Senate Select Committee - XXXVII

Dissemination of Unreliable Information

A cottage industry specializing the creation and dissemination of false POW/MIA information and "POW/MIA hunting" has emerged in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand. Certain individuals provide, for a fee, illegal cross-border transportation into Laos, armed escort, mission coordination and related services. It appears that these same individuals and others provide the "intelligence" that prompts the mission in the first instance -- a textbook perfect industry because it creates the demand and fills it, too. The market for this "intelligence" exists in part because of Government failure to inspire credibility that it is working honestly and effectively to provide a full accounting for POW/MIAs; and in part because the information vacuum created when the Government suspended the release of new POW/MIA information in 1980.

In the course of its investigation, the Committee was unable to determine the identities of persons who create bogus POW/MIA information. All involved say they got information that they believed to be accurate, and that they were diligent in deciding who to trust. However, the Committee did learn that over the years certain individuals in the U.S. and abroad have, wittingly or unwittingly, been involved in the dissemination of purported POW/MIA information which subsequently was determined to be unreliable, if not fabricated.

Col. Jack Bailey

Col. Jack Bailey (USAF-Ret.), a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and a highly decorated pilot, is the founder and chairman of Operation Rescue, a nonprofit organization involved in the POW/MIA issue.

Founded in 1981 to rescue Vietnamese refugees, according to its filing for an exemption from taxes as a non-profit organization, Operation Rescue turned its attention to the POW/MIA issue in the mid-1980s. Its fundraising solicitations and press releases told stories of how the Vietnamese "boat people" were often sources of POW/MIA live sighting reports. Operation Rescue sought to rescue these individuals from the high seas as they attempted to escape Vietnam and debrief them about any information they might have on missing American servicemen. To accomplish these high-seas rescues, Operation Rescue used a rusting, World War II-era ship called the Akuna; after a time, the Akuna was at anchor in Songkhla Harbor for years at a time, never leaving to undertake rescue missions.

Solicitations and other information put out by Operation Rescue often contained statements to the effect that Bailey knew the identities and locations of missing American servicemen being held against their will in Southeast Asia. Bailey's information supposedly obtained during intelligence-gathering missions. None of the information has ever been corroborated or otherwise deemed accurate.

Bailey has been associated with the release of the photographs that purport to depict U.S. Army Capt. Donald Carr, but were in fact photographs of a German exotic bird smuggler, Guenther Dittrich. An account of the dissemination of the bogus Carr photo appears later in this chapter.

In 1987, Bailey claimed to have repatriated the remains of a missing American serviceman, remains later determined to be those of an Asian woman. Bailey used the remains, wrapped in an American flag, as a prop when asking for donations to continue his search for POW/MIAs.

Col. Albert Shinkle

Col. Albert Shinkle (USAF, Ret.) has resided in Bangkok, Thailand since 1976 and is a major player in the POW/MIA issue. He has received numerous awards and decorations including the Distinguished Flying Cross, two Bronze Stars, 15 Air Medals, an Airman's Medal, two USAF Commendation Medals, two Joint Service Commendation Medals, and more than a dozen battle campaign stars. Acting as an agent for POW/MIA groups, Shinkle provides field reports that contain purported evidence of live POWs in Southeast Asia. During the last nine years of his military career, Shinkle was involved in military espionage and was stationed in Southeast Asia where he developed a number of contacts with Lao people. One of Shinkle's sources of information is Patrick Khamvongsa, a former member of the Royal Lao Air Force with ties to Phoumi Nosavan and other members of the Lao resistance.

Shinkle testified before the Committee and later failed to appear for both a scheduled public hearing and a deposition. Copies of some of the field reports that Shinkle used as the basis for statements by Skyhook II and Veterans of the Vietnam War, Inc. in fundraising appeals are misleading, as set forth below.

Khambang Sibounheuang

Khambang Sibounheuang is a Lao national who has become a naturalized U.S. citizen. He is the source of a considerable amount of information from Lao freedom fighters. According to Khambang, he receives this information from people in Laos who he has never met and who do not ask him for remuneration of any kind. To date, no information provided by Khambang has resulted in a serious lead about the identification, location or repatriation of an live American POW/MIA, and most of it has been determined to be fraudulent. According to DoD:

Khambang Sibounheuang is a former Royal Lao Army serviceman, now a naturalized U.S. citizen residing in Memphis, Tennessee. He states he was a Captain in the royal Lao Army. Our best information is that he was an enlisted man in the Royal Lao Army. He is now bailiff for Judge Hamilton Gayden, a self-described POW/MIA activist. Khambang has been active in the POW/MIA issue for a number of years. This paper will outline Khambang's activities as known and documented by the Department of Defense.

Khambang is a former member of the Neutralist faction of the Lao resistance. He led the organization in the United States for several years and at one point may have been its elected leader. Khambang was removed from his position with the Neutralist faction after the leader of the Neutralists, former Lao General Kong Le learned that Khambang had fabricated POW-related information and had attempted to use the POW issue for personal gain.

In the past, Khambang was associated with Bo Gritz and he was for a period Gritz' primary source of information for POW's. Khambang later became associated with retired Major Mark Smith, another POW/MIA activist. His current relationship with Smith is unknown.

DoD's first involvement with Khambang occurred in 1985 when he approached DIA and offered to work the POW issue in exchange for $4,000, which was to be used to support the Neutralist faction of the Lao resistance. Khambang's offer was rejected by DIA.

In November 1987, Life Magazine published an article about POW/MIAs. A prominent portion of that article was devoted to a photograph purported to depict an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Rowley. The photograph was provided by Khambang to Captain Eugene "Red" McDaniel, USN (Ret.). Captain McDaniel provided the photo to DIA in August 1987, and investigation was underway when the photo was published by Life Magazine. Photo analysis established that the individual pictured was not Lieutenant Colonel Rowley. The Rowley family confirmed the photo analysis.

In 1990, Khambang passed bogus dog-tag information to his superiors in the Arlington (Virginia) Police Department where he worked as a clerk. The information was determined to be fabricated and DIA traced the information back through the Arlington Police Department to Khambang. The Department was informed that Khambang was an established POW/MIA source of questionable reliability.

In the fall of 1990, Khambang passed a roll of film and other information related to the purported Borah photograph to Judge Hamilton Gayden, then his employer in Tennessee. Khambang received the information from a blood relative now residing in Thailand. Judge Gayden provided the information to the family, who then contacted Senator Bob Smith for assistance. The photos had not been made available to DoD until July 1991, when Senator Smith appeared on Today Show with Daniel Borah, Sr. and the photographs. After receipt of the information, a joint Lao-U.S. team interviewed, photographed and finger-printed the individual identified as Borah and photographed in Laos. The photo depicted not Lt Daniel V. Borah, but rather a 77 year old Lao highland tribesman, Mr. Ahroe. Khambang told Bill Gadoury, a U.S. POW/MIA investigator in Bangkok, that the individuals who passed him the roll of film did so for the purpose of obtaining a reward.

Sometime during the summer of 1991, Khambang obtained another photograph, this purported to depict Navy Lieutenant Commander Larry Stevens, USN. (Stevens was also said to be depicted in the photograph of three individuals, positively identified by their families as Colonel John L. Robertson, LCDR Stevens and Major Albro Lundy. The Stevens photo was said to have been taken in Vietnam and the individual identified as Stevens is pictured with his arm around an Asian woman. At the request of members of Congress, the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was provided a DoD aircraft to transport Khambang to Southeast Asia to locate his sources of the "Stevens" photo. Khambang produced his source and the individual was polygraphed. He failed the polygraph and indicated deception in nearly all of his responses. DoD is continuing to investigate the "Stevens" photograph.

To date, Khambang has provided information on a number of occasions to POW/MIA activists and others interested in the POW/MIA issue. The descriptions above are illustrative, not exhaustive. Every dog-tag report, every report of remains, every photograph and every other report about POW/MIAs, with the exception of the as yet unsolved "Stevens" photo, provided by Khambang has proven to be false.

In his sworn deposition, Khambang was asked about his motives and observations:

Q. What I'm struggling with and what a lot of people are struggling with is if the freedom fighters have the capability to apparently go out and find and locate these POW's, why don't they have the ability to physically rescue them? Why hasn't that happened?

A. I'm not in Laos with the freedom fighters. I think that's a good question. It's not easy to rescue Americans in the captive by freedom fighters. To me that I know that freedom fighters also explain to me, they say day-by-day in Laos they try to avoid conflicts with the Laotian Government, with the Vietnamese soldier. They are not trying to fight with those people, but they try to stay in Laos and keep on struggle for their country.

Q. [W]hy haven't American POW's been rescued by freedom fighters?

A. I don't know. I don't know why the freedom fighters -- you asked me why -- if the prisoners of war still alive over there, why the freedom fighter cannot rescue them.

Q. Yes.

A. I cannot answer. I don't know why. Because I just can tell you like I told you before, the freedom fighters, it's the less amount of the military struggle with the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese now are 125,000 soldiers in control of Laos. The freedom fighter is a small amount of the living in the individual section in Laos. So I think they don't have any capability to launching the operation to rescue American from 10,000 of Vietnamese control. I don't think they can do that. That's all I can answer you.

Photographs

Some of the most compelling "evidence" of Americans alive in Southeast Asia are photographs of persons alleged to be POWs. In July 1991, three photographs purported to be American POWs, were made public. The photos became known as the Borah photo, the Carr photo, and the Robertson-Lundy-Stevens photo. Analysts of the DIA POW/MIA section, the Stony Beach Team in Bangkok and the JTF-FA conducted extensive investigations into each photo and determined they were not photos of American POWs. The Committee reviewed DIA's reports of its investigation of these photographs and Committee staff interviewed and deposed some of the people involved in the transmission and investigation of the photographs, including Khambang, Carr family members, Bailey, and McDaniel.

The Committee also learned there are numerous copies of the "blue book," a book of precapture photos compiled by DoD for use in debriefing returned POWs. Hundreds of copies of the book of photographs were printed and circulated within the Armed Services, many of which were believed to have been lost at the fall of Saigon in 1975. The book, with corresponding names redacted, has been declassified.

The Rowley Photo

In 1987, a Lao freedom fighter and member of Kabounkanh Kousat, a Lao resistance group stationed near the border of Thailand and Laos, mailed photographs of a Caucasian identified as "Roly" to Khambang in Tennessee. The letter accompanying the photographs indicated that the Lao man had obtained the photos by bribing a Pathet Lao guard of American POWs. Khambang had never met this man prior to receiving the photos. He delivered the photographs to a friend, Dr. Frank Lockhart, who is an electronics salesman with a Ph.D. in psychology. After reviewing of a list of MIAs, Lockhart concluded that the name "Roly" could be correlated to Lt. Col. Charles S. Rowley, an MIA since April 1970 when his aircraft was shot down over Laos.

Photo analysts at the FBI, CIA and DIA compared the photo with a photo of Rowley and concluded that it was not him.

The Borah Photos

In the summer of 1991, Khambang received additional photographs from unknown members of the Lao resistance who claimed that they depicted MIA Daniel V. Borah. Khambang provided these photographs to Judge Gayden, who publicized them. Members of the Borah family remain convinced that the pictures depicted Borah.

Judge Gayden and Khambang are in the process of writing a book about their involvement with these and other photos. Khambang provided the Committee with synopsis of the book, titled Sit Down and Shut Up, which contains the following passage about the Borah photo:

The "Borah" photographs actually consist of 23 photographs of a man Judge Gayden identifies as "Dan Borah." The photographs were developed here in America. The individual who took the photographs in Laos in July 1990 immediately threw the camera into a river near the site where the photos were snapped. He is presently living in another country and is partially supported by Khambang and Judge Gayden. The man who took the photographs knew the subject only as "Ahmee," Laotian for "American." After months of research Gayden recognized a 1987 Life Magazine photo of Borah, and we believe it is the correct identity.

Following publication of the Borah photo in July 1991, the Government requested the Lao Government's assistance in searching a region in southern Laos from which Khambang had previously obtained photos. Shortly thereafter, the Lao Government found the individual shown in the alleged Borah photos and determined that he is a Lao hill tribesman from southern Laos named Ahroe. Representatives of the Government interviewed, finger-printed and photographed the Lao man; concluded that the individual shown in the photo had been found and that he was not Daniel V. Borah; and made a public statement to that effect.

The DIA's investigation determined that the photo was taken by a Lao national in cooperation with Lao refugees in the Na Pho Camp, northeastern Thailand. One of the refugees, Khambang's cousin, asked a Lao national to take the pictures after the Lao claimed that he had observed Americans in Laos. When the Gayden and Borah family members challenged the DIA's work, alleging it was fabricated, arrangements were made to introduce two family members to Ahroe in Laos. It was the first time the Government of Laos had permitted POW/MIA families to travel outside of Vientiane, the capital.

The Carr Photo

In July 1991, Bailey (USAF Ret.) publicized a photo of a Caucasian male Bailey claimed was Captain Donald G. Carr (USA). Bailey had obtained the photograph through an intermediary and had no first- hand interaction with the man depicted in the photograph who, Bailey said, was being held prisoner in Laos by Vietnamese forces. He was wearing a short-sleeved blue polo shirt and watch that Bailey claimed he had provided the photographer, with instructions that the subject be instructed to wear them in order to help authenticate the picture. The intermediary told Bailey that the man in the photo was named "Garr."

In 1992, following an intensive investigation by DIA and the media, it was determined that the individual in the photo was Guenther Dittrich, a German national then in jail on charges of smuggling exotic birds. Dittrich admitted that he was the individual in the alleged Carr photo and said that the photo had been taken by a tourist in Bangkok. After Lt. Col. Norman Turner (USAF, Ret.), an associate of Bailey's, suggested Dittrich was a "Pentagon twin" created to end publicity about the Carr case, Carr's ex-wife travelled to Germany to meet with Dittrich and testified that she was satisfied that he was not Carr.

The "Carr" photograph incident clearly illustrates the ability of those persons intent on disseminating bogus POW/MIA information to create convincing evidence that POW/MIAs remain alive in Southeast Asia. Some is so convincing that it has fooled the experts into concluding that these photos depicted MIAs. For example, Dr. Michael Charney, a forensic anthropologist and Director of the Forensic Science Laboratory at Colorado State University reported that the man in the subject photo was in fact Donald Gene Carr, and stated scientific bases for his conclusion. In fact, the subject was much shorter, and of a much slighter build, according to Carr's ex-wife.

The Robertson-Stevens-Lundy Photo

In August, 1990, DIA obtained a blurry black-and-white photograph of three mustachioed men holding a white sign containing the numbers "25-5-1990." In November, 1990, POW/MIA families obtained copies of the photograph. In July, 1991, the photograph was widely publicized, including on the cover of Newsweek and on billboards in several cities. The three men shown in the photo were reported to be Col. John Leighton Robertson (USAF), missing in North Vietnam; Maj. Albro Lundy (USAF), missing in central Laos, and Lt. Cdr. Larry J. Stevens (USN), missing in southern Laos.

Capt. Eugene "Red" McDaniel (USN Retired) was also involved in the dissemination of this photograph. McDaniel, founder of the American Defense Institute, has been a major player in the POW/MIA issue for more than a decade. He is a retired Navy Captain who was held as a POW in North Vietnam from 1967 to 1973 and was brutally tortured. He was twice awarded the Legion of Merit Award, the Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars with combat "V," and two Purple Hearts for wounds resulting from the torture he endured as a POW.

As part of his efforts, McDaniel has disseminated information he and others (including many family members) believed to be evidence of live POWs in Southeast Asia. This evidence includes photographs of purported POWs and statements from purported eyewitnesses. None of this information has been corroborated, but it has been used in ADI solicitations and public statements for many years.

Set forth below is a portion of DIA's report on its investigation of the Robertson-Stevens-Lundy photo:

Although the photo was made public in July 1991, it actually came to DIA's attention in August 1990, however, there were no names associated with it. In early November 1991, the photo was forwarded by a Cambodian national in the United Stated by fax machine to State Department and to DIA/POW-MIA. The names Robertson and Sievens (a variation of Stevens) were reported as being two of the three individuals shown. According to the Cambodian, the individuals were alive in Cambodia and could be released for a reward.

In December, 1990, the photo surfaced in Site 2, a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. A Cambodian refugee reported that two of the individuals shown were Robertson and Stevens. In early 1991 the name Lundy was also associated with the photo.

The investigation into the photo took State Department and DIA personnel to Hanoi, Vietnam; Vientiane, Laos and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as well as throughout Thailand. The DIA Stony Beach team determined that a Cambodian fisherman/refugee in Thailand received the photo, along with four others, from a Cambodian national in Kampong Som, Cambodia around May or June, 1991, and that the fisherman took the photos to the American Embassy in Bangkok. Other than the several names scribbled on some of the photos, there were no names associated with the individuals shown in the photos, especially the photo of the three.

In July 1992, a DIA team travelled to Phnom Penh and with the cooperation of the SOC Government interviewed several sources relative to the origin of the photographs. In the Soviet Cultural Center in Phnom Penh the team found a Soviet magazine which included three of the original five photos which surfaced in Thailand; the photo of the three was not found. In August 1992, the fourth photo was found by DIA in Washington, DC in a Soviet journal.

The DIA Stony Beach team in Bangkok continued its investigation into the photo of the three and in early 1992, with the cooperation of researchers from the SOC Government, found the fifth and final photo, the photo alleged to be Robertson, Lundy and Stevens, in a [1923 edition of] Soviet Life magazine in the National Library in Phnom Penh.

Thousands of man hours were expended by DIA personnel in pursuit of the origin of the photo of the three. Without the cooperation of the SOC Government this case might well still be unresolved. In the meantime, the families of Robertson, Lundy and Stevens have been informed that the photo of the three was nothing more than a cruel hoax perpetrated by Cambodian nationals.

Dog-Tag Reports

The Committee reviewed DIA's analyses of several thousand "dog tag" reports and hundreds of live sighting reports which purported to be associated with POW/MIAs. In addition, the Committee has reviewed DIA analyses of several prominent photographs which were represented by their sponsors to depict POWs in a captive environment after Operation Homecoming. Following analysis, DIA determined that none of these photographs and none of the "dog tag" reports provided any credible evidence of the existence of POWs following Operation Homecoming. Similarly, with the exception of live sighting reports correlated to Robert Garwood, none of the live sighting reports are currently believed, by DIA, to relate to any POW after Operation Homecoming.

Set forth below is a July 1, 1991 statement from DIA's Special Office of POW/MIAs concerning "dog tag" reports.

Over the past decade one type of report has been received most often by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Special Office for POW/MIAs. These accounts are referred to as "dog tag" reports. Since mid-1982, over 6,300 of these reports have been received and more arrive daily.

In most dog tag reports a person or persons--many of them residents of Vietnam--claim to possess the remains of one or more Americans. As proof they offer data copied from military identification tags (dog tags), tracings or photographs of dog tags, authentic dog tags or other identification documents. More than 5,100 U.S. military men have been named in these reports. Of these, 91 percent served in the United States armed forces, but were not casualties of the Vietnam War. Another 6 percent were killed, but their bodies were recovered, identified and returned to the U.S. for burial. Thus, it is impossible that their remains are held by the people claiming to have them. Only three percent of the dog-tag reports name a man who is missing, suggesting that his remains or personal effects have been recovered from battlefields or crash sites. However, the evidence indicates it is unlikely that these items were recovered by private citizens.

In many cases several different people claim to have the remains and/or personal effects of each of the named men. Frequently, sources profess to have recovered the same items on a different date or at a different location. This indicates that the people did not obtain their data by recovering items from battlefields or crash sites. For instance, two of the men whose remains and dog tags several persons claim to have found, are in fact former POWs who returned alive--their dog tags had been kept by their captors.

Further, throughout the war the communists enforced a policy to find and bury Americans killed in action and to send to central authorities a report of the burial site along with the personal effects and identification taken from the body. They continually stressed that this was important to the "political struggle.." Thus, the governments of Vietnam and Laos should have knowledge of the missing men whose names have appeared in dog tag reports.

Often there are tragic aspects to the dog tag reports. Many of the sources have been led to believe that possession of American remains will assist in their resettlement to the U.S. This has prompted some people to pay for the dog tag data. In fact, the U.S. provides no rewards or assistance for POW/MIA information.

Considering the policy and practices of the Indochinese governments to collect material on U.S. war dead, coupled with the patterns in the dog tag reporting, the evidence indicates that the majority of reports reflect information and personal effects recovered by Vietnamese forces, not private citizens. Years of investigation and analysis have shown that the dog tag reports have been instigated by elements of Vietnam's government in an effort to influence and exploit the POW/MIA issue. Nevertheless, each report is carefully analyzed to determine its validity.

Discussion

It is a relatively easy task to assemble identifying information about MIAs and then use that information to support a bogus POW/MIA report. In addition to the hundreds of copies of the classified "blue book," which contained the names and precapture photographs of unaccounted-for personnel, both the Government and private groups published numerous lists of POW/MIAs with the kind of information typically included in bogus POW/MIA reports. In once case, flyers advertising a reward for the return of a missing serviceman contained his parents' zip-code; a response that included that information was considered credible because of it. It is not surprising therefore, that bogus dog-tag reports and photographs usually contain some evidence which can be correlated to MIAs.

As part of its investigation, the Committee sought to determine why bogus reports of POWs continue to surface in view of the Government's longstanding and publicly stated policy of not paying for POW/MIA information. One possibility is that some are being disseminated as part of a conspiracy to discredit or otherwise destabilize the Lao Government. It has been suggested that various factions of the Lao resistance movement have been selectively "planting" information through Khambang and others, to obtain support for their cause and to continue the enmity between the Government and the communist Lao government.

Gritz advanced another theory. The case of the "Carr" photo incident was "too sophisticated an operation for the Thais or the Lao living in Thailand, the Phoumi's [of the world], to pull off." Gritz further speculated that Bailey:

would have been a perfect set-up for [the "Carr" photo]. Jack would have jumped on that photograph, and he did, just like a robin on a June bug. . . . But it's too sophisticated. I still don't believe that the Thais did that. I believe that our own folks [Government] did that and set old Jack up. It was just too slick to have whoever it was, ABC or somebody, right there. So I think Jack was stung and I think it hurt him. You know, hurt him personally. He got real mad about it, I understand, and it may have curbed his operation.

Other theories are:

that these bogus reports are the work of organizations hostile to the Government which are seeking to "tie up" its resources by forcing it to track down the bogus reports; that these reports are a predictable response to leaflets, flyers and other announcements, circulated in Southeast Asia, which promise rewards by private groups for POW/MIA information; that dissemination and publication of any POW/MIA information, bogus or not, keeps the POW/MIA issue, and million-dollar fundraising operations, alive.

It has become apparent that in both Southeast Asia and the United States, information that purports to demonstrate that POWs are alive POWs is eagerly consumed by those who are eager to believe. Despite the fact that none of the information has ever resulted in the return of a live American, the demand for and hope resulting from such information appears to be as strong as ever. Unscrupulous individuals throughout Southeast Asia are aware of this, and the volume of false POW/MIA information continues to rise. To one committed, but frustrated, activist, it seemed that "every cab-driver, vagrant and baggage handler in Thailand runs a POW scam."