Senate Select Committee - XXIII

Post-Homecoming Accountability:

April 1973 - April 1975

At the end of Operation Homecoming, 591 American POWS had returned, 566 military and 25 civilians (Including the 10 who were on the DRV/Laos list). Testimony of DIA and DOD officials involved in the accounting process at the time, and archival DIA documents, convey disappointment and frustration over the unexpectedly low number of returnees and the outcome of returnee debriefings.

In June 1992, Gen. Eugene F. Tighe, Jr. (USAF, Ret.), who directed the CINCPAC effort to produce a list of expected returnees prior to Operation Homecoming, testified about his reaction at the time to the enemy lists:

My personal view was shock because I had a great deal of faith in the approximate numbers of those lists that we had compiled ... and my reaction was that there was something radically wrong with the lists versus our information, that they should have contained many more names. That was my personal judgment and that was a collective judgment of all those that had worked compiling the lists.

Similarly, Dr. Roger Shields, DoD's Deputy Secretary for International Economic and POW/MIA Affairs from 1971 to 1977, told the Committee:

We knew immediately upon receiving this list of those to be repatriated and those said to have died in captivity, that men whom we knew had, at one time, been alive and in captivity were omitted from the list altogether. After debriefing those who returned, we knew also that the names of some men who may have died in captivity were also not on the lists.

In his testimony, Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1971-1975, stated:

...I expected the interrogation of the POW's that were released to reveal some information on the POW's that were still held in the immediate vicinity of Hanoi. I also hoped that factual information would be developed as to the existence of POW's in outside areas of North Vietnam... the returnees added very little to the information on hand.

A DIA memo, prepared in early April 1973, summed up the agency's view in the immediate aftermath of Operation Homecoming:

There has been no progress in obtaining the release of, or an accounting for, US personnel captured/lost in Laos or Cambodia. There has been no progress in obtaining information from the DRV or PRG on US personnel (last known alive in captivity and) not released (or accounted for)...With Operation Homecoming essentially complete, it is anticipated that efforts will be directed toward achieving some results in these areas.

Efforts to obtain a better accounting of missing Americans continued in Southeast Asia after Operation Homecoming was concluded.

The mission of the Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC), activated in January 1973, was to search for, recover and identify dead and missing U.S. personnel in Southeast Asia. JCRC's assignment did not include investigating the possibility that live Americans were held against their will in the area after Operation Homecoming, although they did receive reports suggesting that unidentified U.S. POWs were still alive. Additionally, JCRC remains recovery operations were limited to areas under friendly control in South Vietnam. Active JCRC investigations in these areas continued until December 15, 1973, when one of its teams was ambushed at a site and an American serviceman was killed. With the virtual cessation of JCRC's field efforts after this incident, the JCRC was essentially going through the motions with little or no success, according to its Deputy Commander, Col. Eugene Hollis.

In the months immediately following Operation Homecoming, DIA continued to adjust its accounting lists. On April 13, 1973, the DIA submitted its last weekly memorandum to the Secretary of Defense and the JCS concerning the prisoner debriefings. The report indicated that the returnees had provided information indicating the possible death of 46 of the Americans who had been listed as POW and 110 of those listed as MIA.

On April 16, 1973, the DIA adjusted its intelligence requirements for July-December 1973 to include information on the "approximately" 1,357 Americans "thus far unaccounted for, who may be Prisoners of War, the location and defense of their PW camps, and a resolution of the status of personnel officially listed as missing-in-action."

In late April, 1973, Dr. Roger Shields, who served as head of the POW/MIA Task Force with the Department of Defense, met with representatives of the service Secretaries. The outcome of that meeting was a goal of resolving within six to eight months the status of all armed services personnel not returned to American control. In Cambodia or Laos, a resolution would await the negotiation of peace agreements in those countries.

On May 18, 1973, the DIA listed "65 prisoners of war not accounted for on any enemy lists" and "1,238 personnel missing in action not accounted for on any enemy lists."

In a report to Deputy Secretary of Defense Clements on May 22, 1973, DIA noted that 1,303 persons were still officially unaccounted for, not including 27 reported by the DRG/PRG as having died in captivity whose remains had not been recovered. Returnee debriefs indicated that approximately 100 of these 1,303 were "probably dead"; at the time the status of approximately 70 of those was being changed from POW or MIA to KIA/BNR.

On May 24, 1973, Dr. Roger Shields wrote in a memorandum to his superiors that "we have over 1300 unaccounted for, and this means that we have no information to show conclusively that a man is either alive or dead."

By June 30, 1973, the DOD Comptroller's Office was still listing by name 67 U.S. military personnel as "Hostile Captured." Only two POWs had Laos as the country of casualty, although there were more than 300 servicemen missing there.

As of early July 1973, 142 Americans previously listed as missing or POW had been declared dead based on a PFOD; 9 had been reported to have died in captivity.

Live Americans

At the end of Operation Homecoming, DIA continued to carry individuals in the POW category. However, statements by DoD officials at the time, and in testimony before the Committee suggest that DIA was agnostic about the chance that any unreturned POWs had survived. In an April 12, 1973 press conference, Dr. Shields stated that, "We have no indications at this time that there are any Americans alive in Indochina." In testimony before the Committee, Dr. Shields commented about that April 12, 1973 statement:

My statement was about current information. There were questions...We had questions about the status of Americans. Did we leave anyone there? And did we know so we could go get them? The answer to that was we did not know at that time about any man that we could put our finger on and say he was there. We carried some individuals as prisoners. My statement here was echoed many times. Official Defense Department policy was that there was an open question. We did now know whether they were alive or dead.

Dr. Shields stated further:

The issue at the time the men came home was one where we had Article 8(b), providing for a full accounting of the missing. Now, the missing at that time were the people who had not been repatriated, who were carried as MIA because we did not know, carried as prisoner of war because we hoped and had reason to believe that they were prisoners of war, but did not come home either.

Commander Charles Trowbridge, Director of DIA's POW/MIA Office, since 1972, told the Committee that "...we had no current information at the time where we could go and put our hands on some individual that was alive at that time." Brig. Gen. Robert Kingston, first head of the JCRC, testified that he did not recall any "hard evidence" that Americans were being held alive at that time. Frank Sieverts, the State Department's Chief Official for POW/MIA Affairs before and after Operation Homecoming expressed a similar view: "I don't think we had any indications of Americans in captivity ."

In the wake of Operation Homecoming, DoDs official position, as affirmed by Dr. Shields, was that it did not know whether those unaccounted for were alive or dead. State Department representatives, on the other hand, claim to have taken a somewhat different approach in diplomatic discussions, especially with the Pathet Lao. Mr. Sieverts discussed the Department's approach during an exchange with Senator McCain at the Committee's June 25, 1992 hearing:

Mr. Sieverts: Our approach during that entire period was to present information in a positive spirit through the channels that were available pursuant to the Paris agreement and, to the extent that it was possible, and it was not at all easy, to do so in Laos, as well. At every opportunity, we would shade the interpretation of cases and lists in a favorable direction.

Senator McCain: What do you mean by favorable?

Mr. Sieverts: In the direction of saying we know you have more information. This is a list of prisoners...

Senator McCain: You were assuming they were alive?

Mr. Sieverts: For the very purpose the committee is concerned about, we were going on that assumption. The difficulty was that at the same time if you overstated that assumption for a domestic audience you would create what was clearly an exaggerated and possibly an entirely false hope among families, among many thousands of Americans who were needing to deal suddenly with the reality and the grief that their men weren't coming back.

Status Reviews

Instructions in June 1973 permitted the JCRC to recommend that an MIA be recorded as "dead-remains not recoverable" when no remains were locatable at the loss location. At that point, the Services convened casualty review boards in accordance with the Missing Persons Act to review the status of all those who remained in the MIA or "captured" category and began making PFODs about those listed as MIAs and POWs.

Reviews were halted in August 1973 because of litigation by MIA families over provisions of the Missing Persons Act. A New York federal court injunction prohibited casualty status changes without the approval of next-of-kin until 1977. At that time, the review process resumed with next-of-kin present at the deliberations. Meanwhile, in response to the lawsuit in 1973, the Deputy Secretary of Defense instructed the Service Secretaries to take an active and personal role in the status determination process.

The subject of status review is covered in more detail in chapter two, dealing with the Paris Peace Accords.

Shifts in Intelligence Priorities As Operation Homecoming was drawing to a finish, DIA's intelligence collection priorities began to shift. The Committee's investigation uncovered evidence that DIA's efforts to gather intelligence for the purpose of accounting for missing Americans diminished substantially after the Paris Peace Accords were signed.

On March 13, 1973, the DIA's POW/MIA Branch ordered the end of requirements to collect intelligence on U.S. prisoners held by the People's Republic of China; the rationale was that all prisoners held by China had been, or were being, released. By deleting this area of informational need, the DIA eliminated the authority for human intelligence operations relating to China and U.S. POW/MIAs. This decision was questionable given the evidence that there were large numbers of Chinese troops inside the northern provinces of North Vietnam during the war, and that this was an area in which a number of U.S. aircraft, with unaccounted for pilots, were shot down. There is also evidence that Chinese military advisers served at the division level with Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam.

On March 27, 1973, the DIA reviewed its need for continued weekly overhead imagery of known or suspected POW camps in North Vietnam. All but three prisons in the immediate Hanoi area, Hoa Lo, Cu Loc, and the Citadel, were dropped to an inactive readout exploitation priority. The remaining three prisons were downgraded to semi-annual coverage. The POW/MIA Branch felt that if a readout was desirable, it could initiate imagery coverage on a one-time basis.

On April 17, 1973, the DIA reassigned most of its POW/MIA personnel to strategic arms limitation and Soviet missile intelligence related areas. The POW/MIA branch was informed that:

...As the POW-MIA project is brought to a conclusion, a new manpower survey of DI-6 [will] be conducted near the end of 1973 to determine residual requirements in this area.

In June 1973, the Chief of Naval Operations dismantled the office of the Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations for POW/MIA Matters. In addition, the JCS 10-year operations plan was revised in 1973, in consultation with the DIA, to cover the 1973-1982 period. In the plan, POW intelligence, and evasion and escape were priorities 49 and 56, respectively. These "priorities" followed sociological data (priority 16), exploitation of physical environment (priority 46) and civil defense (priority 48).

In August 1974, overhead imagery coverage of POW camps in North Vietnam was moved to the lowest annual coverage priority. Three months later, the decision was made to terminate the Prisoner of War Intelligence Task Force.

Throughout this period, efforts to collect human and signals intelligence began to diminish, although some reports were received. After Operation Homecoming, the Army's 500th Military Intelligence Group and an Air Force Air Intelligence Group were the primary intelligence-collection resources left in Southeast Asia. Both supplemented the Defense Attache Office in Saigon with professional agent handlers and intelligence staffs collecting information from South Vietnamese counterparts. Both groups were based in Bangkok, Thailand, and also conducted operations in Cambodia, Laos, and China.

However, in 1974, at the direction of the U.S. Ambassador in Bangkok, all military agent operations from the Thailand base were put on hold; no new operations could be developed. Following the dismantling of the U.S. Army's Pacific Command that year, all HUMINT operations in Southeast Asia relied on support and approval from Washington.

The available record indicates that military HUMINT operations in the region declined dramatically after 1975 and were terminated by 1977.

Disposition of Records

On January 31, 1974, the Army's 22nd Detachment began to be dismantled. Its casualty files were transferred to the individual services and its non-casualty records transferred to the National Archives. The Army had hoped to be able to write a history of its Operation Homecoming activities but this was disapproved by the Army's Secretary of the General Staff, General Stilwell. In the fall of 1974, the Air Force Intelligence staff records associated with the POW/MIA issue were apparently transferred to the 7602nd Air Intelligence Group and are today in the archival files of JSSA. In 1975, the U.S. Navy's compartmented POW/MIA files were partially destroyed.

Post-War Accountability: April 1975 - Present

Accounting Efforts

In 1975, communist forces seized full control of governments in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The fall of the U.S-allied governments in Indochina precluded any further on-site excavations by the Joint Casualty Resolution Center.

It also led to an enormous outflow of refugees from these three countries, particularly in 1977 and 1978. Refugees were regularly debriefed by U.S. officials, and refugee reports became an important source of information in the POW/MIA accounting process. In 1978, at the request of POW/MIA family organizations, the United States began putting up posters in refugee camps notifying refugees of the U.S. desire to obtain information about missing Americans. These outreach efforts have led to a steady flow of reports over the years.

The fall of Saigon in April, 1975 led to the severance of diplomatic relations with Vietnam and an extension of the U.S. trade embargo to the entire country. During the next three years, U.S. efforts to gain information about missing Americans were focused on refugee debriefs and high-level diplomatic discussions with the Vietnamese. Although no breakthroughs occurred, these discussions did lead to the resolution of a substantial number of cases through the return of remains.

Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed a Commission, headed by United Auto Workers President Leonard Woodcock, to visit Southeast Asia in an effort to obtain POW/MIA-related information. A Defense Department briefing provided to the Woodcock Commission in March 1977, provides a useful snapshot of the accounting process at that point in time.

According to Dr. Roger Shields, who briefed the Commission, DoD listed 2,546 Americans including 41 civilians, as prisoners, missing, or as dead/body not recovered. Dr. Shields told Commission members that 758 military personnel were being carried on the books as POWs or "missing" but that the distinction between the terms was "probably academic." Shields went on to say that:

We have no evidence to indicate that any American servicemen are being held as prisoners in Southeast Asia, but whether a man is alive or dead does not relieve us of the responsibility to seek an accounting for him. We want the fullest possible accounting for the entire 2,546 and, where possible, we want the remains of our dead returned. We cannot attain this goal without complete cooperation by the Vietnamese... We do not expect them to have knowledge of every one of our missing, but we do want to know what they do have.

Dr. Shields walked the Commission through the five categories that DIA had established to determine which men the Vietnamese and Lao should know about. The categories consisted of:

1. confirmed knowledge,

2. suspected knowledge,

3. doubtful knowledge,

4. unknown knowledge, and

5. a category for those who were known to be dead but whose remains were not recoverable.

DIA listed 179 in category 1, 1160 in category 2, 344 in category 3, 428 in category 4, and 436 in category 5. Dr. Shields told the Commission that it would be reasonable to expect an accounting for all those in the first two categories, that is 1,339 men out of the total of 2,546. . He also indicated that American teams needed to be on the ground to do the accounting job "properly".

Carter Administration Policies

During the late 1970's, the efforts by the U.S. Government actively to seek and evaluate POW/MIA information was hardly evident to the public. This led to severe criticism, especially by the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.

Although the remains of more than 40 Americans were repatriated in 1977 and 1978, the Carter Administration's efforts to gain POW/MIA information through improved relations with Vietnam collapsed following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in late 1978 and early 1979. Moreover, efforts to gain POW/MIA information from Laos during this period were virtually non-existent and no information was obtained.

The National League of Families commented:

• In 1979 and 1980, no remains were returned government to government and no negotiations of substance occurred. During the 1970's, the POW/MIA branch at the Defense Intelligence Agency was slowly being put out of business, as was Central Intelligence Agency capability and focus on Southeast Asia. The governmet had written off the possibility of anyone being alive, and our missing family members were being presumptively declared dead.

NSC memoranda during this period shed additional light on the extent of the U.S. Government's accounting efforts. For instance, following the return of Marine Corps PFC Robert Garwood in 1979, an NSC staffer wrote:

It would be politically wise for the President to indicate his continued concerns with the MIAs. . .since the Administration had implied earlier that it believed Vietnamese assurances that there were no Americans left behind in Hanoi.

In April, 1979, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski advised President Carter that:

The National League of Families remain convinced that live American POWs remain in Vietnam. They also believe you are not being adequately informed and that the bureaucracy is not pursuing the matter aggressively. . .This case has little merit.

By the last year of the Carter Administration, an NSC staffer reported that the National League of Families had "nothing new to say". However, the official advised Dr. Brzezinski that it was:

important to indicate you take recent refugeesightings of Americans seriously. This is simply good politics; DIA and State are playing this game, and you should not be the whistleblower.

The idea is to say the President is determined to pursue any lead concerning possible live MIAs. Do not offer an opinion as to whether these leads are realistic.

Reagan Administration Efforts

Efforts to re-open dialogue on POW/MIA matters with Laos and Cambodia began following President Reagan's election in 1981. Simultaneous efforts were made to develop intelligence information on possible live American POWs.

In early, 1981, the U.S. Government attempted to confirm evidence that Americans were held in Laos, although the results were inconclusive. Also in 1981, two Congressmen, Bill Hendon and John Leboutillier, traveled to Laos with the support of the Administration to try to find a way to establish a dialogue on POW/MIA issues.

According to the National League of Families:

Mr. Hendon was primarily involved in efforts with the Lao to move forward the level of cooperation on accountability for nearly 600 Americans still unaccounted for in that country. Toward that objective, he and former Representative John LeBoutillier were instrumental in gaining executive branch agreement to provide, in 1981, medical disaster relief to a hospital in Vientiane, Laos. This step paved the way for cooperative acceptance of the League's delegation in 1982, a visit which was termed a "significant breakthrough" by the State Department, soon followed up by high level discussions to gain further cooperation. The resultant crash site visit was the first of its kind and led to the official survey and subsequent joint excavation at Pakse, conducted in February, 1985. . .

During President Reagan's first term, significant efforts were also made to improve POW/MIA cooperation in Vietnam, through several high-level trips to Hanoi. For the first time, the National League of Families was also included in these diplomatic efforts. A key step occurred in January 1987, when the President appointed Gen. John Vessey (USA, Ret.) as his Special Emissary to Vietnam on POW/MIA Affairs. This appointment followed a private trip to Hanoi earlier that year by Mr. Ross Perot, during which the Vietnamese indicated a willingness to accept a President Emissary on POW/MIA matters.

Gen. Vessey's overall goal has been to obtain the "fullest possible accounting" for all Americans missing from the war in Vietnam. Delegations led by Gen. Vessey, along with visits to Southeast Asia by members of the Select Committee, have resulted in significant improvements cooperation on the part of the Vietnamese. This is discussed in detail in Chapter 8.

Gen. Vessey's efforts have been supplemented and enhanced by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA), which was established on January 23, 1992 under the direction of CINCPAC. The successor to the JCRC, JTF-FA is involved in the full range of POW/MIA operations and its first priority is to investigate live-sighting reports and discrepancy cases. The JTF-FA has Vietnam-based, Bangkok-based and Hawaii-based search teams which conduct intensive 30-day investigations and began conducting remains recovery operations in Vietnam in April 1992. JTF-FA personnel interview Vietnamese officials and citizens, survey and excavate crash sites and graves, and examine archival records provided by the Vietnamese. Similar operations occur in Laos and Cambodia.

By the end of October 1992, JTF-FA had completed 217 live-sighting investigations (186 in Vietnam, 18 in Laos, and 13 in Cambodia); 114 inspections of crash or grave sites (88 in Vietnam, 23 in Laos, and 3 in Cambodia); and 30 excavations of crash or grave sites. It recovered remains (15 sets in Vietnam, 8 in Laos, and 7 in Cambodia). Twenty-two sets of remains had been recovered (14 from Vietnam, 3 from Laos and 5 from Cambodia) and ten sets of remains (7 from Vietnam, 1 from Laos, and 2 from Cambodia) had been returned voluntarily. Eight sets of remains (4 from Vietnam, 4 from Cambodia) had been identified with another 151 pending identification.

JTF-FA reported receiving, between January 1 and October 30, 1992, 65 first-hand live-sighting reports, 51 in Vietnam, five in Laos, and nine in Cambodia. JTF-FA conducted 38 investigations of live sighting reports, some advance-notice and others upon immediate request of the host officials, during this period. In all, 113 live sighting reports have been investigated and resolved; 85 more remain unresolved. JTF-FA has found no evidence to date to suggest that any Americans who was last known alive is alive today.

The Committee notes that JTF-FA efforts are in cooperation with DIA's Stony Beach team and augmented by forensic experts and anthropologists from the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.

Statistics alone do not convey the magnitude of the JTF-FA effort or the commitment of those involved in it. In testimony before the Committee, William Gadoury, an investigator for the Task Force's team in Laos, described its operations in detail. The Task Force has 44 priority cases in Laos--three of these are individuals who were once POWs and the rest were last known alive there. Because of the terrain in Laos, excavations are particularly difficult. Mr. Gadoury described one of the team's recent excavations in an exchange with Senator Kerry at the Committee's December 4, 1992 hearing:

Mr. Gadoury: ...this particular excavation was one of the more challenging ones we've had. It was on a remote mountain-top location. We had to set up a base camp approximatley 30 kilometers away because we had no access by road to an area near the crash site. We ended up lying by the helicopter every morning [so we could] at first light get the teams up there, conducting the excavation during the day with villagers who would walk up from the nearby village and work with us, and then we would fly back in the evening.

While this was going on, we had a smaller investigation which would go off in separate directions during the day with our Lao counterparts to investigate a number of discrepancy cases that we had. And with the time we had available, we were pretty successful.

Senator Kerry: You literally had to cut a little landing place in the mountain, correct?

Mr. Gadoury: That's correct.

Senator Kerry: And you spent how many days up there in what kind of heat?

Mr. Gadoury: I believe it was 28 days. It gets pretty warm in Laos, especially in the jungle. It's hot, humid weather; difficult working conditions.

Senator Kerry: What did you find?

Mr. Gadoury: In terms of ---

Senator Kerry: What did you pull out of this crash site?

Mr. Gadoury: The aircraft involved was an AV/OV-2, which crashed into the side of a mountain. It's scattered over a large area... I don't recall the exact dimensions, but it was over 100 meters wide, and probably about the same distance going from the bottom of the slope up a 60 degree slope to the top. And there was a wide distribution of wreckage. As we started going, meticulously following the Identification Laboratory;s excavation procedures from the bottom to the top--

Senator Kerry: So, you literally began to sift through soil, right?

Mr. Gadoury: Right.

Senator Kerry: You would sift through soil, and you would clean it out, and you would find fragments of bone; you find fragments of teeth.

Mr. Gadoury: On this last situation, we were not able to finish the site, but we found over 300 bone fragments, and a number of teeth and quite a few personal effects and personal equipment.

Senator Kerry: How does this affect you, to do that?

Mr. Gadoury: Well, obviously it's work that's important to be done. The people on the team are all dedicated. It's satisfying to get the results after we've worked so hard to get the team in place and get the work done.

Senator Kerry: Well, I mean, on a personal level, though as a soldier, it can't be very pleasant sifting through remains.

Mr. Gadoury: No. One example is, we found a lady's high school class ring. Obviously, there were no women on board, but it was probably being carried by someone on the aircraft. You find something like that, and obviously it brings back the personal nature of the work that we're doing.

Senator Kerry: The reason, obviously, I ask this is that, you know, we've been sitting here for a year, and people come to the table here and say, we're not doing enough, and we're not doing this or that, and here we've got guys like you, Bill Bell (Negotiations Assistance Officer, JTF-FA)...Bill, how many years have you been at this?

Mr. Bell: Off and on, about 27 years I think.

Redefining "Unaccounted For"

In the two years following Operation Homecoming, the services, DI- 11, and DIA continued to maintain statistics on Americans missing in Southeast Asia. In March 1973, DIOR also began to keep files on each individual serviceman in its database. In early 1975, DIOR started to record statistics of those servicemen who had died with bodies not recovered (Died/BNR).

At the end of 1975, DIA also began to seek information and keep statistics on those who had died but whose bodies were not recovered. Notwithstanding the drop in national priority for POW-related intelligence, DIA expanded its area of responsibility by adding to the appropriate national intelligence priority a need to obtain "...information concerning... killed in action whose bodies have not been recovered..." This action coincided with DIA's decision to include Americans considered KIA/BNR in its public discussions of those who were "unaccounted for."

By 1980, due to litigation initiated by the POW/MIA families and Congressional pressure, the DOD included all those initially categorized as POW or MIA (but presumed dead administratively) and all those originally categorized as KIA/BNR in their total of Americans missing or otherwise unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. This decision to include KIA/BNR in the definition of "unaccounted for" resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of those unaccounted for and led to confusion about the number of individuals whose fate really is in doubt. However, the Committee notes that accountability, including the return of remains, has occurred on some cases that were originally categorized as KIA/BNR. This reinforces the fact that U.S. categories were not always complete, and did not necessarily contain information that could be obtained from Vietnam.

By December 2, 1980, DIA carried 2,500 that it called unaccounted for, more than at any time during or after the war. In 1977, the services resumed their process of reviewing the status of those listed as MIAs or POWS. By 1982, a PFOD had been issued for all who remained unaccounted for, except Colonel Charles Shelton, a pilot shot down in Laos. Today, DIOR carries Colonel Shelton as the only POW and 2263 others as Died/BNR or "missing" for a total of 2,264 Americans unaccounted-for in Southeast Asia.

Laos: the DIA View

The fate of Americans lost in Laos has been a source on continued controversy. According to DIA, of the 1,200 airmen shot down in Laos during the war, 61 percent were rescued. Another 62 men were accounted for by the release of U.S. POWs and the post-war repatriation of remains. To date, 519 of the 1200 lost in Laos remain unaccounted for. Of these, 189 were declared killed in action by their service commanders at the time of their loss but since the bodies of these 189 have not been recovered, they continue to be listed as "unaccounted for". The remaining 330 servicemen were declared MIA because there was not enough information during the war to determine their fate. Subsequent investigations by DIA suggest that some of these men were also killed in action.

DIA believes it unlikely that POWs were left behind in Laos for several reasons. First, the rescue rate for men lost over Laos, 61 percent, was substantially higher than the rate for those shot down over North Vietnam, 45 percent. Second, intelligence indicates that after 1968 or 1969, all prisoners captured in Laos were turned over to the North Vietnamese, regardless of where they were captured. DIA can confirm only 16 POWs were captured by the Pathet Lao during the war; this is less than 2 percent of the number missing in Laos. Of the 16, one was immediately turned over to the North Vietnamese; six were subsequently released; two escaped; and seven remain unaccounted for.

The fact that all the confirmed Pathet Lao prisoners were captured before 1966, or after the war ended, is further indication, in DIA's view, that it is unlikely that men were left behind in Laos. Few losses occurred in Pathet Lao-held territory after 1966 because U.S. operations concentrated on the Ho Chi Minh trail. In addition, by the late 1960s it became apparent that the Pathet Lao did not have the capability to care for captured U.S. prisoners and thus the Pathet Lao were called upon by communist regimes in the region to turn all U.S. prisoners over to the Vietnamese, regardless of where they were captured or by whom. DIA also argues that only 160 of the live sighting reports received to date relate to Laos and that fewer than 10 of these remain unresolved. Finally, DIA maintains that interviews of sources who saw American POWs in caves and ad-hoc detention facilities in Laos affirm that there were no Americans in these areas after the war.

DIA's views were supported by the testimony of William Gadoury, a former JCRC official and now a member of the JTF-FA team in Laos:

...I have talked to hundreds and probably thousands of refugees, Lao refugees predominantly, in the camps and they include low land refugees, Hmong, hill tribes people from all over Laos, from North to South. I have not received any credible reports of live Americans after 1973 with the exception of Emett Kay [who was returned in 1974].

On the other hand, it's been brought up many times. It's hard to prove a negative. But there's nothing that I have seen from my interviews with refugees, from my field activities, that has indicated that anyone remains alive.

Discrepancy Cases

Since before the war ended, U.S. officials have focused special attention on a relatively small number of Americans who were either known to have been taken captive, or who were lost in circumstances under which survival was deemed likely or at least reasonably possible. The first major attempt to press the case of these Americans resulted from the release in December 1970 of a supposedly comprehensive list of U.S. POWs held by the North Vietnamese.

On January 20, 1972, a document containing the summaries of 14 cases of U.S. military personnel who were not on the December 1970 list was presented to North Vietnamese officials in Paris. When no response to the document was received, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird decided to dramatize the issue by holding a press conference. During the March 1972 press conference, Secretary Laird said, "All 14 men were known to be alive, on the ground in North Vietnam, or were at one time actually identified by the North Vietnamese as having been captured."

Although the United States did not have firm information in each case that the individual had been taken prisoner, Administration officials believed strongly that the North Vietnamese should at least have information about whether or not the missing American was alive or dead. At his press conference, Secretary Laird was surrounded by large poster boards containing photographs of the missing Americans and, beneath each, the logo: "Hanoi refuses to disclose the fate of this man."

The "last known alive" cases arose again at the time of Operation Homecoming. The U.S. Government identified 87 individual cases to be raised specifically with the North Vietnamese; most were thought to have survived their incidents, some were known to have been taken into captivity, and none was included on the POW or "died in captivity" lists released when the Peace Agreement was signed. During his visit to North Vietnam in February 1973, Dr. Henry Kissinger presented 19 of these case files to the North Vietnamese, and the remaining cases were presented soon thereafter.

During the period after the war, the list of cases of special concern was modified by several factors. In some instances, cases were resolved through the repatriation of remains. This was true, for example, with respect to nine of the 14 on the original "Laird list." Meanwhile, additional analysis of intelligence prompted other cases to be added to the list of those "last known alive."

As discussed above, in his February 1977 briefing of members of the Woodcock Commission, Dr. Shields explained that DoD had established five categories for missing Americans, ranging from those about whom DoD was sure Vietnam could provide information to those about whom DoD had no reason to believe Vietnam could provide information. A separate category contained the names of individuals known to have died whose remains were not recoverable.

At the time of the Woodcock Commission briefing, 179 Americans were listed in category 1 by DoD. Among those in the first category (confirmed knowledge) was Navy Lieutenant Ronald Dodge. Lt. Dodge was shot down on May 17, 1967 in North Vietnam. Evidence that Lt. Dodge was captured included a photograph of him in captivity that appeared in a 1967 edition of Paris Match magazine. (The remains of Lt. Dodge were repatriated, without explanation, in 1981.)

Priority attention to cases of Americans "last known alive" or thought possibly to have survived was the goal of the Reagan Administration throughout its negotiations with Vietnam and some of these cases were, in fact, resolved through the repatriation of remains between 1982 and 1986.

One of General Vessey's top goals as the President's Emissary to Vietnam, was to obtain agreement from Vietnamese officials to permit in-country investigations by the U.S. Government of high-priority "discrepancy cases." According to DIA: There are three categories of discrepancy cases:

1. individuals who were carried as POWs by their respective services during the war, but did not return during Operation Homecoming;

2. individuals who were known or suspected to have survived their loss incidents and might have been taken prisoner; and

3. other cases in which intelligence indicates the Indochinese Government may have known the fate of a missing man.

According to testimony to the Select Committee in December 1992, the DIA and DoD's JTF-FA have identified 305 discrepancy cases; 196 in Vietnam, 90 in Laos, and 19 in Cambodia. In 61 of the Vietnam cases, the fate of the individual has been determined through investigation, leaving 135 cases unresolved. The first round of investigation of all 135 is expected to be completed in January 1993. A second round which will proceed geographically by district, will commence in February.

Because of the number of Americans lost in areas of Laos and Cambodia controlled at the time by North Vietnamese forces, resolution of the majority of cases in those countries will depend on a process of tripartite cooperation that has barely begun. The Committee notes its strong recommendation in its Executive Summary that the U.S. pursue tripartite meetings with Laos and Vietnam.

The Vice Chairman's List

On December 1, 1992, the Committee's Vice-Chairman, Senator Robert Smith, released a "working" list of 324 still listed as officially unaccounted-for. The Vice-Chairman described the list as follows during the Committee's hearing on that date:

Approximately 300 of these personnel were last known alive in captivity in Vietnam and Laos, last known alive, out of their aircraft before it crashed, or their names were passed to POWs who later returned. A handful of the cases involve incidents where the aircraft was later found on the ground with no sign of the crew. This listing is based on all-source U.S. intelligence and casualty reports, lists of POWs and/or last known alive personnel prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other information made available to the Vice-Chairman...

Senator Smith further stated that the listing was based on information and lists he had reviewed from the DIA, NSA, JTF-FA, and from a dated Air Force summary of POW debriefs conducted in 1973, and on other information.

The Vice-Chairman added his view that, given the large number of MIAs at the end of the war, it was probable that MIAs not on his listing could have survived their incident without the U.S. Government being aware of that fact. Therefore, Senator Smith stated that his list was "at best, conservative."

On December 4, 1992, the DIA provided a response to the list prepared by Senator Smith in testimony by Robert Sheetz. According to the DIA:

The office of Senator Bob Smith based its list on several factors, some of which are indeed valid indicators of possible survival of the incident, capture and captivity. Others, however, are based on incomplete, out of date, or inaccurate information, or on data taken out of context. . .

The 324-name list consists of a mix of cases that include individuals whose remains have been repatriated and identified, persons known to have died during wartime or in captivity, persons for whom there is no analytic basis to indicate survival, and still others who can be considered potential candidates for having survived the loss incident, capture and/or captivity. The individuals among the last group--those who can be considered potential candidates for live prisoners--make up less than 50 percent of thos on the 324 name list. All of these persons have previously been identified by the Department of Defense as priority discrepancy cases.

The DIA analysis of the 324 names indicates that in more than half of the cases, the individuals either died in their incidents or no analytic basis exists to indicate survival. In five cases, the remains of the individuals have been returned to the families. This analysis is consistent with the views of DIA presented above concerning the possibility that American POWS were left behind in Laos.

As of the date of publication of this report, Senator Smith notes that because of his trip to Southeast Asia and North Korea in December, 1992, he has not further reviewed the cases which he selected in his working document of December 1st. The Senator also notes that he cannot accept DIA's analysis on 50 percent of the cases on his list without further reviewing the actual casualty and intelligence information noted next to the names on his list. As a result, Senator Smith continues to have questions pertaining to these cases.

Criticisms of U. S. Government Accounting

Over the years, the U. S. Government has been severely criticized by some members of the public and POW/MIA families for failing to obtain a more complete accounting for those Americans lost as a result of the war in Southeast Asia. U. S. Government officials, from President Nixon on down, have been accused of misleading the American public and of failing to make the POW/MIA issue a matter of "highest national priority," despite pledging to do so. The Defense Department has been criticized for its unwillingness, until recently, to dedicate adequate manpower and resources to POW/MIA efforts. Its accounting process has been described as sloppy, inaccurate and uncoordinated. DIA has become the focal point for those who find the U.S. Government's process wanting. DIA officials have been accused of having a "mindset to debunk" and of being part of a Government-wide conspiracy to keep the American people in the dark about the fate of Americans unnacounted-for in Southeast Asia.

In investigating the U.S. Government's process of accounting, the Committee sought to determine to what degree these charges are valid. At the same time, however, the Committee understood that the United States cannot achieve the desired goal of a fullest possible accounting on its own. This objective ultimately depends on the cooperation of the Governments of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Without it, a faultless process from the U.S. side--and to be sure, the U.S. process certainly was not faultless--could not and will not guarantee success.

Committee Findings

The findings of this phase of the Committee's investigation include:

•By far the greatest obstacle to a successful accounting effort over the past twenty years has been the refusal of the foreign governments involved, until recently, to allow the U.S. access to key files or to carry out in-country, on-site investigations.

•The U.S. Government's process for accounting for Americans missing in Southeast Asia has been flawed by a lack of resources, organizational clarity, coordination and consistency. These problems had their roots during the war and worsened after the war as frustration about the ability to gain access and answers from Southeast Asian Governments increased. Through the mid-1980's, accounting for our POW/MIAs was viewed officially more as a bureaucratic exercise than as a matter of "highest national priority."

•The accounting process has improved dramatically in recent years as a result of the high priority attached to it by Presidents Reagan and Bush; because of the success of Gen. Vessey and the JTF-FA in gaining permission for the U.S. to conduct investigations on the ground in Southeast Asia; because of an increase in resources; and because of the Committee's own efforts, in association with the Executive branch, to gain greater cooperation from the Governments of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

•After an exhaustive review of official and unofficial lists of captive and missing Americans from wartime years to the present, the Committee uncovered numerous errors in data entry and numerous discrepancies between DIA records and those of other military offices. The errors that have been identified, however, have since been corrected. As a result, the Committee finds no grounds to question the accuracy of the current, official list of those unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia. This list includes 2,222 missing servicemen except deserters and 42 missing civilians who were lost while performing services for the United States Government. The Committee has found no evidence to support the existence of rumored "secret lists" of additional missing Americans.

•The decision by the U.S. Government to falsify "location of loss" data for American casualties in Cambodia and Laos during much of the war contributed significantly both to public distrust and to the difficulties experienced by the DIA and others in trying to establish what happened to the individuals involved.

•The failure of the Executive branch to establish and maintain a consistent, sustainable set of categories and criteria governing the status of missing Americans during and after the war in Southeast Asia contributed substantially to public confusion and mistrust. During the war, a number of individuals listed as "prisoner" by DIA were listed as "missing in action" by the military services. After the war, the legal process for settling status determinations was plagued by interference from the Secretary of Defense, undermined by financial and other considerations affecting some POW/MIA families and challenged in court. Later, the question of how many Americans remain truly "unaccounted for" was muddied by the Defense Department's decision to include "KIA/BNR's"--those known to have been killed, but with bodies not recovered--in their listings. This created the anomalous situation of having more Americans considered unaccounted for today than we had immediately after the war.

The Committee's recommendations for this phase of its investigation include:

•Accounting for missing Americans from the war in Southeast Asia should continue to be treated as a "matter of highest national priority" by our diplomats, by those participating in the accounting process, by all elements of our intelligence community and by the nation, as a whole.

•Continued, best efforts should be made to investigate the remaining, unresolved discrepancy cases in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

•The United States should make a continuing effort, at a high level, to arrange regular tri-partite meetings with the Governments of Laos and Vietnam to seek information on the possible control and movement of unaccounted for U.S. personnel by Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces in Laos during the Southeast Asia war.

•The President and Secretary of Defense should order regular, independent reviews of the efficiency and professionalism of the DOD's POW/MIA accounting process for Americans still listed as missing from the war in Southeast Asia.

•A clear hierarchy of responsibility for handling POW/MIA related issues that may regretably arise as a result of future conflicts must be established. This requires full and rapid coordination between and among the intelligence agencies involved and the military services. It requires the integration of missing civilians and suspected deserters into the overall accounting process. It requires a clear liaison between those responsible for the accounting (and related intelligence) and those responsible for negotiating with our adversaries about the terms for peace. It requires procedures for the full, honest and prompt disclosure of information to next of kin, at the time of incident and as other information becomes available. And it requires, above all, the designation within the Executive branch of an individual who is clearly responsible and fully accountable for making certain that the process works as it should.

•In the future, clear categories should be established and consistently maintained in accounting for Americans missing during time of war. At one end of the listings should be Americans known with certainty to have been taken prisoner; at the other should be Americans known dead with bodies not recovered. The categories should be carefully separated in official summaries and discussions of the accounting process and should be applied consistently and uniformly.

•Present law needs to be reviewed to minimize distortions in the status determination process that may result from the financial considerations of the families involved.

•Wartime search and rescue (SAR) missions have an urgent operational value, but they are also crucial for the purposes of accounting for POW/MIAs. The records concerning many Vietnam era SAR missions have been lost or destroyed. In the future, all information obtained during any unsuccessful or partially successful military search and rescue mission should be shared with the agency responsible for accounting for POW/MIAs from that conflict and should be retained by that agency.