Testimony of Michael D. Benge
Former Vietnam Civilian Prisoner of War
Board Member National Alliance of Families
For the Return of America's Missing Servicemen
Chairman Dornan, Subcommittee members, distinguished panel members, ladies and gentlemen:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee in support of H.R.-4000 to restore language that was gutted from the Missing Service Personnel Act by Senator John McCain's amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill.
Mr. Chairman: Unless I am mistaken, I believe that the founding fathers of the United States of America created and funded the military to protect civil society; that is the civilian population. And unless I am mistaken, that is still the intent of Congress and the Government of the United States.
MR.CHAIRMAN: I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU, "AM I RIGHT OR WRONG?"
Mr. Chairman: There are certain people in the U.S. Congress and in the Department of Defense who seem to have the opinion that civil society was created solely to fund the military, and the Department of Defense shouldn't be burdened with the responsibility of protecting civilians or being answerable to civil society.
A few weeks ago, I switched channels on my TV and there was Senator John McCain, who had the audacity to introduce Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady before the Republican Convention in San Diego. To me, Senator McCain introducing Captain O'Grady is the epitome of hypocrisy, for in all likelihood, O'Grady would have been either killed or a prisoner of war after being shot down in Bosnia last year if the present Missing Persons Act that McCain has gutted was the law at that time. I'm sure if Captain O'Grady was here today testifying before this committee he would tell you if the military had waited for ten days before reporting him missing and launching a search and rescue operation, as Senator McCain's gutted Missing Personnel Act now allows them to do, in all likelihood he would not have survived. At the least, Captain O'Grady would still be a prisoner of War, a captive in the hands of the war criminals Radovan Dradzic and Ratko Mladic who perpetrated the genocide in Bosnia. I FIND SENATOR McCAIN's ACTIONS INCONSCIONABLE.
Besides the above, there were five other important provisions that Senator John McCain gutted from the Missing Service Personnel Act which your Bill would restore, including:
PROVIDE CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR KNOWINGLY AND WILLFULLY WITHHOLIDING INFORMATION FROM A MISSING PERSON'S FILE. This is an extremely important provision, and I cannot understand how Senator McCain in good conscience could delete this from the Act. Who is he protecting in the Department of Defense's Prisoner of War and Missing in Action Office (DPMO)? In all honesty, the name of DPMO should be changed to the Office of Obfuscation. If no one in that office has knowingly and willfully withheld information from a missing person's file, "What has Senator McCain and DPMO personnel have to fear but fear itself?" Why should they be above the law, when civil society is not?
I recently wrote a report on "Cuban War Crimes Against American POWs During the Vietnam War," in which I documented the torture by Cubans of 20 American POWs in Hanoi. (I am submitting a copy of this report for the record). Three of these American POWs were not released because they were "too severly tortured by Cuban interrogators....the Vietnamese didn't want the world to see what they had done to them." One of the American POWs had been beaten senseless! However, Robert Destatt, chief analyst at DPMO, said that when he asked about the Cubans, the Vietnamese told him that they were not interrogators, but they were merely English language instructors for PAVN (Vietnamese Peopele's Army) personnel working with American POWs. Destatt claims "the Vietnamese's story is plausible and fully consistent with what DPMO knows about the conduct of Cubans in question." (I am submitting for the record a copy of Mr.Destatt's comments.) If this is an example of what DPMO personnel tells families of the POW/MIAs, "SHAME, SHAME ON MR. DESTATT FOR SUCH AN ATROCIOUS AND INCOMPETENT ASSESSMENT!" "SHAME ON GENERAL WOLD FOR ALLOWING THIS MAN TO * CONTINUE TO WORK IN DPMO!" This is but one example of the type of bogus "excellent cooperation" by the North Vietnamese as certified by the President.
Furthermore, it would be an understatement to say that trying to get information on the "Cuban Program", as well as other information relevant to the POW/MIA Issue, from the Department of Defense (DOD) and other governments agencies, has been less than satisfactory. DOD's stonewalling is in crass disregard to the president's order to declassify and releases this information. (I am submitting as a matter of record a paper prepared by Mr. Roger Hall regarding this matter).
The only honorable thing for Congress to do is to pass HR-4000 and restore the original language to the Missing Service Personnel Act to make DOD clean up its act.
Extend applicability of the Missing Personnel Act protection to DOD civilian and contractor employees. The military must be required to beat the responsibility of protecting civilians, as this country's founding fathers intended. In the former Missing Personnel Act, as it was signed into law, and in HR - 4000 that you Mr. Chairman are now proprosing and 255 other Members of the House are cosponsoring, there is a provision to make the Department of Defense responsible for the accounting of civilian and contractor employees of DOD. This provision should and must be expanded to include other U.S. Government employees, as well as other civilians who provide support to DOD and our government joint efforts, such as in time of war, peace keeping operations, relief efforts and democracy building activities; e.g., the Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti respectively.
Even though most military personnel feel that civilians have no place in a "war zone", they forget that most U.S. "engagements" are more often than not a team effort, such as in Bosnia, where there is a strong State Department and CIA presence, as well as the military presence. There are also employees of the Agency for International Development (USAID) who are assisting in rebuilding the country, while other civilians support the military. In this modern age of high technology, DOD often has to call in civilians to assist them in repairing and reprogramming computers, electronics warfare equipment, missiles or airplanes when military personnel cannot effectively deal with the problem. Furthermore, the military has the intelligence and military capability to locate missing personnel and launch a rescue operation. Therefore, DOD should have the responsibility of accounting for civilians as well as military personnel in time of conflict, as I am sure our founding fathers intended.
In Vietnam, the military commander technically was under the American Ambassador. And surely, the military commander was under the orders of the Secretary of Defense who was a civilian. ) I assume that the same is true in Bosnia and Haiti.) Each of the four reginal headquarters in Vietnam was layered with civilians who were under military personnel, who were in turn under civilians. In the province, it was the same way. As an employee of USAID, for a time I was the Senior Provincial Representative heading the CORDS Program, (CIVIL OPERATIONS and REVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT), and had several military officers reporting to me. In other provinces, the Senior Provincial Representative was a military colonel, to whom civilian officers like myself reported. Toward the end of the war, a civilian employed by USAID, John Paul Van, commanded the combined U.S. forces remaining in Vietnam. (However, I can assure you that he wasn't the reason we lost the Vietnam War). I was captured in January 1968, and was a Prisoner of War for over five years, and spent 27 months in solitary confinement, of which one year was in a black box. During part of that time, I served as second in command in the POW camp under Air Force Colonel Ted Guy.
At the time of my capture until my release, I can assure you that neither the Department of State nor the Agency for International Development had the capability to either rescue or account for me. IT WAS SHEER HELL FOR MY FAMILY. And even if given the responsibility, neither agency has the capacity to perform these functions. This responsibility should lie with the military.
Some time after my release, I was invited to the ceremony of Capitol Hill honoring the POWs by raising the POW flag over the Capitol and setting aside a day in September (20th this year) as POW/MIA Recognition day. By chance, I was seated beside Senator John McCain and Senator Daniel Inouye. After the ceremony, I asked Senator McCain if he would support awarding the Presidential POW Medal to civilian government employees who had been POWs. McCain inferred to senator Inouye that as a civilian, I really didn't qualify as a POW; therefore, I wasn't deserving. Well, I agree with Senator McCain that I really didn't deserve to be a POW, nonetheless, I surely was one, and in all reality, I won't be the last civilian POW.
Therefore, I suggest we go back to the intent of this great Nation's founding fathers that the role of the military is to protect civil society, and I would like to recommend to you, Mr. Chairman, as well as to the other members of Congress, that you amend that section in HR-4000 to read that DOD has the responsibility of accounting for all civilians associated with future "engagements". Unless accountability is instilled in DOD, the same tradegy will again occur as that during the Vietnam War. Records reveal the National Security Agency (NAS) had specific information on many captured and missing Americans and never relayed this information to their parent branch of service or agency. As a result, when negotiations with Hanoi for the release of POWs took place, the names of these POWs were not submitted as known captured; therefore, they were never released. AS RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE, WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN. Thus, I urge Congress to amend HR-4000 to include U.S. military accounting responsibility for all civilians associated with any military "engagements" overseas.
FURTHERMORE, I URGE THAT CONGRESS APPROVE HR-4000, WITH THE RECOMMENDED AMENDMENT, AS ITS MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO U.S. MILITARY AND CIVILIAN PERSONNEL WHO ARE PRESENTLY, OR WILL AT SOME FUTURE TIME, SERVE AND SACRIFICE FOR OUR COUNTRY OVERSEAS.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael D. Benge
I was a Prisoner of War in Vietnam from January 1968 to March 1973. While servicing as a Foreign Service Officer with the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support program, I was captured in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese, and was held in numerous camps in South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam. For efforts in rescuing eleven Americans before being captured, I was given the State Departments highest award for heroism, and one for valor.
CUBAN WAR CRIMES AGAINST AMERICAN POWs DURING THE VIETNAM WAR
Recently declassified intelligence documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Cubans not only tortured and killed a number of American POWs in Vientam, but also may have taken as many as 17 POWs to Cuba in the mid-1960s. (1) The POWs, mostly pilots, were reportedly imprisoned in Las Maristas, a secret Cuban prison run by Castro's G-2 intelligence service, before being transferred to other prisons in Cuba. (2).
According to a CIA dispatch, the "Cuban Program" was conducted at the Cu Loc POW camp in North Vietnam. A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report states that "The objective of the interrogators was to obatin the total submission of the prisoners...." (3) Three POWs were beaten senseless in the "Cuban Program," and of the three, two disappeared completely, while the Hanoi COMMUNISTS returned the remains of the third claiming he had died in captivity. According to Air Force ace, Major James Kasler, who was also tortured in the "Cuban Program", "at least 15 men were either killed during torture or were not accounted for." (4)
However Robert Destatte, an analyst at the Department of Defense's Prisoner of War and Missing in Action Office (DPMO), said that when he asked about the Cubans, the Vietnamese told him they were not interrogators, but were merely English language instructors for PAVN (Vietnamese People's Army) personnel working with American POWs. Destatte claims "the Vietnamese's story is plausible and fully consistent with what DPMO knows about the conduct of the Cubans in question." (5)
DPMO, as do the current and past Administrations, also maintains that there is no conclusive evidence that American POWs were left behind in Vietnam after "Operation Homecoming" in March 1973. However, eyewitness reports belie this claim. Air Force Colonel Donald "Digger" Odell gave his Department of Defense (DOD) debriefers an eyewitness account of two American POWs who the Hanoi COMMUNISTS hadn't released because "they were too severely tortured by Cuban interrogators..." "The Vietnamese didn't want the world to see what they had done to them." (6)
Pentagon officials confirmed that POWs released during "Operation Homecoming" in 1973 "were told not to talk about "third-country interrogations." "This thing is very sensitive with all kinds of diplomatic ramifications," according to one Pentagon official. (7) The Pentagon officials weren't the only ones who wanted to keep this secret, and it wasn't only because of third-country diplomatic ramifications. The Nixon Administration, and chief negotiator Henry Kissinger in particular, wanted to hide the fact that POWs had been left behind. Not only was it not discussed, the torture, murder, and disappearance of American POWs during the "Cuban Program" was swept under the rug by the U.S. Government.
The Cuban torturers in Hanoi were given the names "Fidel," "Chico" and "Pancho" by the American POWs. The Cubans went to Vietnam under diplomatic cover and were assigned to Hanoi's Enemy Proselytizing Bureau which had responsibility for American POWs.
In all probability, DIA's analysis of the "Cuban Program" was not accurate. One Intelligence source, who reportedly interviewed "Fidel", "Chico" and "Pancho" after they returned to Cuba, said they claimed that their real job was to act as gate-keepers to select American POWs who could aid international COMMUNISM."
According to a DIA "asset", Hanoi made "a political investment in all cases where prisoners [could] be ideologically turned around in order to some day serve its designs in behalf of international COMMUNISM." (9) This was corroborated by several other intelligence sources. A CIA briefing memo reveals that "As of September 1967 [redacted] a great deal of proselytyzing of American pilots was being carried out in an effort to try to convince them to go to other COMMUNIST countries as advisors." [redacted] "This was disclosed during an official Party briefing [redacted]. "The North Vietnamese claimed the COMMUNIST countries needed the advice of American pilots to counter any attack which the U.S. might make against the COMMUNIST Countries." (10) This was the same time period that the "Cuban Program" was in full operation.
Those selected to be "advisors" were highly-skilled pilots and electronic warfare back-seaters. For some unfathomable reason, DOD sent pilots, who had worked in top-secret projects such as the atomic energy program, on tactical bombing missions over North Vietnam only to be shot down and captured. According to National Security Council advisor William Stearman (1971-76 & 1981-83), "One of the untold scandals of the Vietnam War was the refusal of battleship foes [i.e., within the Pentagon] to follow an expert panel's advice and deploy them to Vietnam until it was too late. Of all the targets struck by air in North Vietnam, with a loss of 1,067 aircraft and air crew, 80 percent could have been taken out by a battleship's 16-inch guns without endangering American lives or aircraft." (11)
To some, it seemed as if DOD was intentionally aiding the COMMUNISTS by providing them with some of our best and brightest military minds. One F-111 pilot was shot down over North Vietnam shortly after leaving the Gemini space program. Concurrently the Soviet equivalent to the Gemini program made quantum leaps over the next two yeasr in the area of the F-111 pilot's specialty." (12) There are several other similar examples of vast improvement in COMMUNIST technologies after the capture of these pilots. According to DIA's "asset", the American POWs were "a gold mine of information to brief specialists in the technologies used by the enemy." (9)
U.S. prisoners of war captured in Vietnam were reported to have been transferred to COMMUNIST prisons in Cuba during late 1965 and throughout 1966. One Cuban witness said he was held with a small group of American POWs in Las Maristas. The POWs referred to each other by rank, such as lieutenant and captain, and a guard told him that these Americans were war prisoners, mostly pilots, brought from North Vietnam. The Cuban later escaped and fled to the United States and, although he was interviewed by FBI agents upon his arrival, "the FBI did not seem particularly interested in the information." (2) Moreover, there is no evidence that he was ever debriefed by the Department of State, the CIA, or DIA. Other Cuban exiles have corroborated the fact that a substantial number of American prisoners were held in several Cuban prisons, (2); however, there is no evidence that the FBI, nor any of the intelligence agencies ever canvassed the Cuban exile community to find out if they knew of any POWs from Vietnam.
According to a 1971 State Department cable, a former aide to Fidel Castro approached the U.S. Consulate in Nassau, Bahama, "with an offer to ransom POWs in North Vietnam through the Castro Government. " The cable went on to say that "We have listened without comment or commitment. Presume Washington has files on these types. Propose doing nothing further unless advised." (13) Evidently, either no one cared, or it was an embarrassment to State and DOD, for there is no evidence of any follow up.
CIA analysts identified two Cuban military attaches, Eduardo Morjon Esteves and Luis Perez Jaen, who had backgrounds which seemed to correspond with information on "Fidel" and "Chico" supplied by returning POWs. Recently declassified documents show that the CIA has photographs as well as composite drawings of the Cuban torturers.(14) Reportedly, in 1977-78, Esteves served under diplomatic cover as a brigadier general at the United Nations in New York and no attempt was made to either arrest or expel him." (15)
As a POW, I had been interrogated by two Cubans in 1969. After my return in 1973, I identified one of the Cubans from a photograph shown to me by a member of a Congressional committee. I was told that the Cuban had at one time helped to coordinate the American contingent of the "Venceremos Brigade" (cane cutters), and he was also responsible for funneling Soviet money to the American anti-war movement.
Declassified CIA and DIA reports also reveal the operation of an international COMMUNIST youth training center southeast of Santiago de Cuba. The younge people, many of whom were blacks and Vietnamese, were being trained for subversive operations against the United States. According to a DIA source, their control officer was Jesus Jiminez Escobar. "The students (agents) were to be infiltrated into the United States through the normal airlift channel and would be claimed by relatives on their arrival." "Their subversive activities against the United States would include sabotage in connection with race riots...." (16) A DIA source said that "the 5th contingent was infiltrated into the U.S. from Canada through Calais, Maine." (17)
Other CIA and DEA memoranda report the supply of opium and heroin by Hanoi to Cuba for distribution in the United States through Florida. Reportedly the drugs were shipped out of the former American port at Cam Ranh Bay. (18)
"Fidel," "Chico" and "Pancho" weren't the only Cubans who were involved with American POWs. CIA Documents disclose that in 1965 Cuban communist party committee members, journalist Marta Rojas Rodriquez and Raul Valdes Vivo "visited liberated areas of South Vietnam where they interviewed U.S. prisoners of war in the hands of the Viet Cong." Rojas made this statement at the mock war crimes tribunal in Denmark in 1967. (19) However, no American POW who was captured or held by the Viet Cong and released reported being interviewed by these Cubans.
Vietnam and Cuba are closely linked by their belief in exporting international COMMUNISM. Hanoi recently reaffirmed the unswerving solidarity of the COMMUNIST Party, the government and people of Vietnam with the Cuban revolution. HANOI ALSO PRAISED CUBA FOR ITS SHOOTDOWN OF TWO AMERICAN PLANES AND DENOUNCED THE HELMS-BURTON BILL AS "INSOLENT!" (20,a,b,& c.)
The Cubans were heavily involved in the Vietnam war. Several reports indicate that Cubans were piloting MIGs in aerial combat with American pilots over North Vietnam. One American advisor flying in an H-34 used a M-79 grenade launcher to shoot down a Cuban dlying a biplane in Northern Laos. (21) This was the same kind of plane used in the attack against Lima Site 85 -- the top-secret base in Laos providing guidance for American planes in the bombing of North Vietnam. Furthermore, the Cuban Giron Brigade helped build, maintain, and operate a portion of the "Ho Chi Minh Trail."
According to a DIA "asset", after the signing of the ceasefire on January 21, 1973, 4,000 Cuban army engineers arrived in Hanoi. They helped rebuild the Phuc Yen/Da Phuc Airfield North of Hanoi where, according to intelligence reports, American POWs were used as technicians after the war. Later, the Cubans disappeared into the mountains of the north and constructed and equipped secret bases about 100 km from the Chinese border between Monkai and Laokai. (9) The Soviets equipped the bases with mobile launch ramps, medium-range strategic missiles, possibly with tactical nuclear warheads, capable of hitting population centers in the southern part of China. (9) This is the same area where a communist Vietnamese POW camp was located which reportedly held a large number of American POWs; however, according to an intelligence source, "one day the camp just disappeared, guards and all." (22)
Units of this same Cuban engineering contingent were building the airfield in Grenada when Americans overran the island. U.S. military intelligence captured reams of documents and photographs relating to this unit's operations in Vietnam. (21). However, they have never been analyzed by DPMO.
In the spirit of international COMMUNIST solidarity, Hanoi reciprocated for Cuba's assistance during the Vietnam War by sending U.S. arms and ammunition, captured in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, to South America to fuel the "revolution" directed by the Cubans there.
More recently, "Vietnam has been training Cuban Special Forces troops to undertake limited attacks in the USA..." "Havana's strategy in pursuing such training is to attack the staging and supply areas for U.S. forces preparing to invade Cuba." "The training program is focused on seaborne and underwater operations, roughly comparable to those assigned to U.S. Navy SEALS." "The political objective would be to bring the reality of warfare to the American public and so exert domestic pressure on Washington." (23)
The disappearance of American POWs near the Cuban facilities at Monkai and Loakai wasn't an isolated incident. American POWs there are numerous reports of a group of American POWs seen North of Hanoi, "who were suffering from war wounds or mental disorders". They "were still being held because the communists feared their release would have an unfavorable impact on Public opinion." It is very likely that these POWs are the ones who simply disappeared, for they were conspiciously absent from the release in 1973.
also disappeared in the vicinity of two other Cuban installations. Another American POW camp, located at "Work Site 5" (Cong Truong 5) just north of the DMZ, was adjacent to a Cuban field hospital that Fidel Castro visited in 1972. None of the POWs held in that camp were ever released, including black American Aviator Clemmie McKinney. McKinney was shot down in April 1972, approximately the same time as Castro's visit. McKinney's remains were returned on August 14, 1985. The Vietnamese claim that McKinney died in November 1972; however, "A CILHI (U.S. ARMY CENTRAL IDENTIFICATION LABORATORY, HAWAII) forensic anthropologist states his opinion as to time of death as not earlier than 1975 and probably several years later." Had McKinney been a guest of the real "Fidel" to be exploited by Castro's G-2 at Las Maristas and later returned to Vietnam?
The other Cuban installation was near Ba Vi, where numerous sightings of "white buffalos" [i.e. American POWs] were made by South Vietnamese undergoing "reeducation" in the north. According to one of the recently returned Vietnamese 34-A commandos, he saw 60 American POWs at the Thanh Tri Prison complex in 1969. Also in the same prison complex were approximately 100 French and Moroccan POWs captured in the early 1950s. His report corroborates numerous other similar sightings. Later the French and Moroccans were transferred to the Ba Vi Prison Complex near the Cuban facility. There were a small number of American POWs held for a while in a section of the Thanh Tri Prison complex, appropriately dubbed "Skidro". However, they numbered about 20, not 60, and none had been held with French and/or Moroccan POWs..
Much of DOD analysis of POW camps and evaluations of live sightings reports are based on the time-frame that the camps were occupied by POWs who returned in 1973. Therefore, if a live sighting pertains to a period of time that does not correspond to the time it was occupied by returned POWs, it is most often disregarded or debunked. Also, the analysts often failed to take into consideration the fact that many of these camps were vast complexes with annexes often of hundreds of kilometers apart that have the same name as the main camp. (25) An excellent example is the Son Tay POW camps, one north of Hanoi and the other south of Hanoi. Thus, if a live sighting report correlates to the name of a camp but the coorindates are different from the main camp, the live sighting may be discounted. This is what happened in the case of most of the Thanh Tri complex and Ba Vi Prison live sighting reports.
The torture and murder of American POWs in Vietnam sets an unconscionable precedence and should not go unpunished. "Fidel" called one of the American POWs the "Faker." However, he wasn't faking it. He was one of the three American POWs who had already been beaten senseless by "Fidel" and his cohorts.
The First time Jack Bomar saw him (i.e., the "Faker"), the man could barely walk; he shuffled slowly, painfully. His clothes were torn to shreds. He was bleeding everywhere, terribly swollen, and a dirty, yellowish black and purple from head to toe. The man's head was down; he made no attempt to look at anyone. He had been through much more than the day's beatings. His body was ripped and torn everywhere; hell cuffs appeared almost to have severed the wrists, strap marks still wound around the arms all the way to the shoulders, slivers of bamboo were embedded in the bloodied shins and there were what appeared to be tread marks from the hose across his chest, back and legs. Fidel smashed a fist into the man's face, driving him against the wall. Then he was brought to the center of the room and made to get down onto his knees. Screaming in a rage, Fidel took a length of black rubber hose from a guard and lashed it as hard as he could into th man's face. The prisoner did not react; he did not cry out or even blink an eye. Again and again, a dozen times, smashed into the man's face with the hose. He was never released." (26)
Air Force ace Major James Kasler was also tortured by "Fidel" for days on end during June 1968. "Fidel" beat Kasler across the buttocks with a large truck fan belt until "he tore my rear end to shreds." For one three-day period, Kasler was beaten with the fan belt every hour from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. abnd kept awake at night. "My mouth was so bruised that could not open my teeth for five days." After one beating, Kasler's buttocks, lower back, and legs hung in shreds. The skin had been entirely whipped away and the area was a bluish, purplish, greenish mass of bloody raw meat." (4)
The behavior of "Fidel", "Chico" and "Pancho" in the torture and murder of Americans is beyond the pale and is clearly in violation of the standards set at Nuremberg after World War II, allowing the Cubans to go unpunished sets an ugly precedent, adding to America's "paper tiger" image of impotence. Surely it encouraged the brazenness of terrorists, such as those who captured Marine Corps' Colonel Richard Higgins, and believing they could act with impunity, mocked the United States by sending a video of his hanging to the press. [Col. Higgins was serving with the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in the Middle East.]
Although the Cubans' crimes are smaller in number, these Cuban war criminals should be tried before an international tribunal similar to that supported by the U.S. Government for the prosecution of perpetrators of war crimes in Bosnia. If this had been done, perhaps Radovan Kradzic and Ratko Mladic would not be so smug in thumbing their noses at the United State and the NATO forces.
THE COMMUNIST REGIME IN HANOI CAN EASILY IDENTIFY THESE CUBANS, AND UNTIL THEY DO, A MORATORIUM SHOULD BE PLACED ON THE APPOINTMENT OF AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO VIETNAM UNTIL THE TIME THAT REGIME IS "FULLY COOPERATING" IN RESOLVING HE POW/MIA ISSUE. Full cooperation by the COMMUNIST government in Vietnam includes the full disclosure of the true identities and roles of these Cuban "diplomats", who were "advisors" to the Hanoi prison system, and were directly responsible for the murder, torture, and severe disablement of American POWs.
Michael D. Benge
The author spent 11 years in Vietnam, over five years as a prisoner of war -- 1968-73, and is a diligent follower of the affairs of the region. While serving as a civilian Foreign Service Offier, hw as captured in South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese, and held in numerous camps in South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam. He spent 27 months in solitary confinement and one year in a "black box". For efforts in rescuing several Americans before being captured, he received the Department of State's highest award for heroism and a second one for valor.
References cited:
(1) Cable. Department of Defense. R 211023Z Aug 80. From: from USDAO Bangkok. Subj: Response to Request for Interview of Prisoner in Bangkok Immigration Jail.
(2) Records of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. Untitled. Jan-28-92 TUE 10:27. p.29
(3) CIA Memorandum From: Deputy Director for Operations For: Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 28 Jan (illegible). Subj: Identification of "Fidel", CUBAN Interrogator of U.S. Prisoners of War in North Vietnam.
(4) At Last the Story Can Be Told. Time. April 9, 1973. pp. 19,20,25 & 26.
(5) DPMO Email. From: Robert Destatte, TO: Daniel M. Baughman, LTC: William G. Beck. Subj: RE: Cuban Vietnam Operations. dated July 3, 1996.
(6) Ex-POW describes "broken" cellmates left in Indochina. Washington Times. Oct. 21, 1992.
(7) POWs Tortured by "FIDEL". Washington Star. April 3, 1973.
(8) Confidential personal communication.
(9) Post-1975 Vietnam: POWs in Vietnam. Report. American Embassy/Paris. Oct. 18, 1979.
(10) CIA Intelligence Information Report. Personal Views on Possible North Vietnamese Refusal to Comply Fully with Terms of a Prisoner Exchange Agreement. [source redacted]. Sept. 1970.
(11) Stearman, William Lloyd. A Misguided Missile Ship: Old Battleships Would Do a Better Job Than A Pricey New Boat. The Washington Post. July 7, 96.
(12) Source DIA. Personal Communication. Confidential.
(13) Department of State Cable. Nassau 00104 051014Z. Re: 051825Z Feb. '71.
(14) Memorandum. "Cuban" Interrogation Program. Commander Bruce Heller, Chief PW/MIA Branch, Resources and Installations Division, Directorate for Intelligence Research. 21 Oct. 1977.
(15) Personal Communication with Congressman Bob Dornan.
(16) CIA Report. Training of Negroes in Cuba. Attachment to memorandum to The Honorable Walt W. Rostow, Special Assistant to the President, from Thomas H. Karamessines, Deputy Director for Plans.
(17) DIA source. Personal Communication. Confidential.
(18) DIA Memorandum (source report) regarding purported SRV supply of opium and heroin to Cuba for distribution in the U.S. Source Number 4414. July 19, 1984.
(19) CIA Cable [heavily redacted]. Subj: Selected Cubans in North Vietnam. R151853Z Sept. '80.
(20) (a) FBIS-EAS-96-077 Vietnam. SRV: Le Kah Phieu Reaffirms Solidarity with Cuba. April 19, 1996. (b) FBIS-EAS-96-046 Vietnam. SRV Papers Back Cuban Downing of U.S. Airplanes. March 7, 1996. (c) FBIS-EAS-96-053 Vietnam. SRV Daily Calls Helms- Burton Bill on Cuba "Insolent". March 19, 1996.
(21) Personal Communication with Commander William G. Beck, DPMO.
(22) Personal Communication with Garnett "Bill" Bell, former Chief, DOD/POW/MIA Office in Hanoi.
(23) Cuban special forces prepare for US attack. Jane's Defence Weekly. March 6, 1965.
(24) Sauter, Mark and Jim Sanders. The Men We Left Behing. Natinal Press Books. 1993 pp.212-213.
(25) JCRC/Bangkok Reporting Cable. North Vietnam, pre-1975: Vietnam Cuba Hospital/Place Names Obtained During Third Joint Search Effort. Doc. No. 24094-7zfeb89.
(26) Hubble, John B. POW. Readers Digest Press. 1976.
ATTACHMENT:
Beck, William G.
To: Destatte, Robert; Baughman, Daniel M. Ltc. USA
Cc: Litvinas, Anthony J.; Sydow, Clyde G.; Gray, Daniel W.; Caswell, James R.; Harvey, Joe B.; Travis, Jo Anne B.; Cooke, Melinda; Vivian, Paul; Kass, Norman D.; Liotta, Jay A.; Graham, Albert E.; MacDougall, James, OSD/DMPO
Subject: RE: Cuban Vietnam operations
Bob,
Thanks for the input. I think it is the kind of dialogue that Alan recently said helps to "stimulate" the thinking process. Allow me to offer some thoughts in return. Welcome your additional feedback, or thoughts other addees might have.
The most fundamental question at stake here, if I can simplify it to the extreme, is whether the COMMUNISTS (Soviets, Vietnamese, Lao, KC, Bloc types, even Cubans), had a covert operation with regard to American POWs. If I understand your position, or RA's, your conclusion is that no such a program ever existed.
Obviously I am far more skeptical, but I base that skepticism on 23 years of direct experience with the Communists (including Cubans) in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Grant me, for the sake of discussion, that some sort of POW expoitation program did exist on a clandestine basis, and that Communist allies of the Vietnamese were involved. Grant also, for the same discussion, that these allies agreed never to reveal this program. On a logical basis, then, it would be entirely consistent for the Vietnamese to deny that the Cubans were part of an interrogation program. What I am saying is that we simply cannot take the word of the Communist onm a matter as sensitive as this. Long ago, I studied COMMUNIST theory and strategy from the point of view of the Communists, and they are quite open and clear about their deception practices.
The tale of the Cubans as "English Language Instructors" smacks of a classic "Cover Story." Certainly the Cubans have never been noted for their desire to spread American culture and language to the rest of the Third World. Even if they were to "teach English to PAVN," the only basis for such instruction is "Intelligence related," i.e., they want their allies to be able to extract information efficiently. Knowing the Cubans and their operations in other parts of the world, it is not logical nor consistent with their practices elsewhere for them to simply stop at that point.
Logically, and from my practical experience, I cannot accept, without question, that the Cuban practice of interrogating U.S. POWs (such as Alvarez, Benge, and at least 18 others), was simply a rogue operation - or a case of some English teachers going wild for an entire year. In fact, one POW who was confirmed as being interrogated by the Cubans, states that his questioning took place more than a year after U.S. intelligence agencies have stated the practice stopped. A Cuban journalist told the POW that the Cubans acted as the "Gatekeepers" for an operation that was specifically designed to spot and assess POWs for further exploitation and even transfer to the Soviet Union.
Along this same vein, there is apparently redacted CIA dissems (declassified under FOIA) that report some POWs were moved to other countries for the programs indicated above.
When you mention that the "Vietnamese explanation is plausible," I would have to agree that it is plausible. That does not mean it is true. All covert operations throughout the Cold War, on both sides, operated under the "Plausible Deniability Principle." It is only when you compare the Cuban "English Language" program in Vietnam with the Cuban covert operations in the Congo, Angola, Ethiopia, Libya, Somolia, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Algeria, Panama, Colombia, and El Salvador, does the "plausibility" become transparent for what it is, a simple, and laughable, cover story.
When you say we "can state with complete confidence that the Vietnamese did not permit Soviet persons to interrogate American POWs, nor did they send an American POWs to the Soviet Union," you are not speaking for a fairly sizable group of analysts in this Organization who hold a contrary viewpoint based on a large, and increasing, volume of reporting, indications, and circumstantial evidence. Credible sources have directly, and with some authority, stated that just such a program existed. The questions that you say have been answered, have not been answered to the satisfaction of a lot of us in JCSD. In fact, the answers can be viewed as "unsatisfactory" if the premise and theory that I noted at the beginning of this dialogue is valid. (Like any theory, its validity can only be verified by continued probing and testing, with open and objective minds. Remember Copernicus.)
I also beg to differ with your conclusion that "there is no mystery about Soviet or other Communist bloc access to American POWs." As a career clandestine officer, I have to tell you that there is a beauty of a mystery surrounding this whole issue. I really do admire the way they have pulled the wool over our eyes for so long. The really neat part about it all, however, is that we actually could dismantle the operation and the mystery if we approached the task properly. We are not talking about reinventing the wheel, we are talking about pursuing leads that will crack the shield of secrecy that was put into place by the COMMUNISTS on the POW issue.
It is obvious to a great many of us that this secrecy is in place, and for it to be there, there logically must be a reason for it. When you say that "we answered the questions about Cuban and Russian access to American POWs years ago," I certainly hope that you don't mean we stopped answering new questions based on new information at the same time.
The long and the short of the problem is that we are being stonewalled by the Communists. The Russians, Vietnamese, and the Lao, being the "frontline" states in the matter, are most active in the deception, which they call "maskirovka." The Cubans have never been adquately held to task because we isolate ourselves in isolating them. The Khmer Rouge simply have refused to talk at all. Events of the past 5 years have provided us with some new opportunities to "break the case". But as long as we remain, I hate to say it, but, smug in our opinion that we know all that happened, we will continue to fool ourselves at the same time as the intelligence apparatus of these other countries continue to fool us.
In pursuit of the Cuban angle, I think you are missing our entire point on how to proceed. Why go directly to the Vietnamese and Cuban authorities with hat in hand if they are engaged in the plot to withhold information from us? Our whole point in our JCDS initiative is that such approaches are naive. We believe that the primary way of finding out what really happened is to develop more independent, more creative, and more investigative solutions to the problem. Information on the Cubans should not be considered a "false notion," as you put it. It should be considered a "lead," or "leads", and followed accordingly.
As for the "presumed secret Soviet POW program," Yes, we in JCSD do presume they had one. As for what we have in mind (your question to me), it goes pretty much to the program described by the source I surfaced (or re-surfaced) last October which described the program in some detail. Other reports by credible sources provide such compelling support that this program existed, that to deny it and not investigate further, and with objectivity, would be unprofessional.
Hope the foregoing has been "stimulating." Anyone care to agree, disagree, or weigh in? That's the only way to progress the analytical process.
Cheers,
CHIP
ATTACHMENT:
From: Destatte, Robert
To: Baughman, Daniel M. LTC., USA: Beck, William G.
Cc: Litvinas, Anthony J. Sydow, Clyde G.; Gray, Daniel W.; Caswell, James R.; Harvey, Joe B.; Travis, Jo Anne B.; Cooke, Melinda; Vivian, Paul
Subject: RE: Cuban Vietnam operations
Date: Wednesday, July 03, 1996, 12:10PM
Chip,
We explored this issue with the Vietnamese a few years ago. According to the Vietnamese, the Cubans were not interrogators, nor were they part of any officially sponsored interrogation program. The Cubans sent a team of three English language instructors to Vietnam to provide instruction in basic English to PAVN personnel working with American prisoners. At the working level, the three Cubans persuaded their Vietnamese colleagues to allow them (the Cubans) to demonstrate the effectiveness of Cuban interrogation techniques. The resulting mistreatment of some of our POWs by the Cubans is well documented in returnee debriefings and books written bys some of our POWs (for example Alvarez). Information about the mistreatment eventually filtered up to Vietnamse decision makers and they terminated the Cuban's English language training program about one year after it began.
The Vietnamse explanation is plausible and fully consistent with what we know about the conduct of the Cubans in question and Vietnamese practices granting outsiders access to American POWs. I don't know what you have in mind when you refer to a "Soviet POW program during the Vietnam War era." I do know that we can state with complete confidence that the Vietnamese did not permit Soviet persons to interrogate American POWs, nor did they send any American POWs to the Soviet Union.
If you feel it is necessary to learn the names of the three Cubans in question and, perhaps, try to question them about their activities in Vietnam, I suggest we try to persuade Vietnamese and Cuban authorities to identify them and permit us to interview them. We should not, however, attempt to justify (either explicitly or implicitly) pursuit of further information about the three Cubans on the false notion that they can lead us to information about a presumed secret Soviet POW program.
We have more than 30 years of accumulated knowledge and experience regarding POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia. While there ares still some unanswered questions about specific cases, or general issues such as the quality and quantity of records the Vietnamese and Lao might still have, there is no mystery about Soviet or other Communist block access to American POWs.
In short, we answered the questions about Cuban and Russian access to American POWs years ago -- there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Let's focus our time, energy, and resources on actions that can produce useful casualty resolution data.
Regards, RJ Destatte
ATTACHMENT:
From: Beck, William G.
To: Baughman, Daniel M. LTC., USA
Cc: Litvanis, Anthony J.; Sydow, Clyde G.; Gray, Daniel W.; Travis, Jo Anne B.; Kass, Norman D.; Vivian, Paul; Destatte, Robert; Beck, William G.
Subject: Cuban Vietnam Operations
Date: Tuesday, July 02, 1996 3:16PM
RA -
Is there a specific file or study on the Cuban involvement in Vietnam that any of you can point to or loan us. We are interested in the operational and policy links between the Cuban interrogators and any Soviet POW program that existed in the Vietnam War era. If any of you have specific studies, insights, positions, or new input that you would like to contribute or share, JCDS would be most appreciative. POC is CDR Beck. Thanks. Chip.
More Testimony