News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: NLF Update

Date: October 21, 1998

National League of Families
UPDATE LINE: October 16, 1998

Thank you for calling the National League of Families Update Line. This message is being recorded on Friday, October 16th. The number of Americans missing from the Vietnam War is still 2,079.

On October 1st, the Defense Department announced that two Americans previously missing in north Vietnam have been identified. At the request of the family, the name of one of the two Air Force officers now accounted for was withheld; however, the officer named is Major Woodrow W. Parker, II, missing since April 24, 1968, in a Phantom F-4D. His remains were jointly recovered and turned over to US officials in 1993. To both families, the League extends understanding and support in the knowledge that final answers have been achieved.

On October 1st, Secretary of Defense Cohen met with the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam at the Pentagon. Reportedly, Secretary Cohen raised the POW/MIA issue as a priority of the US in the bilateral relationship. The SRV Vice Minister of Defense also recently met with the Secretary of Defense, senior leaders of each service and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Vice Minister, Lt. General Tran Hanh, was heading a senior Vietnamese Military delegation that was hosted by the Defense Department as part of the expanding military dialogue between the two countries.

The League has encouraged such military exchanges, urging that the opportunity be used by US officials to press for renewed unilateral Vietnamese actions to account for missing Americans. Following their Washington, DC visit, the Vietnamese delegation went to Hawaii for a call on the Deputy Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Command, and to receive briefings at CILHI and JTF-FA.

League Executive Director Ann Mills Griffiths and former Reagan White House official Richard Childress met with the Lao Foreign Minister on September 25th during his private visit to Washington, DC. The opportunity for such discussions, initiated by the Lao Government, was appreciated and used to raise the need for increased results from the joint US-Lao accounting effort. The Lao POW/MIA team recently visited CILHI and JTF headquarters in Hawaii to obtain more detailed information on US capabilities to achieve the accounting. Field operations in Laos resumed October 1st and include some cases involving Vietnamese witnesses. To date, the Vietnamese have provided no case-specific documents on incidents in Laos that occurred in areas where Vietnamese forces operated during the war.

On October 2nd, a POW/MIA oversight hearing was held before the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, House Committee on National Security, chaired by Representative Steve Buyer of Indiana. Government and private witnesses, including the League, testified. Hopefully, the effort made will result in increased interest on the part of Members of Congress after they return from their election year recess.

Due to limited staff and funding, it is not possible to send large amounts of public awareness materials. Instead, single copies of current information are available for duplication. POW/MIA window decals are available for $20 per 100. There is current, factual information available on the League's web site at pow-miafamilies.org. For information regarding any matter in this recording, call the League office at 202/223-6846. If no one can take your call, please leave a message with the subject, your name, address, and telephone number. Again, thank you for calling.