DOD Response to The 3 Man Picture

THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20301-2400

International
Security Affairs

DoD Response to Robertson, Stevens and Lundy Testimony

The following allegations were raised by the family members regarding DoD investigative efforts on behalf of the purported Robertson, Stevens, and Lundy photographs. DoD Responses follow.

(Ms.Fleckenstein): As of September 16th, I received the information from the Defense Department that the picture had been analyzed by Dr.Charney, who I just told you that they didn't accept that, and that they would analyze it their selves. And I waited up until now. I've called and called trying to get the annalysis to me, which I did not get, and didn't know about it until I arrived here yesterday morning and it was handed to me by Major Giddens.

The Department of Defense sent the photograph purported to depict Commander Stevens to Sandia National Laboratory on 13 September 1991. When Sandia completed its analysis the report was reviewed at DIA and then forwarded it to the Assistance Secretary of Defense/International Security Affairs (ASD/ISA) in order to respond to direct family requests made to Carl Ford's Military Assistant. The report was obtained on late 5 November and was provided to Mrs. Fleckenstein personally by Major Gittins rather than forwarding it through the Navy Casualty Assistance Office. This accomodation was made in order to minimize the delay to Lieutenant Commander Steven's family in light of their participation in the Committee Hearings.

(Ms.Shelby Quast): And I guess I'm asking for some help. We have said this so many times, yet I continue to hear that it [the three man photo] has been in a magazine. It's simply people don't want to hear that. And I would like to, for the record, set it straight. It has never been found to be a fake or a hoax, or ever found to be in a magazine.

The Department of Defense has never stated that the three man photo is a hoax or fake. The facts surrounding the photograph of the three individuals identified by family members as Colonel Robertson, Lieutenant Commander Stevens, and Major Lundy are as follows:

1) The photograph first surfaced during August 1990 in Thailand along with a report which was not correlated to Robertson, Stevens and Lundy. The photograph was received along with a second photograph that was later located in an Eastern-bloc magazine in Phonom Penh and which depicted a Soviet special forces military officer. The report that accompanied the first passing of the photo was that the two photos depicted four Americans from the same prison in Vietnam and that the three were friends and the fourth was separate from the other three, so two photos were taken.

2) There are no first hand live sighting reports of the three individuals that correlate to Robertson, Stevens and Lundy. In every case, the reports are hearsay, second or third hand reports. The first report, does not have any name association to Robertson, Stevens or Lundy.

3) Flyers widely circulated in Southeast Asia by Red McDaniel's American Defense Institute provide basic biographical data on Colonel Robertson and Lieutenant Commander Stevens. Information contained within the flyer forms the basis for information associated with later iterations of the photograph. Associated reporting that goes beyond the basic biographical data is quite obviously wrong---almost humorously so.

4) The photograph has been altered. The placard that the men appear to be holding was added to the photograph after it was taken and printed, and a photo made of the alteration. The placard reflects basic data that appears on several other photographs, also reported by the sources of those photos to depict American POWs. The writing on the placard is by the same hand as the writing on a number of other alterations to photos purported to depict American POWs and later located in Soviet magazines.

5) The men in the photo appear to be holding rifles in the photograph. U.S. Government photo analysts have identified the butt of a rifle on the left side of the photo and the rifles are apparent under the placard.

6) A tape recording received with the photograph by one source and identified as the voice of Colonel Robertson by the source was rejected as a fraud by the Robertson family.

7) Captain Buchanan, Colonel Robertson's WSO stated that he did not know whether Colonel Robertson got out of the aircraft. He did not see Colonel Robertson subsequent to ejecting from the aircraft.

8) Congressman Peterson testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affiars, Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, that he was interrogated by the Vietnamese about Colonel Robertson with Colonel Robertson's dogtag and idenfitication card. He also stated that the Vietnamese captors told him that Colonel Robertson had died and it was his (Peterson's) opinion that Robertson had died either in the crash or shortly thereafter.

(Ms.Quast) (Page 332): The third part I just wanted to touch upon quickly to address the access to information. I have been promised at a very high policy lever access to my father's file, but denied access by those people that have testified before this committee when I went to see the file. I'm asking what is the policy and who runs the show for POW policy.

Ms. Quast has met on several occasions with Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Carl W. Ford, Jr. On one occasion in Mr.Ford's office on August 22 at 1:20PM, Ms.Quast requested to see the entire DIA file on her father. Mr.Ford did not promise Ms.Quast that she could see the file. He stated that he would look into the matter because the file may contain sensitive classified information.

When Ms.Quast returned to see Mr.Ford, she reiterated her request to see the entire file. She was again told that the file contained classified information and she would not be provided access to the file. Mr.Ford assured Ms. Quast that his staff would compare the DIA file with the Casualty Assistance Officer's file maintained by the Air Force to ensure that she was in possession of all of the unclassified information on her father. Lieutenant Thomas Doughty, of Mr.Ford's staff, reviewed the DIA file and the Air Force file with Mr. George Atkinson, USAF Missing Persons Office, on 5 November 1991 and determined that Ms.Quast had been provided all but one document from the DIA file. This information was communicated personally by Lieutenant Doughty and Mr.George Atkinson to Ms. Quast during one of the recesses to the hearings.

There is no anticipated change to policy to provide access to classified material to the families. The Department of Defense will continue to provide the families with all information regarding their unaccounted for loved ones. Where classified information is involved, sensitive sources and methods will be sanitized from the document prior to delivery to the families.

(Senator Smith): So I am going to put all officials in control of these [fingerprints] on notice that I intend to know why, in the case of all of the live sighting reports, and all of the individuals involved in those reports, why we do not have fingerprints in the service jackets of those individuals. And if you do not know why, you better start looking because I want to know why.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the sole USG agency with the responsibility for maintaining fingerprints of American citizens. The Department of Defense does not maintain fingerprint records on servicemen. None of the services are required by law or regulation to maintain fingerprints in the service records of their individual servicemen. The national fingerprint database within the FBI maintains all service fingerprint records as well as the fingerprints of civilians who may be fingerprited and their prints retained by the Government.

Congressman Solarz, the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affiars, Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, requested an explanation of why the fingerprints of Colonel Robertson, Lieutenant Commander Stevens, and Major Lundy all are missing from the FBI database. At the Department of Defense request, FBI Director William Sessions provided the possible explanation for this state of affairs. Director Sessions' response is provided in pertinent part:

Since the FBI is the repository for fingerprints for military personnel, DoD requested the prints for these individuals, in addition to the third person linked to the photograph, Lieutenant Commander Larry J.Stevens. A search of FBI fingerprint files did not disclose a record for these three individuals. There are many reasons why we may not currently have those fingerprints and an explanation for the record may be beneficial.

The most logical reason for the absence of these prints may be the policy for purging files. In the case of military prints, if DoD reports an individual killed-in-action (KIA) or otherwise deceased, the print is placed in a special file for seven years and then destroyed unless there is additional information furnished by the military. In testimony, Mr.Ford advised that the DoD had listed Major Albro L. Lundy, Jr., and Lieutenant Commander Stevens as KIA based on eye witnesses' accounts of each incident. Relevant herein is a list of 2,483 names furnished to the FBI by DoD in 1984. They were identified by DoD as being "Americans Unaccounted for in Southeast Asia." A search of our fingerprints files identified prints for 912 individuals from that list. The prints for the three individuals linked to the photograph were NOT among those with prints in file. All existing prints from that list are being maintained and are not subject to being purged.

Another explanation is that we never received fingerprint of those in question. But, it would perhaps be more than coincidental that the prints for three individuals linked to a single photograph would have been submitted. This is particularly true given the policy of fingerprinting all military personnel. Unfortunately, due to the volume of civil prints alone, approximately 35 million individuals and 90 million cards, records of receipted are not maintained. In most instances, the only means to determine if there is a print on file is to check the index. The absence of an individual from the index only indicates the FBI does not currently have a file. This would not necessarily mean that the FBI never had a file. It could have been previously purged from the system, but, in most instances, there would be no record of the purge.

Fingerprints are frequently not capable of classification/retention due to their illegibility based on the quality of the inked prints that are submitted. When this occurs, the prints are sent back to the contributor with a request to obtain a ligible fingerprint card for resubmission. It is not unusual to not receive a follow-up set of prints. As above, there would be no record if this occured. As a point of reference, in the first three quarters of Fiscal Year 1991, the FBI Identification Division rejected over 790,000 fingerprints cards for this reason. Although historical figures are not available for the Vietnam War era, rejection rates for prints submitted by the military in the early 1980s were about 15 percent. Anecdotal information from the Vietnam War era indicates rejection rates may have been as high as 25 to 30 percent.

It should be noted that the Department of Defense requested in 1984, well before this photo surfaced, a list of POW/MIAs for whom the FBI had fingerprints on file. At that time, Robertson, Stevens and Lundy's fingerprints were not within the FBI database. We can provide no further explanation for this phenomenon beyond that provided by the Director of the FBI, however, there is no conspiracy, cover-up or otherwise mysterious circumstances surrounding the loss of these files as has been suggested by some individuals at these hearings.

The fingerprints record of Captain Donald G. Carr another individual with a high profile POW/MIA photograph case, IS on file with the FBI and available for comparison if that individual is located.

(Mr.Albro Lundy) (Page 345): I have asked one photoanalysis that we've done to be passed around to the Senators. It's a simple photo overlay. Its done on acetate, and if you take a look at it--you just lift the acetate up-one of the photos is my father as a younger man and then the other photo is the copy of the photo drawn out. You see that it matches perfectly. All the features are the same, the head analysis, something that could have been done very easily, I think by the Government immediately, but has never been done, or at least has never been provided to us.

The simple analysis described by Mr.Lundy was provided to Government photo analysis experts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI experts reaction was the the "analysis" had no basis in science, was not acceptalbe methodology in any professional association that they were aware of, and would not be accepted for admission as evidence in any court in the United States on the issue of identification by photograph. Despite its simplicity, the method decribed in the testimony is patently unreliable.

Mr.Lundy (Page 347): So I wrote a FOIA....So if you can not read it, but the part that is highlighted says specifically, this is all the information in the file, there were no witnesses to this incident.

Mr.Lundy's FOIA request in 1985 was directed to the USAF. Their records had no indication that there were any witnesses to the incident in which Major Lundy was lost. The sole witness statement was located in a file in JCRC during a records search conducted pursuant to his 1991 FOIA request to JCRC. This report was provided to Mr.Lundy immediately by the staff of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs when its existence became known.

(Mr.Lundy) [in response to the statement "Apparently some other families claim (the individual in the three person photo) is theirs] (Page 354): And none of the families that the DIA has talked about have come forward, have called and said, let me help you here, this is my son or this is my brother. Would it not be relief to me? ... I adked Chuck Gittins, I said please Chuck, contact those people. Please write them and tell them to contact me. I need to know, I need to know. I don't know if Chuch has done it or not, but they have not contacted me.

In a September meeting in PDASD Ford's office with PDASD Ford, Shelby Quast and Major Gittins, Mr.Ford explained to Mr.Lundy the fact that two other families had come forward to claim the pictured individual as their unaccounted for loved one. He also explained that the individuals claimed by the other families also bore a striking resemblance to the individual in the three-person photo. Mr.Ford reiterated that these families did not want to be thrust in the limelight and requested that the DoD not share their identities Mr.Ford told Mr.Lundy that he intended to honor that request.

While Major Gittins was escorting Mr.Lundy out of the Pentagon after the meeting with Mr.Ford, Mr.Lundy stated in passing that he would like to speak to the two other families. Major Gittins reiterated Mr.Ford's explanation and stated that DoD would respect the request of the families. Mr.Lundy never requested "really like to talk to the other families." Major Gittins surmises that the actual question was not asked so that it would not appear that Mr. Lundy was trying to get around the decision of PDASD Ford, but rather that Major Gittins would do so on his own initiative.