if they are willing to supply DNA samples if the bones are exhumed. The Blassie family members have expressed satisfaction at the proposal but the mother of Capt Strobridge has said she is not sure what she wants to happen and wonders what good exhuming the bones will do.
The Pentagon has rejected charges that a hasty decision was made to supply remains for the 1984 ceremony. An official said that the decision to reclassify the remains first ascribed to Lieut Blassie was made with the best information and technology available at the time.