Korean War vets lose tie to Nobel Prize

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CHICAGO, May 29 (UPI) -- Nobel officials say U.S. Korean War veterans are not eligible for the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to United Nations peacekeepers.

The Chicago Tribune reports more than 100 Korean War veterans in the United States mistakenly spent $115 or more in recent weeks for medals that honored them as part of the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize.

The newspaper says it appears many who bought the medals may have been deceived, or at best, were victims of transcontinental confusion created when several officials with a Norwegian U.N. veterans association took it upon themselves to recognize the long-ignored Korean War veterans.

As a result of the Tribune's findings, several inquiries are now under way by Nobel officials, the United Nations and the Norwegian government, the newspaper said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its Peace Prize in 1988 to U.N. peacekeepers who saw action beginning with the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 --three years after an armistice established a cease-fire in the Korean War, the newspaper said.