Appendix 6 : Selected Excerpts From Hearing Testimony - Part 4

Archives Admiral Stockdale 12/03/92

Yes, they were just kind of -- the bureaucratic, the group we were dealing with, were the second-generation communists, the bureaucratic elite. They were inveterate note-takers, and they would have pockets full.

Archives Childress 12/01/92

Childress: They will be very productive in Laos and continue to be. Archival records will give you fate. Unilateral Vietnamese action will give families answers.

Chairman Kerry: Well, archival records are also going to give you answers and oral histories are going to give you answers. We collected four of them in person, myself, four answers. And they came through oral history and archival information.

Archives Childress 12/01/92

Chairman Kerry: Well, we are now getting access to a lot of those shoot-down reports and to the archival documents, obviously.

Childress: I've heard there's some summary documents coming in... from what I saw, that I think it's the tip of the iceberg and I think a lot of analysts feel that way as well.

Archives DeStatte 12/04/92

Vice Chairman Smith: What is your sense of what we are getting? Is there more in the archives?

DeStatte: It's too early to make any definitive judgments on that right now, but some things we can say. Some of the information that we need to resolve, questions concerning the fate of our missing people, and ultimately to recover the individuals or their remains can be found scattered in the files and archive of individual units, local and province commands, regional commands.

But it's also certain that elements of the ministry of defense's general political directorate compiled records on U.S. POWs, and also on many of our MIAs. Those are records that were compiled at the central level... if the Vietnamese political leadership can persuade the general political directorate to share the information from those central records with our joint research teams, then we can get the quickest possible answers on the largest number of people. And I think that's what we should be pressing for.

Archives Hrdlicka 12/03/92

Now, could we take a reality break here and apply simple logic? If we have these men, and in many cases we know they did, where are they? If they kept as meticulous records of shoot downs, subsequent capture and internment, as we know they have throughout history, as we have witnessed first-hand in Senator McCain's case, if they held our men past the end of the war, as they historically have in past conflicts with other powers, where are they?

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: Most people assert and there is evidence, in fact, that documents, that they kept pretty good records of the prison system, of the flow of information during the war. Is there not an easy way to unlock the key to what might have happened to that particular flyer or to some other person about whom we have a question and to recover the remains?

Schweitzer: Well, the key word in your question is, it ought to be, yes. There were orders from Hanoi throughout the war that any American who was captured or any American who was killed, there was to be a complete report made and sent to Hanoi.

But in the heat of battle in the war years where most, I think most of the soldiers -- a lot of times these reports just didn't get made. Sometimes they did get made and they didn't arrive in Hanoi. One specific case I was told about... a report was made and then before the group taking the report back to Hanoi could get there, they were all killed in a bombing attack. So that report never made it.

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

When I told them that the documents and photos that they had in their archives were precious, back in 1989, they brought them to me by the thousands. They simply never knew what they had. And, to quote Benjamin Hoff, America took a thimble to the fountain in Hanoi, and then came home and complained that they hadn't been given enough.

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

...some people may ask if all this information is available in Vietnam, and if Vietnam so badly wants relations with the U.S., why don't they just give it all to us right now? Unfortunately for us, as well as for the Vietnamese, it's just not going to be that simple.

If all this information were already available, collected, and cataloged, and in some warehouse in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Government would like nothing better than to turn it all over to us, and then request a lifting of the embargo and the establishment of diplomatic ties.

However, while information on many missing Americans is available in Vietnam, it is not in official Vietnamese Government hands. The majority of this information is in the hands of retired People's Army Vietnam soldiers or civilians who are scattered all over Vietnam. There is a mountain of information out there.

But even with the fullest possible cooperation from the Vietnamese Government, it will take an enormous amount of goodwill, time, and work to locate these materials, collect them, and then catalog them.

Even though 19 years have passed since Operation Homecoming in 1973, we are just now beginning this massive undertaking which lies before us. Nearly every day, common people from all over Vietnam come to my office in Hanoi with some items of American memorabilia from the war. The work of the dedicated American analysts over there is just beginning.

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: Well, generically, when people say the Vietnamese have the answers. They have all these documents. Is there a central depository of a whole lot of documents that they could suddenly take a key and unlock it and it will answer all these questions?

Schweitzer: In the first place, really, the Vietnamese don't know exactly what they've got. It is not a system, a computerized system with an index to everything that's held in the central government's archive files. There may be more information there than we know of now. I think there's a lot of information there.

Archives Smith 12/03/92

Vice Chairman Smith: So the answer is that nothing came back to give you a definitive time of death from the Vietnamese?

Otis: No.

Vice Chairman Smith: And certainly, you would agree, that they must know, if they are that meticulous, when he died and how he died.

Otis: Of course they knew when he died. They had him in captivity. As you say, they kept great records... I never really felt one way or the other whether he was alive or dead. I just know I didn't know and it was extremely frustrating because I knew the Vietnamese knew and they didn't bring him back one way or the other.

Vice Chairman Smith: So you knew nothing even at Homecoming. You had not heard a thing, correct? Nothing?

Otis: No, I heard nothing.

Archives Tin 11/07/91

Once a POW is put in jail, he then had his own file in which detailed information was kept, such as what he had to eat, if he was sick, what medicine he used. The cadre had to report his behavior and thought process. And I believe that the files are still in Vietnam.

Archives Admiral Stockdale 12/03/92

Yes, they were just kind of -- the bureaucratic, the group we were dealing with, were the second- generation communists, the bureaucratic elite. They were inveterate note-takers, and they would have pockets full.

Archives Childress 12/03/92

Chairman Kerry: Well, we are now getting access to a lot of those shoot-down reports and to the archival documents, obviously.

Childress: I've heard there's some summary documents coming in... from what I saw, that I think it's the tip of the iceberg and I think a lot of analysts feel that way as well.

Archives DeStatte 12/04/92

Vice Chairman Smith: What is your sense of what we are getting? Is there more in the archives?

DeStatte: It's too early to make any definitive judgments on that right now, but some things we can say. Some of the information that we need to resolve, questions concerning the fate of our missing people, and ultimately to recover the individuals or their remains can be found scattered in the files and archives of individual units, local and province commands, regional commands.

But it's also certain that elements of the ministry of defense's general political directorate compiled records on U.S. POWs, and also on many of our MIAs. Those are records that were compiled at the central level... if the Vietnamese political leadership can persuade the general political directorate to share the information from those central records with our joint research teams, then we can get the quickest possible answers on the largest number of people. And I think that's what we should be pressing for.

Archives Hrdlicka 12/03/92

Now, could we take a reality break here and apply simple logic? If we have these men, and in many cases we know they did, where are they? If they kept as meticulous records of shoot downs, subsequent capture and internment, as we know they have throughout history, as we have witnessed first-hand in Senator McCain's case, if they held our men past the end of the war, as they historically have in past conflicts with other powers, where are they?

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: Most people assert and there is evidence, in fact, that documents, that they kept pretty good records of the prison system, of the flow of information during the war. Is there not an easy way to unlock the key to what might have happened to that particular flyer or to some other person about whom we have a question and to recover the remains?

Schweitzer: Well, the key word in your question is, it ought to be, yes. There were orders from Hanoi throughout the war that any American who was captured or any American who was killed, there was to be a complete report made and sent to Hanoi.

But in the heat of battle in the war years where most, I think most of the soldiers -- a lot of times these reports just didn't get made. Sometimes they did get made and they didn't arrive in Hanoi. One specific case I was told about... a report was made and then before the group taking the report back to Hanoi could get there, they were all killed in a bombing attack. So that report never made it.

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

When I told them that the documents and photos that they had in their archives were precious, back in 1989, they brought them to me by the thousands. They simply never knew what they had. And, to quote Benjamin Hoff, America took a thimble to the fountain in Hanoi, and then came home and complained that they hadn't been given enough.

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

...some people may ask if all this information is available in Vietnam, and if Vietnam so badly wants relations with the U.S., why don't they just give it all to us right now? Unfortunately for us, as well as for the Vietnamese, it's just not going to be that simple.

If all this information were already available, collected, and cataloged, and in some warehouse in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Government would like nothing better than to turn it all over to us, and then request a lifting of the embargo and the establishment of diplomatic ties.

However, while information on many missing Americans is available in Vietnam, it is not in official Vietnamese Government hands. The majority of this information is in the hands of retired People's Army Vietnam soldiers or civilians who are scattered all over Vietnam. There is a mountain of information out there.

But even with the fullest possible cooperation from the Vietnamese Government, it will take an enormous amount of goodwill, time, and work to locate these materials, collect them, and then catalog them.

Even though 19 years have passed since Operation Homecoming in 1973, we are just now beginning this massive undertaking which lies before us. Nearly every day, common people from all over Vietnam come to my office in Hanoi with some items of American memorabilia from the war. The work of the dedicated American analysts over there is just beginning.

Archives Schweitzer 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: Well, generically, when people say the Vietnamese have the answers. They have all these documents. Is there a central depository of a whole lot of documents that they could suddenly take a key and unlock it and it will answer all these questions?

Schweitzer: In the first place, really, the Vietnamese don't know exactly what they've got. It is not a system, a computerized system with an index to everything that's held in the central government's archive files. There may be more information there than we know of now. I think there's a lot of information there.

Archives Smith 12/03/92

Vice Chairman Smith: So the answer is that nothing came back to give you a definitive time of death from the Vietnamese?

Otis: No.

Vice Chairman Smith: And certainly, you would agree, that they must know, if they are that meticulous, when he died and how he died.

Otis: Of course they knew when he died. They had him in captivity. As you say, they kept great records... I never really felt one way or the other whether he was alive or dead. I just know I didn't know and it was extremely frustrating because I knew the Vietnamese knew and they didn't bring him back one way or the other.

Vice Chairman Smith: So you knew nothing even at Homecoming. You had not heard a thing, correct? Nothing?

Otis: No, I heard nothing.

Archives Tin 11/07/91

Once a POW is put in jail, he then had his own file in which detailed information was kept, such as what he had to eat, if he was sick, what medicine he used. The cadre had to report his behavior and thought process. And I believe that the files are still in Vietnam.

Archives Childress 12/01/92

Childress: They will be very productive in Laos and continue to be. Archival records will give you fate. Unilateral Vietnamese action will give families answers.

Chairman Kerry: Well, archival records are also going to give you answers and oral histories are going to give you answers. We collected four of them in person, myself, four answers. And they came through oral history and archival information.

China Mooney 01/22/92

...in the Vietnam War, the Chinese had opportunity and motive to take American pilots. They were losing their Soviet connection for aircraft, so they were developing their own military-industrial complex... why go out and spend for research when you can quantum leap with an individual?

There is very little intelligence that we saw on the Chinese. . . They had the opportunity to shoot them down. They were shooting down American aircraft. They had motive. They were losing their technological base for aircraft from the Soviet Union and they had to start their own industrial complex. Pilots with experience would represent a quantum leap. So the only intelligence that we had was opportunity and motive.

Classified Andrews 10/15/92

We have willingly made all of our documents available and we will willingly answer all of your questions. If we can't answer them in open session we will answer them in closed. We just have to do so in a responsible manner when dealing with sensitive intelligence or escape and evasion matters. If we divulge their trade craft used in either area it may cost American lives in future conflicts.

Classified Andrews 10/15/92

Much of what we have discussed in closed meetings is based on current intelligence sources and methods. This is not, as some have charged, an attempt to hide a perceived Government failure to liberate our POWs. Rather, it is the fulfillment of our obligation to protect those intelligence means and methods vital to our global responsibilities in the defense of the Nation.

Classified Bell 11/06/91

To be honest with you, sir, except for the 105 live-sighting investigations that are now still active, I don't see any reason to classify any of the other information... I think the only thing that needs to be sanitized or declassified from those reports is the name of the individual who provided the information.

Classified Clements 09/24/92

At that time, those classifications were held within the services. In other words, the Navy classified their people, Army did theirs, and the Air Force did theirs. I want to make that very clear because it's important that your committee and the public at large understand that the office of the Secretary of Defense and/or the State Department and/or the National Security Council, nor the President had any control whatsoever over classification. That was strictly within the services.

Classified Donahue 11/07/91

You see, here the problem is but one thing. It is secrecy. The war in Laos was a secret war. The POWs in Laos were secret. The POW and MIA intelligence is a secret still classified. And the roadmap is a secret, highly classified. Everything is a secret and is so only because of one thing. And that is because some people are hiding the truth. For them, the truth is too powerful for this country, too destructive for the morale of armed forces, and too debilitating to our national honor for it to be told.

Classified Ford 11/15/91

Our ability to continue to collect information for the families and for other intelligence projects requires us to try to keep our sources and methods protected. We've used that more times than I would like to admit as an excuse, rather than as the real answer. I'm just simply telling you that that's over. We're going to find a way to do this.

Classified Griffiths 12/01/92

The families voted against declassification of information under ongoing investigation or information that would jeopardize returning our loved ones alive or dead. That position still holds, and that is the position I continue to reflect.

Classified Kerry/Smith 06/25/92

Chairman Kerry: ...First of all, there has never been an issue about this committee seeking declassification... So there is a vote that is set and we have a process in place with Senator Robb and Senator Grassley, who are reporting to the committee; I think a letter is being drafted today. We are proceeding in a responsible way to try to figure out how to ask for the declassification to get the maximum declassification, but to protect those who deserve privacy in the process. All 12 Senators will vote on this issue, and the chair set out that would be an objective of this committee the day that you and I stood up together months ago and announced we should do this. So there is no new news in this call for declassification. We are going to do it, we have always been going to do it, and it is going to happen.

Classified Kerry 11/15/91

...I emphasize on behalf of the entire committee, and we have just in our own meeting with Senators confirmed, our inclination to proceed efficiently and quietly to a certain degree in these first months with a significant number of depositions and a significant number of private meetings in order to gather facts, and separate fact from fiction, and do the best job that we can of trying to lay out reality here.

I will confirm that every Member feels very strongly that no stone should be unturned, but every Member also feels very strongly that at the appropriate moment, obviously it all has to be laid out in public, or we become part of the problem and we do not intend to let that happen.

Classified Kerry 06/25/92

Now the Committee is going to vote next week to declassify massively. I will state as a guiding principle, there is nothing the Committee does not want declassified, with the exception of something that can be legitimately shown to 12 Senators as being in current national security interest or something that protects sources and methods of the United States Government. Beyond that, we will have to have a strong showing of cause for why it should not be made public...

Classified Perroots 12/01/92

Another valid criticism from my point of view is the over-classification of information on this subject.

Classified Schlesinger 09/21/92

...from time to time the restriction on intelligence simply to protect sources is such that many who might benefit from having that intelligence are denied that because it would reveal certain sources.

Classified Schlesinger 09/21/92

...from time to time intelligence is denied not simply to protect sources but to hold that intelligence in a narrow circle; to deny it to those who are outside of that circle either for reasons of internal bargaining or the like.

Classified Sommer 11/06/91

We actually received more hard information from the Vietnamese than we have from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or any other American entity involved with this issue.

Classified Wallace 11/06/91

Few pieces of information seem insignificant enough to avoid the secrecy stamp. If we are to believe our government, we must also believe that the POW information buried in their classified files is so sensitive that its declassification would have dire consequences and perhaps even pose a clear and present danger to the national security. Otherwise, why would the government continue to classify the overwhelming majority of the information gathered on this most important issue?

I do not believe the government can regain credibility on this issue or adequately defend itself so long as the very information needed for honest evaluation is kept from public view...