AN EXAMINATION OF U.S. POLICY TOWARD POW/MIAS - Part IV

THE SECOND INDOCHINA WAR

The war widely known as the Vietnam War was the second war fought by Communist forces in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese forces, after defeating the French, fought the Second Indochina war against the United States and U.S.backed forces. In the final analysis, however, this war was a political and moral defeat for the United States.

As a result, the United States was forced at the Paris Peace Conference to negotiate its withdrawal from Southeast Asia from a weak military and political position. Internal divisions in the United States and mounting political pressure to extricate the nation from the war, exacerbated this weak negotiating position. As a result, the United States, as in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, found itself, once again, unable to guarantee the repatriation of all U.S.POWs and listed MIAs could be actually alive and held captive.

The United States chief negotiator, Henry Kissinger, admitted as much in his book, YEARS OF UPHEAVAL, published in 1982. Kissinger wrote:

Equally frustrating were our discussions of the American soldiers or war or missing in action. We knew of at least eighty instances in which an American serviceman had been captured alive and had subsequently disappeared. The evidence consisted of either voice communications from the ground in advance of capture or photographs and names published by the Communists.

Operation HOMECOMING, the name given to the last repatriation of U.S.POWs by the North Vietnamese began February 12, 1973, and ended March 29, 1973. A grand total of 591 United States servicemen were repatriated.

However, news reports and other documentation stated that the United States Government left men-perhaps thousands of men-in the captivity of Communist forces in Southeast Asia.

On January 27, 1973, an agreement to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam was signed in Paris, France. Signatories to this agreement were the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG). This agreement consisted of a preamble, and nine chapters, covering 23 Articles and four protocols.

In Chapter VII, Articles 21 and 22 outlined the future relationship between the United States and the Republic of North Vietnam. These read in part,

Article 21:...In pursuance of its traditional policy, the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to post-war reconstruction ofthe Democratic Republic of Vietnam and throughout Indo-China.

Article 22: The ending of the war, the restoration of peace in Vietnam, and the strict implementation of this agreement will create conditions for establishing a new, equal and mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on the basis of respect for each others independence and sovereignty, and non-interference in each others internal affairs. At the same time, this will ensure stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indo-china and South East Asia.

The Paris accord stated that the return of prisoners of war, would be

...carried out simultaneously with and completed not later than the same day as the troop withdrawal.

THERE ARE NO MORE PRISONERS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The United States did not receive the list of American POWs of whom North Vietnamese admitted they were holding in captivity until the peace accords were signed. Significantly, the list included only nine Americans captured in Laos, nor were they held by the Pathet Lao, but were handed over to the North Vietnamese after their capture.

In fact, it was widely known that the Pathet Lao were holding many other U.S.POWs. On March 25, one news report stated:P> U.S.sources believe that a substantial number of the missing [in Lao]--perhaps as many as 100--still may be alive. The conclusions are based on inspections of crash sites by search teams and on intelligence reports.

The absence of names on the U.S.POW list handed over by the North Vietnamese of Americans captured in Laos and held by the Pathet Lao was one of the great blunders of the Paris Peace Accord negotiations and caused great confusion and emotional duress among family members of missing and captured personnel.

One news report stated, three days after the accords were signed:

The North Vietnamese have failed to furnish the United States with a list of American fighting men taken prisoner in Laos, Pentagon officials and an organization of POW families said Sunday...Mrs.Phyllis Galanti, board of chairman of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia told a reporter there are no Laos names on lists provided to U.S. authorities in Paris Saturday after the Vietnam cease-fire agreement was formally signed. Everything we have been told had led us to believe there would be a list, said Mrs. Galanti...Pentagon spokesman Jerry W. Friedheim said it is true that no Laos list was provided...We do expect to receive a list Friedheim said.

In fact, the United States government never received such a list. Two weeks later, one news report carried the United States government explanation for the absence of names of American POWs held by Pathet Lao. The report quoted State Department officials who stated

...they believe that the list of nine persons submitted by North Vietnam was incomplete and that there are more Americans held by Laotian Communists.

In other words, the U.S.governments explanation for the lack of names of U.S.POWs held in Laos was that the North Vietnamese and the Laotians were holding back the names. Indeed, the next day, the Pathet Lao confirmed that they were holding back names. According to a news report from Laos, the Pathet Lao publicly announced through

...a Communist Pathet Lao spokesman...[that]...his group IS HOLDING AMERICAN PRISONERS OF WAR who will be released after a cease-fire goes into effect. Soth Petrasy, the Pathet Laos permanent representative in Vientiane, declined to give any details about American POWs in Laos. But he said the Pathet Lao leadership has a detailed accounting of prisoners and where they were being held and that both sides in the cease-fire negotiations are ready to exchange prisoners once the fighting ends...The exchange will take place in Laos, Soth said. If they were captured in Laos, they will be returned in Laos, he told UPT.

The Pathet Lao wanted a cease-fire agreement and were holding American prisoners until such an agreement between the United States and the Pathet Lao was reached. However, State Department officials, responding to the Pathet Lao statement quoted above:

...pointed out today that the Pathet Lao statement was not consistent with more detailed statements made by Kissinger and that it was possible that Kissingers statements were based on some misunderstanding in his dealings with the North Vietnamese.

Mr.Kissingers misunderstanding was that the United States believed, as Kissinger stated in a January 24, 1973 press conference, that

American prisoners held in Laos and North Vietnam will be returned to us in Hanoi.

However, during the 60 day cease-fire period required by the Paris Peace accords, American airmen were still flying combat missions and bein shot down in the secret war over Laos. Mr.Kissingers misunderstanding was never cleared up, and at the conclusion of Operation HOMECOMING more than a month later, no American prisoners of war held in Laos were released by the North Vietnamese or the Pathet Lao. These men, and the men that the pathet Lao forces publicly stated they were holding after the Paris Peace Agreement was signed, have never come home.

On March 26, 1973, the North Vietnamese announced that the last American prisoners of war would be repatriated March 27 and March 28 1973. The hopes of the nation and of family members that American prisoners of war held by the Pathet Lao would be released by the North Vietnamese were crushed. As one news report stated

North Vietnam told the United States Sunday it intended to release the last group of American prisoners it holds at Hanois Gia Lam Airport on Tuesday and Wednesday, BUT SAID THE U.S. DEMAND THAT IT ALSO RELEASE POWS CAPTURED IM LAOS IS BEYOND THE JURISDICTION OF THE [PARIS] AGREEMENT.

The North Vietnamese publicly concurred with the Pathet Lao's policy with regard to the repatriation of the U.S.POWs the Pathet Lao were holding. Two weeks into this stalemate over the repatriation of U.S. POWs held by Pathet Lao, between the Pather Lao and the North Vietnamese on one side, and the United States on the other, the United States announced that Vietnamese on the same side, and the United States on the other, the United States announced that

There are no more prisoners in Southeast Asia. They are all dead.

Furthermore, one news report quoted a United States government spokesman;

Rumors that there were hundreds of U.S.Servicemen held in Laotian prison camps, does the families [of the missing] a desservice.

These statements were made notwithstanding the eighty men cited by Henry Kissinger held by the North Vietnamese, and notwithstanding the fact that no U.S.POWs held by the Pathet Lao forces have ever been repatriated. Clearly, both of the above United States Government statemenst were demonstrably false; they were designed--one can only speculate--to persuade the media that information with regard to prisoners still alive in Southeast Asia had no foundation whatsoever, and furthermore, only compounded the emotional anxiety of anxious and grieving family members. The fact of the matter is that the Pathet Lao publicly admitted to holding U.S.POWs in Laos, Kissinger implicitly agreed when he said

American prisoners held in Laos and North Vietnam will be returned to us in Hanoi.

Yet the U.S.government abandoned any attempt to bring them back home.

THE KISSINGER HAND-CARRIED LETTER

Five days after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, Kissinger hand-carried a letter, dated February 1, 1973 to the North Vietnamese Prime Minister a letter which detailed the Administrations interpretation of the clause in the Paris Peace Accord in Article 21, which pledged that the United States would

...contribute to the healing the wounds of war and post-reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The letter, and the commitments it implied, were not revealed even to the highest-randing Senators and members of Congress. The test of the letter follows:

The President wishes to inform the Democratic Republic of Vietnam of the principles which will govern United States participation in the postwar reconstruction of North Vietnam. As indicated in Article 21 of The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, the United States undertakes this participation in accordance with its traditional policies. These principles are as follows:

1) The Government of the United States of American will contribute to postwar reconstruction in North Vietnam without any political conditions.

2) Preliminary United States studies indicate that the appropriate programs for the United States contribution to postwar reconstruction will fall in the range of $3.25 billion of grant aid over five years. Other forms of aid will be agreed upon between the two parties. This estimate is subject to revision and to detailed discussion between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

3) The United States will propose to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam the establishment of a United States-North Vietnamese Joint Economic Commission within 30 days from the date of this message.

4) The function of this Commission will be to develop programs for the United States contribution to reconstruction of North Vietnam. This United States contribution will be based upon such factors as:

a) The needs of North Vietnam arising from the dislocation of war;

b) The requirements for postwar reconstruction in the agricultural and industrial sectore of North Vietnam's economy.

5) The Joint Economic Commission will have an equal number of representatives from each side. It will agree upon a mechanism to administer the program which will constitute the United States contribution to the reconstruction of North Vietnam. The Commission will attempt to complete this agreement within 60 days after its establishment.

6) The two members of the Commission will function on the principal of respect for each others sovereignty, non-interference in each others internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit. The offices of the Commission will be located at a place to be agreed upon by the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

7) The United States considers that the implementation of the foregoing principles will promote economic, trade and other relations between the United States of America and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and will contribute to insuring a stable and lasting peace in Indochina. These principles accord with the spirit of Chapter VIII on The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam which was signed in Paris on January 27, 1973.

It is understood that the recommendations of the Joint Economic Commission mentioned in the Presidents note to the Prime Minister will be implemented by each member in accordance with its own constitutional provisions.

In regard to other forms of aid, United States studies indicate that the appropriate programs could fall in the range of 1 to 1.5 billion dollars depending on food and other commodity needs of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

It is unfortunate that the North Vietnamese did not understand the important Constitutional caveat inherent in the Kissinger letter. Any funds paid to the North Vietnamese, or any funds to purchase any aid given to the North Vietnamese, would have to be appropriated by the United States Congress.

But Congress knew nothing of the Kissinger commitments. Had key Senators and Congressmen been told of the policy, they would have had the opportunity to tell the President that voting for billions of dollars of aid or funds for North Vietnam would have been an admission of culpability. The United States had failed in its mission to protect South Vietnam from the totalitarian Communist regime in the North.

The suffering, brutality, death and dehumanization borne by the Vietnamese people since the war is proof that the American goals in Vietnam were correct. However, the failure of the civilian leadership to achieve those goals had to do more with the collapse of political leadership in the United States than with the morality of the goals. Congress realized full well, if Kissinger did not, that the soothing word "reconstruction" actually meant "reparations." The American people would never pay reparations when no crime had been committed. Congress saw Kissinger's plan as a betrayal and an admission of guilt.

However, there is no doubt that the North Vietnamese concluded that the President's emissary had pledged billions of dollars in reparations to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

Two weeks after the date of the letter delivered by Kissinger, the United States and the North Vietnamese announced the formation of the Joint Economic Commission, in fulfillment of paragraph (3) of that letter. The announcement, according to one news report stated that

The United States and North Vietnam will create a Joint Economic Commission to oversee rebuilding of the war-torn country with U.S. dollars, the two sides announced Wednesday. A communique issued by the White House and Hanoi on FOUR DAYS of talks by President Nixons envoy, Henry A. Kissinger, and North Vietnamese leaders in Hanoi listed no specific figures for U.S. post war aid.

Negotiations were underway between Kissinger and the North Vietnamese to implement specific aspects of the Kissinger letter. However, the White House was beginning to understand the extent of the political problems it was going to have with its aid plan. One news report from Paris stated the U.S. negotiators refused to acknowledge whether reparations to North Vietnam were being discussed, or the amounts which were being discussed. According to the report,

U.S.and North Vietnamese representatives met Monday to discuss American postwar reconstruction aid to the North Vietnamese...the American peace delegation declined to confirm the opening of the talks on President Nixons plan for the postwar financing of North Vietnam's Defense reconstruction... Nixon answered Congressional critics by saying aid money would come out of Defense and Agency for International Development funds instead of the domestic budget. The president said giving money to help North Vietnam rebuild its bombed country would contribute to lasting peace and stability in the area.

In fact, U.S.reparations to North Vietnam were being discussed in Paris, France from April through June of 1973. The negotiations were extensive and detailed. A list of specific items was drawn up for the first year of U.S. aid. Among some of the items on the list:

700,000 square meters of prefabricated housing and warehouses; 200,000 metric tons of steel building supplies; 50,000 cubic meters of timber; 40 million meters of cloth; 2,000 metric tone of Rayon fibers; between 2,650 and 2,900 tractors, bulldozers and excavators; three repair plants for the equipment; 20,000 metric tons of steel tubes; 25-50 tug boats; 3 floating ports and 3 cranes, one floating; 600 metric tons of barges; 570 trucks; 10 diesel locomotives; between 250-500 frieght cars; 10,000 metric tons of rail; 10 6-25 ton pile hammers; 15,000 metric tons of synthetic rubber; 10,000 metric tons of caustic soda; 10,000 metric tons of steel; 5,000 metric tons of steel alloy; 2,500 metric tons of copper; 3,000 metric tons of high tension copper cable; 50,000 metric tons of coal; 1 million meters of tire cord; among other specific aid negotiated.

The negotiators had even drawn up a larger list of aid items to be given to North Vietnam as reparations by the United States from 1973 thru to 1978.

Political problems, however, were working against the Administrations plans to aid North Vietnam. One news report three weeks after the United States and North Vietnam announced the creation of the Joint Economic Commission illustrates the problems the senior Administration officials were encountering on Capitol Hill,

Secretary of State William P.Rogers Wednesday refused to rule out reconstruction aid to North Vietnam by presidential order if Congress fails to appropriate the funds...Rogers three times called for restraint by members of Congress in making adverse comments on the aid issue, AT LEAST UNTIL AMERICAN TROOPS ARE OUT OF VIETNAM and ALL AMERICAN PRISONERS ARE RELEASED.

The Next day, one news report stated:

Secretary of State William P.Rogers said Tuesday the Nixon administration will seek prior authority from Congress for any economic assistance program to Vietnam...in a Monday session before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Rogers asked that the controversy over aid be kept to a minimum for the next month or so. Such a recess in debate would ALLOW THE RELEASE OF AMERICAN PRISONERS TO BE COMPLETED and would also provide time for the administration to formulate its proposals...While the North Vietnamese did not list a number of prisoners they wanted freed, The New York Times reported from Saigon today that American sources set the demand at 5,000.

In fact, only 591 U.S.POWs were repatriated by the North Vietnamese during Operation HOMECOMING, which is 12% of the figure of 5,000 U.S.POWs held by the North Vietnamese reported by The New York Times.

The number of prisoners which The New York Times reported that the United States government demanded from the North Vietnamese --5,000 correlates with the statement of a former employee of the United States government. This former National Security Agency (NSA) employee said in a sworn affidavit that the North Vietnamese repatriated only 15 % of the U.S. servicemen they held in captivity. In other words, according to this source, the North Vietnamese kept 85 % of the American POWs who were alive after March 28, 1973.

A SOVIET, A CHINESE AND A VIETNAMESE GREETED THE PILOTS...

Some evidence suggests that a number of nonrepatriated Americans may have been turned over to Soviet control, and subsequently transported to the Soviet Union. A former U.S. military serviceman, assigned to the NSA provided the Minority Staff sworn affidavits that during their release to the Soviets for debriefings by the both North Vietnamese and Communist Laotians officials. This has not been corroborated, but information provided to the Minority Staffindicates that American POWs may have been sent to the Soviet Union for interrogation and subsequent use of their special skills.

Indeed, a declassified CIA report gives graphic details of a debriefing incident in Vinh Phu Province involving a group of U.S. pilots captured in Vietnam. Soviet personnel were present at the debriefing. At the conclusion of the debriefing, the U.S.POWs were turned over to a new set of guards who evidently wore distinct uniforms, suggesting a different kind of custody.

A review of declassified documents asserts that the phosphate plant described was a site for transfer of U.S.POWs to Soviet custody. Declassified portions of the CIA document available to the Minority Staff are as follows:

Report No. CS-311/04439-71
Date Dist. 10 June 1971

Country:North Vietnam

DOL:1965-June 1967

Subject:Preliminary debriefing site for captured U.S.Pilots in Vinh Phu Province and presence of Soviet Communist and Chinese Personnel at the site

1.A preliminary debriefing point for U.S.pilots shot down over Vinh Phu Province, North Vietnam/NVN/, was located at the Lam Thao district, Vinh Phu Province. Two U.S.pilots were taken to the debriefing point on one occasion in 1965; eight in 1966; and unknown number in 1967. The prisoners were escorted to the site by personnel of the Armed Public Security Forces/APSF/, and students from a nearby school served as perimeter guards. Each time prisoners were brought to the site they rode in an open car of Chinese origin resembling an American jeep. Some of the escort guards rode in a lead car and others rode in two cars following the prisoners. Upon their arrival at the plant, the guards lined up, forming a corridor through which the pilots entered the building. At this point a Soviet, a Chinese, and a Vietnamese greeted the pilots and led them into the building. The pilots usually remained in the building for several hours. When they emerged they had changed from uniforms into civilian clothing. [deleted] said [deleted] had told him the foreigners were Soviet and Communist Chinese. Soviet personnel had been stationed at the plant since its construction in 1963, but in 1965 the number of Soviets was reduced to three or four, and it remained at that level as of June 1967. About 20 Communist Chinese personnel arrived at the plant in 1966 and there were still about 20 there as of June 1967 as far as [deleted] knew, the Soviet and Communist Chinese personnel got along well.

2.After shaking hands with the Soviet and Chinese, the prisoners were led to a different vehicle from the one which brought them to the site. They were escorted from the plant by a different set of guards who wore yellow and white uniforms and were armed with rifles and pistols. [Deleted] did not know the destination of the prisoners.

In a previous section, reports that U.S. prisoners were seen being transferred to Communist China and the Soviet Union during the Korean War were noted. The Korean War precedents give verisimilitude to the assertions recieved by the Minority Staff, although the available evidence is not yet conclusive.

PRISONERS RETURNED AFTER FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE

United States government officials have been told by North Vietnamese officials that the North Vietnamese government was still holding U.S.POWs well after the conclusion of OPERATION HOMECOMING. Lt.Col.Stuart A. Henington, who worked on the POW/MIA issue as a military intelligence and liaison officer with the North Vietnamese and Peoples Republic of China from 1973 to 1975, stated that North Vietnamese officials told him U.S.POWs would be returned when the reparations that Kissinger promised to the North Vietnamese were paid. In his book, PEACE with HONOR? AN AMERICAN REPORTS on VIETNAM, 1973-1975, Henington wrote:

U.S.casualties under North Vietnamese control would be accounted for and PRISONERS RETURNED after fulfillment of the promise.

The North Vietnamese--apparently--were waiting for the reparations that Kissinger had promised them, before the vast majority of American POWs reported by The New York Times were to be repatriated. Doubtless they held the prisoners back as human collateral. It should be noted that the 5,000 POW figure cited by Times is slightly less than twice that of the United States official POW and MIA totals. However, it is likely that the 5,000 figure reflected the total number of individuals believed to be held by Communist forces in Southeast Asia at that time. This total would have included the total number of covert of Black Cowboy POWs and MIAs who were not factored into the official United States government MIA and POW casualty figures for the entire Second Indochina war thoughout Southeast Asia.

The North Vietnamese knew well enought that the internal political dynamics of the peace movement in the United States had forced the United States to the bargaining table in a weakened condition. But now they saw that it was unlikely the U.S.Congress would vote for billions in reparations.

The political resistance to aid to North Vietnam grew, among other reasons, as a result of news reports that detailed North Vietnamese torture of U.S.POWs:

Reports from returning prisoners of war of torture and mistreatment by Hanoi [which] have stirred new attacks in Congress against U.S. aid for North Vietnam...Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield of Montana said the torture stories have not changed his own position that aid to Hanoi would help ensure the peace. But, he added, he does not know what effect the stories will have on getting aid through Congress. Even before this it looked difficult, stated Rep.Joel T. Broyhill, (R-VA), who said the stories convince me that not a cent of American aid money should be spent on rehabilitating a country that is apparently run by savages.

On April 6, 1973, the United States Senate voted

...to bar any aid to North Vietnam unless Congress specificially approves.

The 88-3 roll call vote in the Senate, combined with the general political sentiment in Congress, indicated there was very little chance that Congress was going to vote for the Administrations request for aid to North Vietnam.

The final death-knell for the payment of reparations to North Vietnam occured a week later when

Armed Services Chairman F.Edward Hebert...served notice he will introduce a proposal to prohibit any U.S.aid for Hanoi. The Louisiana Democrat also said justification for President Nixons request for $1.3 billion aid to Southeast Asia so far is either nebulous or non-existent.

It was the very next day after Chairman Herbert announced his intentions to introduce a proposal to prohibit aid for Hanoi, that the United States made its definitive statement that there were no more Americans alive in Southeast Asia and that "rumors" did the families a disservice.

Several weeks later, in June, 1973, the American Embassy, Saigon, sent a cable to the Secretary of State, in Washington, D.C. which documents one of the attempts to cover up evidence of abandoning POWs:

Subject:PW REPORT BY NVA DEFECTOR
REF:STATE 112133

1.NVA Rallier/Defector Nguyen Thanh Son was surface by GVN to press June 8 in Saigon. In follow on interview with AP, UPI and NBC American correspondents, questions elicited information that he had seen six prisoners whom he believed were Americans who had not yet been released. American officer present at interview requested news services to play down details:AP mention was consistent with embargo request, while UPT and NBC after talk with Embassy press officer omitted item entirely from their stories.

2.Details on rallier's account being reported SEPTEL through military channels by BRIGHT LIGHT message today. WHITE HOUSE.

This cable appears to be an active step on the part of the U.S.government to insure there would be no media reports of American servicemen still being held captive in Southeast Asia, such reports would have conflicted with the United States government's policy statement that there were no U.S.POWs left in Southeast Asia, because "they are all dead."

In a September, 1978 hearing before the U.S.House of Representatives Special Committee on Southeast Asia, Congressman Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) asked former Under Secretary of State Philip Habib about the existence of any

...agreements we are not aware of, secret memorandum that this committee is not aware of?

Mr.Habib responded to Congressman Gilman's question in this fashion:

There is no agreement or secret memorandum which this Committee is not aware of in this respect. There were, as the Committee is aware, some letters and exchanges. With respect to those letters, I think the committee has been informed of the content of those letters and exchanges.

Mr.Frank McCloskey (D-IN) then stated:

With all due respect, Mr.Secretary, this committee asked the Secretary of State and you the same question before we went to Hanoi last December. You did not advise us of that secret [Kissinger hand-carried] letter and we discovered its existence only when we got to Hanoi...We didn't have any idea the letter existed. We asked you in November if there were any secret agreements that we should know about before we went to Hanoi and we were not advised by you or the Secretary of State of the letters existence or of the $3.24 billion figure which we later ascertained.

Mr.Habib, in response to Mr.McCloskey's question, stated:

That [the letter] is not an agreement. It never developed into an agreement. I didn't know of the existence of the letter...either.

Given the intensity of the negotiations which both the United States and the North Vietnamese undertook specifically at the time to implement the contents of the secret letter, including the creation of the Joint Economic Commission and extensive negotiations, it is hard to accept Mr.Habib's assertion that the letter did not constitute--at least as far as Kissinger represented to the North Vietnamese--a secret executive agreement.

The House Committee's final report stated:

After the war, when the provisions for gaining an accounting failed to be followed, the State Department tried other means to achieve that end. It tried government-to-government appeals, demands, and protests. It enlisted the assistance of international humanitarian organizations, and sought the aid and support of third-party nations and the pressure of world opinion...Short of recommencing the war there were few remaining alternatives on the diplomatic level. North Vietnam was already under a total embargo, and when South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fell to Communist forces in 1975, South Vietnam and Cambodia were soon included in the embargo.

Perhaps if Congress and the American public had known of the existence of the secret letter, perhaps if Congress had been given a full accounting of the information on MIAs possessed by the U.S.government, instead of a cover-up, a concrete plan for implementing the provisions for gaining accounting of captives as described in the Paris Peace Accords, might have been crafted. But there was no way that Congress, with honor, could be blackmailed into accepting the payment of reparations with its tacit implication of surrender to a rughless Communist regime.

Document Reproduction -

9 March 1988

MEMORANDUM FOR: Colonel Joseph A. Schlatter, US Army Chief, Special Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action

SUBJECT: Alleged Sightings of American POWs in North Korea from 1975 to 1982

REFERNCE: Memo for the DDI fm Colonel Schlatter, dtd 19 Feb 88, Same Subject

1. In response to your request [REDACTED] three separate reports of such sightings, which are attached:

The first report, dated April 1980, indicates that [REDACTED] on the outskirts of P'yongyang. [REDACTED] about 10 military pilots captured in North Vietnam were brought to North Korea.

The second report, also dated in April 1980, apparantly describes the same incident [REDACTED]

The third report, dated March 1988, [REDACTED] as many as 11 Caucsians, possibly American prisoners from the Korean war, in the fall of 1979 on a collective farm north of P'yongyang.

PROLOGUE TO PART II

The original plan of the Minority Staff was to review the U.S.government's handling and evaluation of "live-sighting reports." Such accounts are first-hand narratives by witnesses who believe that they have seen American military personnel alive in various locations. They provide tantalizing glimpses of POW/MIAs who then vanish into the mist of the bureaucratic nightmare. For example, American POW/MIAs from the Korean War were seen alive as late as 1982 in the censored CIA document (obtained under a FOIA request) dated 1988 which is reproduced on the opposite page. There is no reason to believe that this is the last report on North Korean POW/MIAs.

For Vietnam, the U.S. Government has at least 1,400 such reports, including reports that have been received in 1991; indeed, even, one is told, in the past few weeks. In addition, the U.S.Government has received thousands and thousands of second-hand reports--accounts often full of vivid detail, such as "my brother told me he saw 11 American POWs being transported in a truck at such and such a place."

Yes, amazingly, the U.S.Government has not judged a single one of these thousands of reports to be credible. Instead, the policy enunciated by an official statement of the U.S.Government in 1973 was that there was "no evidence that there wee any more POWs still alive in all of Indochina." In spite of 1,400 unresolved reports of first-hand live-sightings, the Department of Defense, remarkably, still believes it has "no evidence." How does it dismiss these reports?

In reviewing hundreds of the raw intelligence files on the 1,400 reports, Minority Staff investigators found a predisposition by DOD evaluators to ignore corroborative evidence, and little interest to follow-up what normal searchers would consider as good leads. Many cases, of course, were quite properly disposed of.

Yet often DOD evaluators seemed more intent upon upholding the validity of the 1973 "no-evidence" statement, as though "no-evidence" were a policy rather than a description of fact.

It is contrary to common sense that all of the reports--all 1,400--are spurious, expecially in the light of such obvious contradictions as the actual return of the unfortunate Private Robert Garwood in 1979.

Garwood was a battle casualty taken into custody by the North Vietnamese under fire. However, his court martial as a collaborator and deserter solved two problems for DOD: By bringing up the charges DOD sought to redefine his case as a voluntary expatriate and therefore not technically a prisoner--and it enabled DOD evaluators to dismiss fully two hundred of the live-sighting reports. Since Garwood reported that he had been moved from prison to prison, the faulty logic of DOD seemed to demand that any report from the prisons he cited must have been a sighting of Garwood. The policy that there was "no evidence" of living prisoners made it necessary to assume that other U.S. prisoners in those prisons could not exist.

Garwood was convicted of one count of simple assault on a fellow POW, one count of aiding the enemy by acting as a translator, interpreter, and interrogator, one count of wearing black pajamas--the enemy uniform--and one count of carrying an AK-47 (unloaded) during a patrol. Whether these convictions added up to meaningful collaboration with the enemy or not, it was not proved that he was a voluntary deserter. Nevertheless the living proof that the "no evidence" policy was not correct was thoroughly discredited.

Convenient as the Garwood case was for DOD, the embarrassment still remained. Garwood was alive. There had been a live-sighting report on him in 1973 after DOD had publicly issued the "no evidence" policy. Indeed, documents and witnesses available to the Minority Staff show that CIA and DIA knew of Garwood's whereabouts, as well as other so-called U.S.deserters in Vietnamese custody, after 1973.

And now the reports proved to be correct. Since Garwood was alive in Indochina from 1973 to 1979, DOD logic was saved by his court martial. As a "collaborator" he may have been in North Vietnamese custody in 1973, but he no longer fit the definition of "prisoner," and so the integrity of the 1973 policy statement remained unassailed. Nevertheless, Garwood, upon his return, reported seeing another presumed deserter, Earl C. Weatherman, alive in 1977. He stated also that a third presumed deserter, McKinley Nolan, was also alive after 1073. It may be assumed that Garwood was not reporting a live-sighting of Garwood in these cases.

Indeed, a list has circulated among POW/MIA families purporting to show that 20 U.S.personnel listed as deserters, or AWOL, were left in North Vietnamese custody after OPERATION HOMECOMING, the 1973 prisoner exchange. Four others are listed as disappearing under unexplained or unusual circumstances. The Minority Staff takes no position on the validity of this list, but does note that almost all of the individuals cited appear on a DIA alphabetic list entitled "U.S.Casualties in South East Asia," dated 2/26/80, but are conspicuously absent from a similar DIA list dated 8/22/84.

In the light of what appears to be a compelling need on the part of DOD to uphold the "no evidence" policy, the Minority Staff believes that, if even one POW who was detained in South East Asia is still alive, no resources of the U.S.Government should be spared to locate him and effect his return to the United States if he so desires.

In recent days, the Government of North Vietnam has announced that it is willing to open its territory to relatives to search for any POW/MIAs or their remains. While that is an encouraging development, DOD should reciprocate with a similar gesture. DOD should open its territory too. The files of live-sighting reports and second-hand reports should be made available to families of the POW/MIAs and to any qualified investigator, particularly to Senators, Members of Congress and their staffs.

Such openness has not, up to this time, characterized the operations of DOD's Special Office of POW/MIA Affairs. On February 12, the Director of that office, Col.Millard A.Peck wrote a letter of resignation to his superior decrying the mind-set of cover-up and the policies which prevented a vigorous search for POW/MIAs who might still be living.

Observers described Colonel Peck as a man who had accepted the position with high motives and a sense of deep dedication. Yet his letter shows that he felt that he could no longer fulfill the demands of duty, honor, and integrity under the policies which he was asked to implement.

Nevertheless, he did not rush to seek publicity for himself. Colonel Peck's resignation first became known and was discussed publicly at a meeting of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in early April, but his letter did not become public until May.

The full text of the colonel's letter appears in this report as the Epilogue. It is in itself a sufficient commentary on the findings of this report.

Colonel Peck confirms that a "cover-up" has been in progress. He speaks of a "mindset to debunk"--that is, to discredit witnesses rather than to ascertain the truth of their statements. he says that there was no effort to pursue "live sightings." He states that "any soldier left in Vietnam, even inadvertently, was, in fact, abandoned years ago." He also critizes the U.S.government's treatment of the families and friends of the POW/MIAs.

These statements should be evaluated in the light of Colonel Peck's long career of faithful service in the U.S.Army, including three combat tours in Vietnam, for which he was awarded numerous medals of gallantry, including the nation's second-highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross. These are serious charges put forth by a man who knows their seriousness. Moreover, he is one of the few who have intimate knowledge of the way the U.S.Government's POW/MIA policy operates.

Finally, the Minority Staff notes that Colonel Peck's conclusions are remarkably similar to the conslusiong which the staff arrived at independently, having worked for nearly a year before Colonel Peck was appointed to the POW/MIA office. Out only acquaintance with him was during the few days in which his superiours allowed only Senator Grassley and staff to review live-sighting reports under strict constraints. Because of the atmosphere of tension surrounding these issues in the Executive Branch, our observations were limited to the fact that Colonel Peck was a competent professional acting according to his instructions. We now know in addition that he is a person of sound judgement and integrity.

LIVE SIGHTING REPORTS

The Department of Defense (DOD) has been gathering reports on live sightings of American prisoners since the United States became involved in the war in Southeast Asia. First-hand live-sighting reports are defined as eye-witness accounts of a person or persons whom the witness believes to be an American POW or American POWs seen in captivity in Southeast Asia.

The DOD states that is has received in excess of 1,300 first-hand live-sighting reports since the end of the Second Indochina War (1955-1975). With the exception of a very small percentage of live-sighting reports that remain "unresolved," DOD has concluded that the vast majority of live-sighting reports do not pertain to any American POWs still in Southeast Asia. Given DOD's record of disporving these hundreds of live-sighting reports, there is little reason to assume that the few live sighting reports that are still "unresolved" will ever be determined by DOD to be valid eye-witness accounts of American POWs.

In the opinion of staff, many of the "resolved" live-sighting reports should be re-examined. There are numerous instances in which the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) explains away the validity of a report with a flawed or, at least, questionable analysis. Among the common explanations used by DIA to resolve live-sighting reports are the following: that a particular report in question is:

1)a fabrication;

2)a sighting of Soviet, Cuban, or other East bloc advisors;

3)a sighting of volunteers from Western countries working in Southeast Asia;

4)a pre-1979 sighting of Robert Garwood, the American POW who returned in 1979 and was, later, convicted of collaborating with the enemy;

5)a sighting of American civilians detained for various violations of the Vietnamese criminal code;

6)a sighting debunked or discredited--in other words, disregarded-- because the source's statement was found to be inconsistent with information DOD considered to be factual; or,

7)an out-of-date sighting of POWs who were repatriated during OPERATION HOMECOMING (1973).

Many times such rationales are valid for particular reports; however, the same explanations are also used in a rigid, bureaucratic manner in order to resolve reports and close the files. Staff reviewed hundreds of classified and declassified live-sighting reports. In the opinion of staff, many live-sighting reports were closed prematurely and disregarded when minimal additional effort may have resolved the veracity of live-sighting reports.

In some instances, the analysis and conclusion that these sightings do not refer to American prisoners cannot be supported by the contents of the respective files. The findings, in these cases, were premature or, worse, could not be supported by the facts of the case. Moreover, DIA's analysis in a general sense reflects an approach by DOD that appears to be geared toward disproving each live-sighting report, rather than each report receiving, as proscribed by official DOD policy, the "necessary priority and resources based on the assumption that at least some Americans are still held captive."

Thus, DOD has been able to construct a rationale to discredit "officially: nearly each and every live-sighting report. Staff found instances where DOD merely excluded from its analysis certain details of a valid sighting, such as a source's statement about the number of POWs sighted, their physical condition, a description of the camp or cave they were held in, whether they were shackled, or, whether they were gesturing for food; and by the exclusion of such corroborating details, the report could be labeled a fabrication. Furthermore, the exclusion of these details would not be known to anyone reading just the summary of the live-sighting report, or even by reading DOD's analysis of the report. Only by reading the "raw intelligence" can one learn such details.

DIA's greatest effort at corroborating a source's report is directed at the source's information about themselves, the source's description of the location of the live-sighting, and the source's explanation of how and when the sighting ocurred. Great effort was not expended, however, to corroborate whether American POWs were in fact being held prisoner, or were working in or being transported through a particular location.

Any slight indicators of what DOD felt was an inconsistency in the source's description of the time, location, or circumstances of the sighting was used by DIA to erode, and therefore disprove the credibility of the source and/ or the source's live-sighting report is disregarded. It should also be noted that the debunking of such reports was not confined just to allegations of inconsistencies in the source's information; some live sighting accounts were dismissed for what, in the opinion of staff, seems to be dysfunctional analytical reasoning.

Once an analyst makes a conslusion, it seems to be cut in stone. In other words, the DIA is reluctant to change its conclusions concerning some individuals even when reliable evidence to the contrary is presented for review. Although it is obvious that the reliability of sources varies, it appears that DIA starts with the premise that every source is lying, and then works toward substantiating that premise. A more positive procedure would be to make every possible effort to substantiate the information before setting it aside.

One example of DIA's debunking mentality is illustrated by the case of U.S. Navy pilot LCDR James E.Dooley. Dooley was shot down, October 22, 1967, conducting a bombing run near Hanoi flying an A-4E aircraft. He crashed just south of Do Son, Haiphong Province, Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). Fellow pilots saw Dooley's aircraft after it was hit, watching it go down gradually until it hit about one mile offshore in the vicinity of Do Son. They did not see him eject from the aircraft. Limited observation by fellow pilots, weather, and the swiftness of the indicent may have led to some confusion over whether or not Dooley survived the crash of his aircraft.

Dooley is officially listed as KIA-BNR. Dooley was not returned or accounted for during OPERATION HOMECOMING in 1973. In 1987, a North Vietnamese refugee was interviewed by U.S. intelligence personnel at a refugee camp. The refugee described the shootdown of an American jet aircraft he witnessed in 1968 while in the area of Do Son, Haiphong Province. According to the source, he saw the pilot bail out with a tri-colored parachute and try to swim out to sea to escape capture. The pilot fired a pistol at his pursuers before being captured. The refugee said, the captured pilot was stripped of his one-piece flight suit, placed in the sidecar of a motorcycle, driven across Do Son airfield and taken away by North Vietnamese officials to a waiting Chinese automobile.

An early DOD evaluation of the fisherman's information concluded the fisherman probably witnessed the shootdown of a Navy pilot named J.M.Hickerson, who was shot down two months after Dooley in the same general area of Dooley's shootdown. Hickerson was captured, and repatriated from North Vietnam in 1973.

However, after OPERATION HOMECOMING, information that Dooley was alive began to surface. In 1073, a U.S. POW who had been repatriated said he saw Dooley's name written on the wall of a prison cell in Hanoi. Two Thai special forces soldiers released from North Vietnamese custody in 1973 identified Dooley's photograph as a fellow inmate. Finally, a Communist propaganda photograph of captured U.S. pilots in Hanoi, dated after Dooley was shot down, shows a partial profile of a person that strongly resembles Dooley.

In April 1989, former POW Hickerson, in a written statement, described the details of his parachute landing and capture. Hickerson was disturbed that the fisherman's eyewitness account of the shoot down of an American Navy pilot was wrongly attributed to his shoot down. In his statement, Hickerson pointed out that he landed on the inside of the peninsula at Do Son, and therefore, he could not have been swimming out to sea when he was captured, as the fisherman described. Furthermore, Hickerson wrote, he did not fire his pistol before capture, as the fisherman descirbed. Hickerson stated that his parachute was all white, not tri-colored as the fisherman stated. Hickerson further stated that when he was shot down he wore a Marine utility uniform, consisting of pants and shirt, not a one piece flight suit as the fisherman described. Finally, Hickerson was taken to prison riding on the back of a bicycle, not in a jeep as the fisherman described.

Despite these sharpely contrasting differences between the actual events of Hickerson's capture, and the fisherman's description of the shoot-down he witnessed, DOD refused to change its original conclusion that the captive witnessed by the fisherman was Hickerson. The fisherman may indeed have witnessed a capture, but the description of events more closely resembles the capture of Dooley, not Hickerson. In other words, a significant question remains: was Hickerson's shoot-down correlated to the fisherman's live-sighting report--despite the significant factual discrepancies between the two events--only because Hickerson was repatriated, and therefore the fisherman's live-sighting could be "resolved"?

In a message dated April 10, 1987, the Joint Casualty Resolution Center at Barbers Point sent an evaluation of the Dooley file to the National Security Council (Col.Childress), noting Dooley was listed in a "presumptive status of dead, body not recovered." The message says that Dooley's case was presented to North Vietnamese officials in August 1984 as a case under consideration during a POW/MIA technical meeting in Hanoi. What was the status of the JCRC inquiry in 1984? Were they looking for remains, or were they trying to ascertain the fate of a person believed to have been a POW in Hanoi's custody and not accounted for?

As with a number of cases in JCRC's files, there are conflicts. It is not known how many potential cases of mismatch in casualty incident information there are in DOD files. The Dooley case is but one example of questionable analysis of live-sighting information by DOD of unaccounted-for airmen and soldiers from the Second Indochina War.

INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION

Beyond the problem of flawed, or questionable analysis are more fundamental problems. Staff has identified numerous weaknesses in the methodology and procedures for collecting and analyzing information from refugees. These weaknesses may be found in the procedures for soliciting the information, follow-up interviews, mobilization of adequate manpower, weak linguistic capabilities, the imporper methodology for identification of sources; and the failure in many cases to obtain native language statements from sources during initail contact.

The primary responsibility for collecting this information originally rested with the JCRC, a Joint Chiefs of Staff organization within DOD. Presently, that responsibility rests with DIA. After the fall of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) government in 1975, JCRC offices were stationed within Thailand to carry out this mission.

In Thailand, the procedure for collecting POW information was as follows: JCRC officials, depending on the availability of resourcs, traveled to various refugee centers to collect information on purported live-sightings of U.S.POWs within Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. At each refugee camp, JCRC officers would make announcements in the camps requesting that any refugees who have knowledge of American POWs should report, at a certain time, to a certain location, for debriefing. On occasion, volunteer workers at refugee camps, when initially processing the arriving refugees, would also elicit such information, and report it to JCRC.

The problem with this procedure is that it depends too much upon the initiative of frightened, confused refugees, who have been traumatized by their experience of fleeing their country, and are deeply suspicious of any governmental authority, even one that is tryin to help them. The practice of making a general announcement--often referred to contemptuously by government officials as the "cattle call," with the subsequent interviews as the "round-up" could easily be seen as a threat or danger signal to anyone who had contact with American POWs; contrariwise, it might suggest to a refugee with a manipulative mind that providing information, even if false, might be a way to get ahead in the refugee resettlement system. In the first case, opportunities to get valid reports are lost through fear; in the second, false reports are encouraged.

A more effective method is the so-called "canvassing method." Each refugee is asked questions about possible POW sightings as part of their initial refugee processing, thereby making it unnecessary for a prospective informant to stand out publicly, and lowering the threshold of resistance to discussing the topic. However, the canvassing method requires that JCRC personnel be stationed within easy reach of the refugee camps, a practice which was not followed.

Another failure in collecting information from refugees involves follow-ups to initial interviews. Follow-up procedures require JCRC officials to conduct interviews once a source indicates having information pertaining to American POWs still in Southeast Asia. The information would then be sent to DIA for analysis and follow-up interviews, if necessary. Originally, DIA provided to the JCRC staff additional questions to be asked; however, since JCRC did not have adequate manpower to cover the number of refugees pouring out of Laos, Cambodia (Kampuchea), and Vietnam, this procedure was not followed.

In excess of 300,000 Asian refugees fled from these countries; yet JCRC staff never exceeded thirty-four officials in number on-site in Southeast Asia. The cumbersome nature of this procedure impeded the timeliness of the follow-up interviews. As a result, the information collected was dated and, therefore, its usefulness was diminished.

Limited manpower and the methodology used for both initial and follow-up interviews were major weaknesses in JCRC's collection procedures. Initially, this limitation was especially true of the shortage of trained linguists. Indeed, DOD recognized this problem and sought to increase manpower. In 1987, DIA groups were established throughout Southeast Asia to collect POW information first-hand. This effort was code-named "STONEY BEACH." The program added greatly to the quality, quantity and timeliness of information provided by the refugees.

The STONEY BEACH program enabled subsequent debriefings of refugees to be conducted in a more comprehensive manner. Unfortunately, once information was obtained, no effort was spared to utilize other intelligence methods available to corroborate selected content of the live-sighting report.