Chairman, Military Personnel Subcommittee
Hearing on U.S. and Vietnamese Government Accountability for POW/MIAs
December 14, 1995
This hearing is a continuation of the Congressional oversight process to account for our servicemen still missing in Southeast Asia that I have initiated as Chairman of this Subcommittee. This hearing follows a long night of debate on the Administration's decision to send U.S. ground forces into the frozen hell of Bosnia, where we have already had one American MIA, Scott O'Grady recovered. In addition, two U.S. servicemen were wounded on a secret mission to rescue the two French POWs, Captain Frederic Chiffot and Lt. Jose Souvginet.
During the ordeal of the French POW/MIAs, who like O'Grady and so many POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia were written off as "dead" by American Intelligence, I could not help but compare the agony of their families to the ordeal still being experienced by American wives and family members such as Carol Hrdlicka and Kathy Borah Duez who will testify here today. The sacrifices of the wounded American pilots and troops during the "secret war" for freedom against the North Vietnamese in Laos. The fate of those captured by Communist forces is known only to God and the Vietnamese Communists and their Pathet Lao surrogates. We must not give any further economic aid or political recognition to those criminal regimes until they unilaterally and truthfully resolve the cases of heroes such as my best friend David Hrdlicka, whose fates are known only by God and the Communists who captured or killed them.
This long-overdue accountability effort has been strengthened by a provision that I co-sponsored in the 1996 Appropriations Bill that denies funding for expanded U.S. diplomatic presence in Vietnam until that criminal Communist regime "fully" cooperates in providing the fullest possible accounting or our missing heroes. The 1996 Defense Authorization Bill, which just yesterday was agreed to by House and Senate conferees, includes a revised and strengthened Missing Service Personnel Act which underscores the definition of fullest possible accounting as 1) return of the missing person; or 2) return of remains; or 3) a valid and documented explanation of why neither option is possible.
A new criteria has been established for negotiating with the Vietnamese in Defense Department's Comprehensive Review, which was mandated by Congress under the sponsorship of Bob Smith. The review is a concise summary of what is known by the U.S. Government on each remaining POW/MIA case -- around 2,170 individuals -- as well as Vietnamese knowledgability and recommended steps to be taken in order to resolve each case. This review is far from perfect, as families who have read their loved ones cases have found that once again U.S. Intelligence is quick to discount any possibility that the serviceman could have survived past the 1973 political decision to declare all POWs as dead, in many case without evidence or proof. However, in studying the Review my personal staff has found that the Vietnamese and Pathet Lao holding back, at a minimum, documents, records and the unilateral ability to hand over the bodily remains of hundreds of Americans.
In addition, my staff has found a heavily redacted U.S. intelligence document from 1977 that confirms that the Vietnamese and Pathet Lao Communist governments maintained and shared extensive archives on Americans captured in Laos, including those known and unknown the U.S. intelligence who were held in the caves of Sam Neua -- from which no Americans returned -- or who were transferred to North Vietnam. In addition, the Vietnamese are holding back original records and documents that comprise the basis of the "559" document of Vietnamese that shows Vietnamese knowledge of at least 250 American MIAs in Laos. In addition there are archives of Vietnamese Unit 959 in Laos, the Communist party's Central Committee archives in Hanoi, and the Military Law Division of the Ministry of Defense that was responsible for mortuary affairs and documentation of deceased Americans throughout North and Central Vietnam, and areas of Laos under Vietnamese operational control.
Today, I am presenting to the Clinton Administration negotiators my list of 24 outstanding MIA cases that Hanoi can easily unilaterally resolve without involvement by American investigators or crash-site teams. Most of these servicemen were last known alive or known to have perished under Vietnamese control. This is an important first step to testing Hanoi's willingness to cooperate. In the future, as my staff continues studying the Comprehensive Review, I will present more cases to the Vietnamese. I intend to travel to Vietnam in late January 1996 to personally inform the Hanoi regime that they are accountable to President Clinton's campaign promise to America that the Government of Vietnam must be fully forthcoming -- not play a shell game of dribbling out documents and records or digging up cemeteries or crash sites that they long ago scavenged -- before Congress can certify that expanded relations and economic relations can be furthered.