Senate Select Committee - XL

Families

Missing a Loved One

Nothing can produce emotion, passion and controversy like war. How could anyone ever forget the scene of a returning POW from Vietnam kissing the ground as he first set foot on U.S. soil after years of captivity, and the thrill of watching his wife and children run across the tarmac and into his open arms? When a soldier comes home, it is a joyous reunion.

War also claims victims and produces often untold suffering. Men and women are killed, and their loved ones mourn. Taps, flags, military funerals, tears of sadness and shattered dreams are all products of war. One of the worst tragedies of all is that some simply become "missing." Their loved ones both mourn and hope. The years drag on, and the long wait for answers can become unbearable. In this regard, the Committee notes with sadness the tragic death last year of Mrs. Marion Shelton, the devoted wife of Capt. Charles Shelton, USAF, the only serviceman still officially listed by the Department of Defense as a "POW" captured in Laos during the war.

What could be worse than the emotional turmoil of "not knowing?" Two family members explained their feelings:

When a beloved son becomes missing in any war, parents like us become the living dead.

He loved the Air Force and because of that love, I chose to serve in the same branch. I feel I owe an awful lot to my big brother, Buddy. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder what happened to him and if he could still be alive.

For many Korean War POW/MIA families, this anguish has lasted for four decades; for Vietnam War POW/MIA families, many have hoped and prayed for 20 years.

National security is no longer a valid excuse for events that happened 40 years ago. . . .

I feel the American people need to understand some of the anguish that families experience when a father is taken away and there's no explanation given to the child as to why. . . .

[My daughter] writes, "I recently returned from Russia where I spent two weeks with my mother searching for clues regarding my father's disappearance. I found no answers, just more questions. I don't know what to say, except that as I write this memories of my childhood haunt me, and I am crying. They are tears of sadness, for I never met my father.

"I grew up wondering what he was like. I was told he was dead. Then a year ago I found out he was probably taken prisoner of war at the time of the incident and might still even be alive. These days I cry, wondering about all the pain and suffering he must have endured, and I wonder if he's still alive somewhere in Russia, or maybe someone else is still alive.

"Please keep working on the exchange of information between our two countries. There are many good people on both sides willing to help."

Another Korean War veteran and POW/MIA family member also has wondered -- and persisted in his efforts to find the truth -- for more than 40 years:

I was a Korean War veteran; two tours of duty in Korea. I had four brothers on the front line at one time. My youngest brother was captured on November 4, 1950 at Anju, northeast of Anju, right up here on the map.

In 1953, when the last group of prisoners of war were released on September 3rd or 4th, and I looked at the television set after I had gotten home -- I came out all right -- and I didn't see my brother's name on that list, I told my mother and father there are three things wrong here. You have to be a prisoner of war, killed in action, or missing in action. That's three categories. And I'm sure he was one of those three, and I was hoping he would have been alive, and is still alive today.

So, I made a promise to my mother and father in 1950 that I would never stop looking for him until I brought him home, dead or alive.

Families' Views and Experiences

The Committee understands that it is impossible to make general statements about specific family members who have all suffered in their own way from the tragedy of having a "missing" loved one. Whether we speak of Vietnam or prior wars, the pain is the same.

Families are diverse in their views, in the particular circumstances surrounding the loss of their loved one, in the experiences they have had in dealing with their government, and in the feelings toward the Communist governments who hold answers.

Some believe the U.S. Government has done all it can over the years; others believe it has bungled inexcusably. Some of these families have decided to accept death and move on with their lives; others wait, convinced that living Americans remain in captivity.

No one among the Senators on this Committee is qualified to criticize the beliefs of the families. None of us has a missing loved one from a prior war. On these questions, every POW/MIA family member has fair claim to be considered an expert in the saddest, truest sense of the word.

The families have suffered the indignities of Communist governments who have refused to provide even basic humanitarian information and answers over the past half-century. They have endured the emotional roller-coaster ride of hope and failure year after year after year. They have watched governments in Southeast Asia dribble out remains and heard flat denials that records exist -- and then seen that these documents existed all along.

With the full cooperation of these governments in past years, results would have been obtained for many POW/MIA families long ago. Former President Nixon himself said in January 1992:

It has been obscene, the way they have just dribbled out information to these poor families who simply want to know what happened.

The families have been the victims of fraud and they have seen their own ranks divided by intense differences over the best way to obtain results. Through it all, they have persevered.

Through years of not knowing, both during and after the war, of bearing the brunt of bureaucracies incapable of answering questions or responding to requests, of grapplying with wrenching and sometimes conflicting information, and of dealing with the inhumane actions of former enemies, POW/MIA families have unfailingly kept their hopes alive and realistic.

The feelings and commitment of POW/MIA families may best have been summed up by the son of a serviceman shot down over Laos:

I was 16 years old when my dad was shot down. Dad was 42. He was a big man with a good sense of humor and a big appetite for life. He liked sports cars, bagpipe music, Irish whiskey; he fished, he rode broncos in the Rodeo; he loved New Mexico and the Air Force.

I remember him vividly, and miss him terribly. Nonetheless, I have long been resigned to the fact that he's almost certainly dead, and resigned to the fact that I will probably never know what happened to him. But that does not relieve me or you of the obligation to try to find out what did happen to him.

I don't expect the impossible, only the confidence that the Government that ordered my father into combat is doing all that it can to determine his fate and that my family knows all that this Government knows.

Families' Central Role in Committee's Work

The Committee owes its creation to the activism of family members, and from the beginning we sought to work closely with POW/MIA families. Family members were represented at the Committee's opening and closing hearings. In addition, the Chairman and Vice Chairman addressed the 1992 conventions of the National League of Families and the National Alliance of Families.

To ensure that families' concerns were addressed, the Committee's Chairman and Vice Chairman wrote to the primary next-of-kin of all 2,266 then unaccounted for servicemen in January 1992, seeking their advice and participation. Over the course of the Committee's year in existence, more than 100 responded, and both the League and the Alliance have actively monitored the Committee's work.

In addition, C-SPAN coverage of 18 of the Committee's 22 open hearings has kept an audience of 59 million viewers informed. "Please talk to as many families as you can -- they are the only ones holding the truth," one family member wrote. "I was glued to TV [coverage of the hearings] and watched until 5:30 a.m."

The questions before the American public are the ones that still gnaw at the families. If there are leads that can be traced to a living American serviceman, then there must be facts, places, dates, and descriptions or names. Some of the rhetorical questions of activists have been provocative, but at the same time the Government has jealously guarded its documents.

Through all of this, the families simply want answers and results. The Committee has focused on compelling leads and questions based on facts. The families deserved no less than an honest search to understand the truth. We sought information from all sources, public and private, including activists and current and former government officials.

The families of the missing deserve not merely words, but actions, answers, and -- above all -- the truth. The Committee has labored tirelessly in their behalf to provide them the truth. It is a labor of love, devotion, and gratitude.

The Search for Answers

In families' search for answers, two ingredients are essential. First, they must know the U.S. is pressing Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia for all information they have. As the wife of a serviceman missing in Laos, explained:

"If these men are not alive today, it's because they were either starved, executed, mistreated, or simply died of broken hearts in the last 20 years it has taken to go looking for them. They [the Lao or Vietnamese] know where my husband is. I know this. My family will not rest until we find the fate of David."

Second, families must know that the U.S. is doing all it can on behalf of missing servicemen. As Ann Mills Griffiths, the League's Executive Director told the Committee:

The vast majority of the POW/MIA families are realistic. We don't expect miracles. We expect seriousness by our own government, Executive and Legislative branches, rather than spontaneous reaction to the squeaky wheel or the latest editorial.

Beyond that, however, what constitutes an answer about the fate of a missing loved one varies from individual to individual. To satisfy U.S. Government "accounting," policy requires "the man alive, the man's remains, or convincing evidence of why it's not possible." For families, the standard is generally different: photographs are compelling for some; for others, positively identified remains are the only acceptable proof; for still others, even remains are not convincing.

Many families know that the answers available most often are merely clues and not full answers; but few can accept inexplicably conflicting information as satisfactory, even in a partial answer:

[At the time of my brother's disappearance], the Army told us that every effort was being made to locate him, including dropping leaflets with his picture. Three months later, the story changed. They said he had been engaged in a skirmish, that he was ahead of the majority group and then shot. No other information was provided at the time and we never got his body or any of his personal effects. As far as my family is concerned, there are still many unanswered questions: What really happened? Who were the men with him? Where are his things?

I am not expecting a miracle, but I do want to know and have an explanation/accounting of what took place. Were there, for example, eyewitnesses? Is this a crash site that has previously been excavated? What is the terrain?. . . . My personal goal is to do for [him] what I couldn't do then and resolve my grief issues. . . This is the least I can do; Len and others like him made the ultimate sacrifice.

It was during a monsoon, and due to the terrain, a ground crew could not get to the plane and a helicopter could not land. After about seven days, they presumed them dead. . . . we have wondered for 23 or 24 years. Just to know for sure -- something -- would help. My mother has never remarried, thinking that someday a miracle might happen and he could come home. We all need to know. . .

He saved seven men and carried them to a safe place and then returned to his post. All of the men he saved have since died. This is just a father who is still hoping for that "someday" when we will hear more.

If my father is dead, I want him brought back and buried at Arlington with the rest of the dead heroes. Because no matter what anyone thinks of the futile and tragic war in Vietnam, the men who fought there were heroes. If my father is alive after all these years, he must think we've forgotten him. I want him to know that we haven't. There is still time to bring him home. If others are alive, we must bring them all home. My wish is simple. If my father is alive, I want to know him, not things about him. If he is dead, I want to be able to put a flower on his grave.

This search for the truth by the families was frustrated over the years by limited information from the governments of Southeast Asia, and by our own government's failure to provide satisfactory answers. In fact, according to many families, the policies and actions of the U.S. Government during and after the war not only failed to resolve the problems, but the lack of attention and focus in past years actually made things worse.

For families whose experience with the Government has shattered their faith in it, only full disclosure of everything the Government knows will reassure them.

U.S. Government Actions During the War

If there is one facet of the POW/MIA issue that is without ambiguity, without disagreement, it is that the treatment accorded families of missing Americans has deepened their anguish, not lessened it.

War-Time Secrecy

The difficulties confronting most families were rooted not only in their kin's loss, but also in the secrecy surrounding the loss. At first, families were not told -- sometimes for years -- that their husbands, sons or brothers had been captured. The impact of war- time secrecy on the lives of families can best be described in their own words. As Donnie Collins, wife of then-Captain Tom Collins (captured in October, 1965), testified:

Mrs. Collins: Tom was missing four years, two months, and two weeks, and I received a letter from him in Christmas of '69. Now, I knew before then, but not through anything the Government did. I found on my own that Tom was seen alive in Hanoi in 1966. . . . I was more fortunate than most family members. I had friends in high places.

Sen. Smith: Do you have any reason to believe that anybody in the United States Government knew he was alive and did not tell you?

Mrs. Collins: Oh, yes, I'm certain that they did.

When families were informed of their loved one's fate, they rarely were given important details. As Mrs. Collins explained:

I, as an MIA wife, was frustrated by knowing little, being left out of the loop, and it seemed at times being treated as the enemy, more feared by the administration and military intelligence than the North Vietnamese whom we should have been unified against. This was typical of the attitude of the Government in those years.

Another MIA wife, whose husband was lost in December, 1967,

. . . was notified about my husband's MIA status by telephone. When I asked if my husband's navigator, who he had trained with, was with him, Air Force would not give me an answer. . . . since [his] navigator's wife was pregnant, I did not want to call and upset her if her husband had not been on that plane. It took a sideways call to the Pentagon from one of the colonels on base to get the needed information. He told me never to tell who got me the information.

And all were cautioned to say nothing about their husbands, sons and brothers, so as not to give their captors leverage over the men.

. . . [T]hey said, "you don't need to know this. . . . if you were to let this out, this could cause his death -- now, you wouldn't want to do that, would you?" I love that old hang-that-guilt-trip-on-them.

The effect was devastating for many. As one MIA wife explained:

I needed the support of other families who knew what I was going through. I asked my Personnel Affairs officer and sergeant to deliver my hand written notes to other wives who lived within 100 miles. There were only a few, but I did not know the names and right-to-privacy laws demanded that I go through the casualty office. In my notes I offered my home as a rest or coffee stop when other women came to shop. When I received no word of reply from my notes, I accepted the fact that the other women wanted their privacy and I'd have to go it alone.

Everyday some well-meaning civilian would call or come by and say, "My dear, I don't know how you do it." I'd just be devastated! When they'd leave or hang up I'd think, "Yes -- how do I do it?" I really needed the support of the other women; the other wives of POW and MIA.

I did not learn for four years that my notes had not been delivered to the single hearings or picture viewings at the base. Why were we never allowed to get together? Why were my notes withheld?

To her, the Government lost all credibility when its directives not to publicize the POW's fate didn't change as soon as the U.S. knew its men were being tortured:

Giving the Johnson Administration and its Ambassador at Large in charge of prisoner of war affairs, Averill Harriman, the benefit of the doubt, some might assume that these guidelines really were engendered in the best interest of the wives.

That rationale became totally invalid for me, however, when the Johnson Administration learned for a fact certain that American prisoners of war were being brutally tortured, but continued to insist that we wives remain silent in order to continue our husband's so- called good treatment by the North Vietnamese.

I know the Government knew of the brutal torture for a fact certain, because I was the conduit who delivered the message to the Johnson Administration. Averill Harriman never came off his insistence that we wives must keep quiet in order to ensure the so-called good treatment of our loved ones.

It was not until more than two years after Averill Harriman knew our men were being tortured that Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense in the newly elected Nixon Administration, publicly acknowledged the gross mistreatment of our men and the violations of the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war.

On the 19th of May, 1969, when Secretary Laird first made this public announcement, Jim Stockdale had been in prison for almost four years. . . .

No one in the Johnson Administration, not McNamara, nor Rusk, nor the Bundy brothers, nor Clifford, ever seemed to realize that we wives were not so stupid as to not be able to figure out that they wanted to suppress the truth about our men's circumstances in order to keep the American public from being emotionally involved in the Vietnam War.

Just as they never called up the reserves or imposed rent controls, they didn't want the truth about our men's torture to emotionally involve the American people in their stick and carrot war.

I knew only too well they had started their war under false pretenses, because my husband had led all of the air strikes in the Tonkin Gulf incidents. President Johnson had even doubly endangered all of the lives of the men in the first air strike against the North Vietnamese mainland by announcing their arrival to the enemy on the radio an hour and a half before they arrived.

The gag order was too much for some:

Mrs. Collins: Let me just go back and point out a couple of things. That Tom was heard on the radio. He was seen coming out of the plane. He had a wing man, there were another two in the formation. He was seen on the ground. So they did know he got on the ground. They did talk to him. Yet even later on, they never allowed anyone who was with him on his wing or behind him, the two behind him, to tell me anything at all, even that bare little element to hang onto.

As I say, I can deal with dead. . . . But missing, they didn't know how to deal with missing. So they decided that the best thing to do was don't tell the families anything.

I want to remind you that Tom was security ops officer. Because of that, he had such a security clearance you would never achieve to, Senator. John will tell you that. And because of that, I was brought into the loop and I was also part of the security clearance. So Tom didn't marry a dodo who fell off the turnip truck when it went through town on Saturday. Most pilots did not.

Vice Chairman Smith: That is very obvious, by the way.

Mrs. Collins: Thank you. And because of that, why they could not sort out and tell the families the basic elements. When I later found out in early '68 that they had had this information in his jacket, I was angry but I told no one, including his parents, what was in the jacket, no one.

Now, if you read my testimony you realize that I was jumped on by big-time people. I mean State Department threatened me with you're going to shut up or else, and I never could figure out what or else was. I guess the firing squad, send Tom to Hanoi, something equally obnoxious.

As I responded to them finally, no military has control over a wife. Only the military member himself may discipline her. So if you can find Tom and get him home and he wants to kick me in the rear end, let him go at it, but don't threaten me. And finally I had to call friends in high places to get the State Department off me because I decided, in '66, to ask some questions in the public. So I was probably the first one to get swatted.

Secrecy's Effects

The secrecy had two distinct ill effects. First, it back-fired:

. . . the old military cliche that wives and families should be told nothing and should know nothing was, and I presume to some degree is still, the rule. This is an over-reaction to legitimate military security needs, and has probably resulted in more inadvertent leaks through ignorance than if the spouses and families had been brought into the network in matters that concerned them. . . . Had they brought us into the loop, telling us the things that we had a right to know from the onset, we would never find ourselves in this position today.

Second, and far more damaging to both families and subsequent Government efforts, the secrecy made families an easy mark for any con artist with information to peddle. In Collins' words:

The closed-door attitude of the Government, which started and became ingrained in the early war years, has contributed greatly to making the families vulnerable and prey for the antiwar activists on the left and the con artists and mystics on the right. If the Government was silent to their questions, then where were they to go for information and help? Some elements of both groups meant well, but their impact has been cruel to the families.

Another witness, Carol Hrdlicka, laid the blame for fraudulent schemes more forcefully at the Government's door:

I can appreciate these other scams, but I have to tell you that if our Government had done their job in the first place, I wouldn't be in the situation where I could be a victim or Carol Collins could be a victim.

In sum, another MIA wife said:

I tell you as I told the [PFOD] hearing: if a situation like this happens again I hope you all are smart enough to know you can trust the families with inside knowledge to protect them from con artists. I did not bite when asked for a donation to bring home the men. I felt I had paid enough.

Mis-Reporting

When Evidence Suggested Death

Tragically for many families, strong incentives existed for combat veterans to soften the blow that reporting a buddy killed in action would deliver to families. Admiral Stockdale felt the pressures after he witnessed a plane go down:

He was in an AD -- last called a Mayday, hit about 1,000 feet going in a steep dive, and of course, as you know, John, [there was] no ejection seat in that plane. They went out there the next morning and they found that the Vietnamese had removed the debris.

And the squadron commander said the guy is -- he's dead. And I went up to see Captain Bart Connally and I said I'm just getting started in this thing. And I sent the message, whether I should have called him KIA or MIA. . . . He said, "I did this in World War II, of course, and, he said, there's a great temptation to do the wife a favor. But in the long run I think you do her an injustice, because you're giving her the wrong message. If you think he's dead, say he's dead."

Now, I did that [reported the man killed in action]. . . . I've been told that people who were seen to spin in the traffic pattern and crash in their plane were listed as MIA for that same darned reason. We ought to think of a better way to compensate families besides lying to them.

Gen. Vessey had experienced the same situation:

Sen. McCain: You and I have discussed, and I mentioned to Admiral Stockdale yesterday, this very tragic situation that exists when a person is listed as missing or captured, especially in the case of the air war.

There were cases that we know of -- Admiral Stockdale cited one yesterday, where the plane hit the ground and exploded and no chute was cited; but with the knowledge that if that person is declared dead, all benefits cease after his death (gratuities, insurance, etc.), [his buddies listed] that person as missing. Then the pay and benefits continue for an indeterminate length of time.

Do you have any idea how we can get around this dilemma, General?

Gen. Vessey: . . . It's something that drives our making inaccurate reports. The very fact that you deprive your comrade's family of their livelihood by declaring him dead. . . so the inclination generally has been, if there's any doubt at all, move [the status report] toward the missing rather than face the facts. . . . I think the present system will drive us to the same problems that we had from the war in Vietnam.

In 1973, Lt. Cdr. George Coker cited two examples of what he had seen as a Navy pilot in an address to the National League of Families:

A guy is flying, he does see his wingman shot down. Two guys go in, and they're deader than a doornail. He's thinking to himself, "If I report that they're dead, the wife's going to be brokenhearted, she'll get death gratuities, and that's it. If I report him MIA, his pay keeps going, and it will cushion the blow for a little while."

"I just saw your son fly into the ground." Do you think I'm going to tell you that? Hell, no, because the way I think, if I tell you your son got target fixation and flew into the ground, to my way of thinking, what I would be saying to you is, "You know, what you had for a son is a real idiot."

That's not true, so what am I going to say? "Well, he flew down, and he probably lost control, he was probably hit by a 57 or something and lost control of the aircraft and went in." But I'm not going to say, "I think he had target fixation." . . .

But now I've given you a shred of hope. It's not an out- and-out false report. I told you he flew into the ground, but I just twisted 'why.' So now he has the option of ejecting.

When Evidence Pointed to Life

However, the Committee also uncovered cases where servicemen were reported as dead, in view of information suggesting survival. Moreover, the families were never provided with this information.

For example, the Committee notes the following comments from the family members of two cases in particular:

Lance Corp. Kenneth L. Plumadore was officially listed as KIA/BNR, although a 1992 case narrative from the JTF-FA indicates that PAVN forces may have captured him. IN 1992, Plumadore's sister wrote to the Pentagon:

If what I am told is correct and the government continues to withhold intellience data on my brother's capture that has been concealed from his family for 25 years, I submit to you the following questions: What reason is there for secrecy now? Why am I not entitled to know everything about my brother that you know?

Maj. Robert F. Coady, USAF, was listed as missing in Laos since 1969. His family was only provided the initial loss report, but recently discovered that there was additional information which suggested that Coady may have survived his incident. In 1969, the U.S. Embassy in Laos reported a possible correlation between Coady and a similar name reported by a POW who returned in 1969. Coady's sister wrote to the Committee in August 1992:

When my family asked if there was any information on my brother, we were told there was nothing but the initial report of his loss. I could not believe that after 17 years of believing the Air Force I found out that there was information regarding my brother not given to the family. I find this totally unacceptable.

A final example concerns a serviceman believed dead during the war, but subsequently determined to have been captured. This example was brought to the Committee's attention in November 1991 by Dr. Patricia O'Grady, the daughter of Col. John O'Grady, who was captured in 1967 in Vietnam:

O'Grady: I testify before you today on behalf of my father, Col. John O'Grady, who is finally known to have been captured alive. This information could have been obtained many years ago, but after 24 years, I can finally tell you how many cigarettes were in his pack, and I can also tell you where his actual captors live today. Yet this information was not released to me directly or readily. This information was only released to me accidentally. . . . up until 1991, August of this year, they have disputed that my father was in fact captured alive.

Sen. Smith: . . . but now they say otherwise?

O'Grady: Now they say it, based upon the fact that they have finally found his actual captors and they interviewed them in detail.

Public Relations Campaign

Late into the war and after enormous pressure from POW/MIA families, the U.S. Government began to publicize the plight of the POWs in order to keep pressure on the North Vietnamese and gain support for the war at home.

The courageous attempts by H. Ross Perot are particularly noteworty. His efforts to bring food, medicine, and Christmas packages to POWs in 1969 and 1970 and to publicize their condition improved the way they were treated, as returned POWs later described when they returned. President Nixon's description details Perot's activities and their impact:

Ross Perot supported what we were trying to do in Vietnam, unlike many other people in the business community who took a walk, and I appreciate that. He did everything he could to help the POWs while many others were doing nothing at all. At a time when many people in the American establishment were not supporting the POWs, Ross Perot was doing so.

Sen. Smith noted Perot's accomplishments when he welcomed him to testify in August:

My words of thanks for your efforts, Mr. Perot, pale in comparison to the recognition you have already received from former POWs themselves, the families, and our nation's veterans groups. As many know, Mr. Perot has a painting proudly hanging in his office which is signed by all the POWs who came home in 1973, thanking him for drawing public attention to their plight. I also note that the Department of Defense awarded Mr. Perot its highest civilian honor for his efforts -- the Defense Medal of Distinguished Public Service.

But the P-R campaign had a stark down-side as well, as families learned when it the war ended and many forgot the POWs. In 1972, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird held a press conference to pressure Vietnam by focusing on 14 men not on Hanoi's list of POWs. "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," he told his audience.

In 1973, when not one of those 14 came home -- including Ronald Dodge, who was shown in captivity in 1972 in a Paris Match photo -- there was no follow-up press conference. No similar U.S. effort was mounted again publicly to raise families' unanswered questions about their loved ones' fates to public attention. The families' feeling of being abandoned, with their men, still persists: As Dodge's widow explained:

Sen. Reid: What more do you think we as a committee could do that we have not done?. . .

Ms. Otis: . . . what I've been wanting is for the public to really care. And I know it's been really too long, but the Government and the media didn't press this in the beginning. They just assumed everybody was dead. And we felt so abandoned because not only did our Government or the media care, but the public didn't seem to care.