Appendix 6 : Selected Excerpts From Hearing Testimony - Part 8

Laos Admiral Stockdale 12/03/92

Sen. McCain: Now, you have acknowledged, however, that as to Laos you cannot be so certain.

Stockdale: No, I know literally nothing about Laos.

Vice Chairman Smith: And I just want to be certain, when you say that you do not think that anybody was left behind, you mean Vietnam, correct? Not necessarily Laos?

Stockdale: Yes.

Laos Admiral Stockdale 12/03/92

Well, we know that, you know, it's strange that only nine military men who are now in freedom that were shot down in Laos -- and I asked Brace, what did they have in common? He said, well, there's only -- he laughed at my ignorance.

He said, we were all captured by North Vietnamese soldiers and they brought us to Hanoi... I think of the Laotian people as kind of placid peasants and North Vietnamese soldiers as ferocious.

But in this case, the only way you got to freedom was to get captured by the more organized army, which is North Vietnam...

Laos Bell 12/04/92

Vice Chairman Smith: Let me ask you straight up. Anybody alive in Laos after Operation Homecoming in 1973, American POWs?

Bell: We had some reports there. The reports that I think are most worthy of consideration in Laos are those in the 1972 time frame.

Laos Brooks 12/01/92

My recollection is there were approximately a dozen, roughly a dozen names that either were put out on a Pathet Lao list at one time of people in captivity or names of people that we had reason to believe were alive when they fell into Laotian hands. I do not think it was more than a dozen, maybe 15...

Laos Brown 12/03/92

We had very frank discussions with them and pushed them very hard on what happened to our aviators. And finally at one point with the deputy foreign minister we simply said flatly, look, we know there were a large number of American aviators shot down over your region of Laos. We know that a significant number of them were alive when they hit ground. We have reason to believe a significant number of them were alive when your forces took them into custody. We have no accounting for them; what happened to them?

And after some pressure the government spokesman simply said look, we did not appreciate at the time how important this question would be and some of them were killed.

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Gadoury 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: What have you gleaned from those 6 years of living out in jungle, you know, and putting up with the heat, and the snakes, and the insects, and the leeches, and the difficulties and so forth? What would you share with this committee about the possibility of 200 people or 50 people being held in one place in Laos?

Gadoury: Well, as I said earlier, I have talked to hundreds and probably thousands of refugees, Lao refugees predominately, 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 Emmett Kay... the focus of our field activities with our teams is to go out and conduct excavations, but at the same time use that as the starting point, the jumping point, to get out and do investigations of these discrepancy cases. And the way they break down in Laos is, and what we're working on a priority basis, are three cases. There are three cases of people who were, at one time, POW. They're at the very top of our priority list.

And then there's 44 cases -- below that 41 additional cases, priority cases, where the person was last -- or the people involved in that incident were last known alive. And then there's a number of other discrepancy cases where we feel that the Lao should or could have some information. So, we're addressing those on a priority basis.

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Gadoury 10/15/92

Since 1985, when I started making regular trips to refugee camps and villages along the Thai border in which many Lao live, I've encountered certainly thousands of Lao. And of those people, have interviewed hundreds with information related to unaccounted for Americans, mostly in Laos.

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Gadoury 12/04/92

Vice Chairman Smith: Mr. Gadoury, you have been involved in the issue quite a while in Laos. What is your feeling, what is your assessment of the cooperation with the Lao? Are they serious? Obviously, they are not all that serious. What do we have to do to improve the situation there? What do we need to do?

Gadoury: Well, Senator, as you know I work on the field level with the teams that go out in the field. And what I see in the field I think is a reflection of some of the changes or the considerations that are given at the policy level in terms of bilateral U.S.-Lao relation...

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Gadoury 12/04/92

But when you go out there with the team, we're living out there in the tents, we've got our military rations, we've got our cots, we've got our mosquito nets, and we have our team doctor to take care of us if we get sick. Even under those conditions, it's very difficult.

Sometimes, laying in my cot there at night, I wonder, if I didn't have the cot, if I didn't have the mosquito net, and the military rations and all the things that we have out there, how long I could last.

I look at the villagers who live out there. The average life span in those rural areas is not much over 40 years old. You don't see a lot of old people. Sometimes it makes you stop and think what you'd be able to do if you were out there in a situation where you didn't have a lot of control over where you were living and where you're going.

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Gadoury 12/04/92

...in February of 1986 we went on our first excavation in Savannakhet Province. And our team went into Savannakhet, the town of Savannakhet, and we had to spend overnight because the landing sight wasn't prepared. We were put up in a hotel. They put armed guards outside the door and they advised us not to go walking around.

More recently on the operation I just came back from a few weeks ago, we were given pretty much unlimited access in the area of Savannakhet Province to address the cases that we had agreed upon before going out to the field. The Lao were very cooperative. In fact, there was a dramatic departure on this last trip from anything that we had experienced in the past.

They were very efficient in terms of coordinating with local officials, sending their representatives with our excavation team, preparing witnesses or locating witnesses and preparing access with local officials for our teams, and then sending officials out with us to do the actual investigations and surveys.

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Gadoury 12/04/92

...over the years that I have been involved in Laos, and starting in 1985, I personally have seen a dramatic change in the level of cooperation that we get in the field, which I think is a reflection of this higher level of cooperation.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

After January, I think, of '73, if I remember it, I was frequently getting instructions to tell Souvannah Phouma, who was the Prime Minister of Laos -- a gallant, honest man -- tell him to do this or do that; ask him to do this or that, and give him assurances that we will resume bombing. We will do this and that if the North Vietnamese or the Pathet Lao do not agree. We knew darn well we could not resume the bombing, but I had to tell him that. It wasn't pleasant.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

We were concerned, but there were no Americans held by the Pathet Lao, and were convinced that all Americans who fell into enemy hands in Laos were under North Vietnamese control.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

One of the great problems that thoughtful Americans had in Vientiane -- members of the staff -- was that we were sacrificing little Lao to protect our men in South Vietnam; that sure, we would tell them darn near anything just to keep them fighting. It may not have been totally honorable, but we felt that was the role of American diplomats or military leaders at that time.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

Godley: Really, I think the point we were making here was the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Let's get the nine men back, and then look into it.

Chairman Kerry: Let me assume that is true and not even second-guess it. The next question is you believed there were more, is that correct?

Godley: Again, sir, later on, I think it was March 29 when we said we did not think there were any prisoners still in Laos. That, I think, reflects the further consideration and consultation with all elements of the American team in Laos.

It's a blatant contradiction. I recognize that.

Laos Godley 08/11/92

You recommend a specific diplomatic track to gain accounting of the men held/missing, and you point out that we should hold them accountable for all POWs being held in Indochina, and you assert the following: "This initiative should forcefully and plainly assert that the U.S. will no longer play games with the POW issue in Laos. The LPF should be told that we know they hold U.S. prisoners and we demand their immediate release, as well as an accounting and information on all those who may have died."

Sir, we had proof, as much as you can, that Americans were taken prisoner. Where they were held, and by whom they were held, there was a good deal of question. I personally was convinced that there were no Americans held by the Pathet Lao, and the Americans that were prisoners were prisoners of the North Vietnamese units in Laos or had been taken back to North Vietnam.

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Laos Godley 09/24/92

Sen. Kerrey: Did you have a systematic method for debriefing the Hmong? Did you discuss some sort of development -- the development of a system that would have enabled you to debrief the Hmong about data that --

Godley: The case officers with the Hmong would do what they could. We had no system for doing that.

Sen. Kerrey: Why, if it was a top priority again, if they were our best source of intelligence?

Godley: Senator, if you were in my shoes, what system would you establish to question? Sen. Kerrey: I suggest to you, sir, that if it was my top priority I would at least consider the development of a system.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

Anything that Le Duc Tho said about Laos would be law in Laos in the Pathet Lao areas. The North Vietnamese domination of everything Lao was complete.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

The only reliable sources we had about MIAs or POWs were, of course, Air Force reports as to losses over Laos and Air America,...

Laos Godley 09/24/92

I never accepted as iron-clad any Communist agreement... Communists in Indochina were well trained liars and their word was nothing.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

Sen. Kerrey: What would your estimate have been of the possibility of actual victory and achieving a free Laos in 1971?

Godley: They were our friends, but I never regarded the military operations in Northern Laos as victory. It was really a sideshow of the big war in Vietnam. We pursued it with all in our power because I felt -- I and my associates felt that we were holding down three first-rate North Vietnamese divisions, some artillery, even some armor. And those men were in Northern Laos, and they were not down in the Delta or South Vietnam. But I never saw a victory in that... My sense of it was I'd do my best to keep it from occurring.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

...we did what we could vis-a-vis the Pathet Lao to obtain information concerning Americans captured or deceased in Laos. The discussions with the Pathet Lao representatives in Vientiane were fruitless and inconclusive.

Laos Godley 09/24/92

Chairman Kerry: Ambassador Godley, what priority for intelligence collection did you attach to the collection of information on POWs and MIAs in Laos?

Godley: Top.

Laos Haig 09/21/92

Vice Chairman Smith: I can understand Watergate, political pressures, protests, Congress voting to cut off the money. So, the President might say, let us sign it, let us cut, and maybe, this other agreement will be signed. We will get the prisoners back from Laos. Privately there was reference to prisoners in Laos, but publicly there was not. And, I think, families were misled by that. Maybe not deliberately, but I think they were mislead by it. And that is my point.

Haig: Well, you know, I can't act as an apologist for statements that were made after January, and I won't attempt to do that, but I will make some observations. The first is, I don't believe Dr. Kissinger, or President Nixon, or anyone involved in these negotiations ever took a position that in their intellectual anguish they did not believe was going to improve the prospects of getting our prisoners out rather than impede that process.

Laos Kerrey 09/24/92

What I have seen that is available to the committee thus far does not seem to me to represent a very systematic effort [to gather information about Laos]. Nor does it reflect the declaration that it was a top, number one priority of the embassy at the time. It just does not seem to connect.

We had to accept an assurance that really was worthless. Accepting an offer by the North Vietnamese to do all they could was hardly an iron-clad guarantee, and made it difficult for us to truly get an accounting for our missing.

Laos Kerrey 09/21/92

Sen. Kerrey: Mr. Secretary, let me first of all deal with your assertion that we, perhaps, are not being balanced enough in our regard to the North Vietnamese -- today, the Vietnamese Government. I have never suffered the delusion that they would tell the truth. I have never suffered under the illusion that, in fact, current negotiations with the Vietnamese Government would be terribly productive in getting a full accounting of remaining POWs and MIAs. I have never suffered under the illusion.

In fact, I am rather surprised, in looking at the negotiations that occurred at the time, that a representation made by the North Vietnamese -- do not worry, we will take care of Laos -- was all that was required to get the Americans to say, OK, we will accept your representation that full accounting in Laos will occur as a side agreement.

Laos Kerry 09/24/92

If you are saying, we have an agreement that gets all of our prisoners back and we have got iron-clad guarantees, but all of a sudden in the middle of this thing you are poised with the problem of explaining, gee, we do not have them all back, you have to explain that you do not have iron-clad guarantees and you also have to explain something different to the American people, do you not?

Laos Kerry 09/24/92

...the question was were there any surprises in the list of POWs in North Vietnam? Your response was it was pretty close to what we expected. We are hoping for 40 more on the list of those in Laos. That is your comment. I am simply trying to establish -- I know it was 20 years ago -- I am simply trying to establish, Admiral [Moorer], what the basis of that hope was. We have only six known prisoners in Laos, although we hope there may be 40 or 41. ...General Deane, had told you in a memo on March 21st that there were live prisoners in Laos in addition to those nine.

Laos Kerry 09/24/92

Now, one final important question. On March 22nd, 1973, you sent a cable to the Secretary of State stating -- and let me read this to you because it is important: "we believe that the LPF holds throughout Laos more prisoners than found on the DRV list. But we believe that for the time being we should concentrate our efforts on getting these nine men repatriated as soon as possible...we believe we should continue to press for the release of the nine acknowledged PW's within the time frame, but deal with the questions of accounting for MIAs and determining whether there are additional PW's to be repatriated within the time frame of this cease-fire and military protocol."

There is a sort of ambivalence in that I am trying to understand, and it is important to us. You said we believe they hold throughout Laos more prisoners. And in fact, we carried people as prisoners. But at the end of the memo, "we need to determine whether there are additional POWs to be repatriated." What was your thinking, then? That they may have been killed, or that you did not know?

Laos Kerry 09/24/92

I think it is very important that in the middle of the release period when you folks had high expectations... that you thought there were hundreds, but that you had six known prisoners in Laos and that you had a hope of some 40 or 41 more.

Laos Kissinger 09/22/92

Chairman Kerry: ... we did have information that these prisoners were held in caves near Sam Neua... When we confronted the Prime Minister point blank on this subject of non- accountability, we got the same kind of 'this was history; this was part of the past; terrible things happened in war' -- the very kind of comments that Soubhan gave us. Only he had given them to us more directly, saying [downed pilots] were killed...

Kissinger: I was surprised, and shocked even, by the small number of prisoners from Laos.If that is correct,... then we never received any prisoner that was captured by the Pathet Lao and they might easily have done what the Khmer Rouge did, kill every prisoner.

Laos Kissinger 09/22/92

...statistically, the percentage of the missing unaccounted for in Laos was far smaller than in Vietnam.

Laos Kissinger 09/22/92

The North Vietnamese told us that all prisoners held in Laos -- they told us this in writing -- would be returned.

Laos Kissinger 09/22/92

Our perception of the Pathet Lao was that they were stooges of Hanoi, that they had no independence whatsoever, that they were totally controlled by the communists in Hanoi... But we were confident and we had never an example to the contrary, that the Pathet Lao would not disobey anything that Hanoi wanted them to do.

Laos Kissinger 09/22/92

I used these figures in my preparatory talks in Hanoi, and I might point out here that all of the figures in the Eagleburger and Richardson memoranda were familiar to us and had been raised with Hanoi before we received the memorandum on my February visit in Hanoi.

Laos Kissinger 09/22/92

Chairman Kerry: So here you are in May with Le Duc Tho saying not what happened to John Sparks, or what happened to so-and-so, we need an accounting, but saying, give us a sentence that says there's nobody alive in Laos, it will be helpful to us. Why would you have been satisfied with a sentence?

Kissinger: I wasn't satisfied, Mr. Chairman. I was dealing here with a man who knew reality. I had no means of pressure left.

Laos Laird 09/21/92

Smith: When you were told or you had information either from the CIA or the DIA on your watch that there were prisoners in Laos and/or Vietnam, did you feel reasonably certain that information was accurate?

Laird: I felt fairly reasonably certain as far as the North was concerned. I felt very good about the South. I had a better feeling about Cambodia. I did not have a strong feeling that the intelligence coming out of Laos was outstanding. That was run by the State Department and the CIA, and we did not have our own assets there, but I did quiz the CIA on a weekly basis about that type of information.

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Larson 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: We haven't talked a lot about Laos. What is the level of cooperation in Laos?

Larson: Mr. Chairman, I'd say the level of cooperation in Laos is mixed. It's sometimes a case of a step forward, two steps backward, two steps forward a step backwards, and in my honest assessment after being there and having some conversations and looking, I have great difficulty telling how much of it is bureaucratic ineptness and lack of cooperation in a very primitive government and how much of it is policy driven in that there's some resistance to cooperation.

Laos - JTF-FA Operations Larson 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: Some people have... asserted to us that all you need to do is put the pressure on Vietnam and that will solve Laos, they control them. Do you agree with that?

Larson: That's not my assessment, from what I've seen. I think it's much more complex than that.

Laos - Perot Trip Martin 08/11/92

The Chairman: And was there any question in your mind that these were prisoners who were alive and being held at that time that you were there, or had they been tracked earlier?

Martin: No question in my mind.

Chairman Kerry: They were alive at the time you were there.

Martin: They were alive at that time.

Laos - Perot Trip Meurer 08/11/92

...a lot of Americans, towards the end -- especially towards the end of the war, if they were caught, they were summarily executed and put in shallow graves...It was not Laotian policy, I recall, Senator. It was the villagers, individual villagers...

Laos - Perot Trip Meurer 08/11/92

Chairman Kerry: Mr. Meurer remembers 27, Mr. Martin remembers 25, but the memory of both of you is specific as to mid-20's of American prisoners of war being held in the Sam Neua area in caves, is that accurate?

Martin: That is correct.

Meurer: Yes.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

During the course of this period, the numbers were always shifting back and forth as we found out that a certain individual was dead or a certain individual had been released. There were -- the lists we had and the lists that were given by the North Vietnamese didn't exactly match. And I really can't answer your question as to why I had -- where I got irrefutable evidence that there were 40 people in Laos.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

There is no doubt that the Pathet Lao was under the grip of the North Vietnamese army.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

The decisions to send the message, the decision to cancel the message, were all generated by an overall management of the plan we had to coordinate the withdrawal of the few troops we had left with the withdrawal of the prisoners we had left.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

Chairman Kerry: Did we have any photographs or evidence that showed that there were Americans in those caves?

Moorer: I don't recall ever having seen it.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

...a wounded Pathet Lao telephone lineman who was captured north of Vientiane. That prisoner located and described a cave complex in Sam Neua that reportedly had contained U.S. POWs at an earlier time. This was the first Pathet Lao prisoner or defector with up-to-date hard information on Sam Neua to arrive in Vientiane since 1971. He suggested that several U.S. POWs were still at Sam Neua in the late 1960's, more recently than the older reports that existed with respect to Hrdlicka and Shelton. And then the cease-fire in Laos in 1973 apparently effectively precluded any military-associated agent operations into Sam Neua due to the embassy's desire to avoid the possible compromise that such a covert operation would have on the impact of the cease-fire. So we never got in there afterwards to check.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

[citing Moorer deposition] Question: Why did we complete our troop withdrawal without insisting the Pathet Lao give us our prisoners back? Your answer: When this started and the POWs came back and so on, there was a very euphoric reception and the President gave a party on the White House grounds and all the wives of POWs came and so on. And press release after press release were that we were withdrawing the troops at that point. No President could have said whoops, we are not going to withdraw the troops because these people will not agree with us. They are not carrying out their part.

At that point in history, we did not have the stomach for doing what you are asking me why we did not do it.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

And when an effort was made by General Woodard to get the General Hoa, who was a North Vietnamese rep, to do something about the Laos POWs, his reply was that Laos did not participate in the negotiations and did not sign the agreement.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

...when I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not one message that involved movement of troops or aircraft attacks or anything of a military nature was originated by me. In every case, I had it initialed by the Secretary of Defense, or in many cases I had direct telephone calls from the President.

Laos Moorer 09/24/92

Now, in answer to your specific question, of course, that was supposed to be taken up with further negotiations with North Vietnam. In my opinion, and I don't know whether the Ambassador agrees with this, the North Vietnamese had an iron grip on the Pathet Lao. And the Pathet Lao did exactly what the North Vietnamese told them to. So, the pressure had to be put on the North Vietnamese. But, as I repeat, the only way you could verify these photographs and these DIA lists and so on is to go to Laos with an armed force and find out. And then of course we just lost all of our leverage. And, consequently, what happened was that we very quickly, by 1975, we had lost not only South Vietnam, but also Cambodia.

Laos - Perot Trip Murphy 08/11/92

Chairman Kerry: Do you recall the number of 25 or 27 prisoners being held in caves in Sam Neua as having been briefed to them by the station chief [during 1969-70 trip to laos with Perot]?

Murphy: I do not recall that number.

Chairman Kerry: Do you recall any number whatsoever?

Murphy: ...I had in mind 18 in one report. Now, I don't know whether that was briefed to them or not...

Laos - Perot Trip Perot 08/11/92

Vice Chairman Smith: When you were there in 1970 and you had this meeting with the station chief and others, what types of indications did they give to you specifically about the existence of POWs in Laos during the war in 1970?

Perot: ...They basically indicated that they had radio intercepts. They were able to track the prisoners on the ground. They knew where the prisoners were being held. The reason they had not tried to rescue the prisoners is the risk-reward ratio was not good. I certainly agreed with that. They probably would have gotten more people killed in a rescue than they rescued.

But they seemed to have a great deal of knowledge about who they were, where they were held. And they told of specific cases of Sam Neua Province, which ties in with General Walters' testimony several years later.

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Laos - Perot Trip Perot 08/11/92

...our people at the Paris Peace Conference were asked what about the people in Laos. And our people relied, oh, we'll get them back through Hanoi. Very quickly the Pathet Lao said oh, no, you will have to deal directly with us...We ransomed the people out of Hanoi. We ransomed our prisoners out of Hanoi. Senator McCain is able to sit right here today because we ransomed him out of Hanoi, but we never wrote the check. And that's what caused the people to be left in Laos.

Laos Rodman 09/21/92

Sen. Daschle: Well, what rationale did you have amongst the negotiators with regard to the justification for signing an agreement that does not include the MIAs in Laos and Cambodia? How could we rationalize that, knowing that they were there?

Rodman: Well we thought we had a commitment from the North Vietnamese in two or three different respects with respect to Laos. One was that we did expect to get a list, through their good offices, of the prisoners in Laos. They promised to try to get a -- help us get a cease-fire in Laos within a short period of time. So we were dealing with the party which clearly did call the shots to a great extent, and they were making some commitments to us which were not as formal as other commitments they made... So we thought that given that this was a Vietnam agreement, we thought we had achieved something of some value with respect to Laos and Cambodia.

Laos Schiff 08/04/92

...there are no compelling reason to believe that a substantial number of aviators were captured and retained by the Pathet Lao. The bottom line is that Laos is not the MIA/POW black hole it has been depicted to be.

Laos Schiff 08/04/92

Others who say that Laos is a special case cite a second reason for their belief. They say that because the Lao Government did not sign the Paris Peace Agreements, it did not return prisoners at the time of Operation Homecoming. This belief is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of who controlled the territory where most of our losses in Laos occurred. [North Vietnam]

Laos Schiff 08/04/92

...The Ho Chi Minh Trail network is shown by the black lines. Notice that most of the Trail is well within Laos. This area was totally controlled by the Vietnamese. Almost 85 percent of U.S. personnel lost in Laos were lost in this area. Our intelligence indicates that U.S. prisoners of war captured in areas of Laos remained under Hanoi's control... When looking at Laos on a case-by-case basis, we find that very few missing men would have become prisoners of the Pathet Lao. Almost everyone lost was lost in an area under North Vietnamese control....

Laos Schiff 08/04/92

Chairman Kerry: ...is there not a group of aviators believed to have been unaccounted for the Laos at the time of Operation Homecoming?

Schiff: Yes, sir, there is. They are among the priority cases...

Sheetz: There are right now still 64 discrepancy cases for Laos...

Chairman Kerry: So there are 64 question marks pertaining to Laos which would have been the body of that group about whom we had legitimate questions at the end of the war.

Sheetz: Yes, sir.

Chairman Kerry: So when you say it is not a black hole you are saying that notions that of the 500 plus airmen lost over Laos, the notion that many more than the 64 that we have questions about is improbable, is that accurate?

Sheetz: Yes, sir...

Laos Schiff 08/04/92

...I'd like to turn to Laos to clear up some commonly held misconceptions about the POW situation in that country. To begin with, I can tell you that Laos is not the black hole some believe it to be. People who think otherwise point to the difference between the small number of prisoners who returned from Laos, and the far greater number who returned from North Vietnam. But as I will show you, this is essentially comparing apples with oranges... A comparison of air losses is relevant because 90 percent of our losses in Laos in Laos were aviators... Laos and South Vietnam are very similar. A large portion of downed airmen were rescued in both countries. The small portion captured is relatively equal... North Vietnam is different because intense air defense made it very difficult to rescue downed air crews... Since fewer men could be rescued, more of our airmen were captured, and later more were returned from North Vietnam... because search and rescue operations in Laos and South Vietnam were more effective, more downed airmen were rescued and fewer became prisoners.

Laos Schiff 12/04/92

Another thing that I had looked at is, how many Pathet Lao prisoners can we confirm? At this point, taking confirmation very strictly, and saying that I can confirm a prisoner if I have a photograph of that individual, or I have a report from a U.S. individual who was held with that person, then if those prisoners are confirmed, I have 16 confirmed prisoners captured by the Pathet Lao...

There were 16 that were captured by the Pathet Lao. One of those was turned over to the NVA, and he was released during Operation Homecoming. The others were not released during Operation Homecoming, but some of them were released. There were six that were released.

Laos Schiff 12/04/92

Schiff: But of the 15 who were captured and held by the Pathet Lao, six of those were released, two escaped, and the rest are still unaccounted for.

Chairman Kerry: So of all the information so far on the black hole of Laos, there is only information as to 16 captured by the Pathet Lao.

Schiff: Only confirmation.

Laos Schlesinger 09/21/92

It is evident, I think, that the Laotians gave no true accounting of the Americans that had been in Laos.

Laos Schlesinger 09/21/92

When overflights ceased, of course, our ability to gather information diminished, but up until the time of the ceasing of overflights we were able to stay in touch with a number of those who had been downed in Laos and that's what led to the disappointment with regard to the brevity of the list.

Laos Schlesinger 09/21/92

...while the CIA was running the war in Laos, it was running the war, as it were, with military assets provided from the Department of Defense.

The United States government was not directly involved in Laos. it was a CIA-directed operation, but the assets that were being directed were assets of the Department of Defense. The agency itself, aside from the operations in the West, had a very limited number of personnel in the country as compared to the Department of Defense.

It was the responsibility, as it were, of the Director of Central Intelligence, yet the assets and most of the knowledge came from DOD. I hope that clarifies that.

Laos Schlesinger 09/21/92

I have a high probability assessment that people were left behind in Laos and a medium probability assessment with regard to Vietnam. I think that of the various parties, the North Vietnamese had the strongest incentive on the other side to be forthcoming, but I doubt that applied to the provisional government of Vietnam, and even the North Vietnamese were not enormously forthcoming.

Laos Schlesinger 09/21/92

We had been in communication after flights were knocked down over Laos with the people on the ground, and those people did not appear on the lists. So one must assume, either that the other side engaged in executions, or alternatively that the list was incomplete.

Laos Secord 09/24/92

Vice Chairman Smith: Without casting any aspersions on anyone, let me just ask the question this way. In your professional assessment as an intelligence officer in 1973, were live American POWs remaining in Laos, for whatever reason, remaining in Laos after the Paris Peace Accords were signed, and after the American POWs, the last group of American POWs came home on March 28th.

General Secord: I was an operational staff officer. But the answer to that question, obviously, is affirmative. I mean, that's why we drafted the memo we've been talking about here for some time.

Laos Secord 09/24/92

When you say POWs in Laos, a number, you are obviously referring to a larger number than the nine. And did all of those people come home that you were tracking?

Secord: None of them, that I know of, have been located or even heard of since the Paris Accords. But we did know to, I think, a reasonable level of certitude, that there were more, hence the memorandum.

Laos - EC-47 Shields 06/25/92

The MIA category is specifically appropriate to cases where you do not know whether men are alive or dead. That is case of those men in the EC- 47 in my own mind. I did not know.

Laos Shields 09/24/92

I think that the small number of men which returned, and the number of men which are missing would indicate that we should receive more information concerning our men in Laos. And I think it is foolish to try and say anything more than that.

Laos Shields 09/24/92

Shields: In the memorandum which was written in May -- which you had in your possession, which discussed the EC-47, which DIA has discussed and Emmet Kaye's capture -- I said at the bottom of that page: With your concurrence, we will continue the position that we don't know whether men are prisoner or missing. Chairman Kerry: I know what you said at the bottom of the page. But let me just say what you said at the top of the page. At the top of the page you said: In a DoD-sponsored press conference held April 12th, 1973, I made the statement that DoD had no specific knowledge indicating that any U.S. personnel were still alive and held prisoner in Southeast Asia. This statement has been the basis for all subsequent answers from DoD to questions concerning the possibility that Americans may still be held prisoner in Southeast Asia. You are saying it became Government policy.

Laos Smith 06/24/92

Laos is a black hole. We so not have any idea, with the exception of about 13 individuals, what happened to the people in Laos.

Laos Smith 09/24/92

We had information to conclude, even if not totally conclusive, but at least to assume, that people were alive in Laos and that we had this information. And that is my point.

Laos Smith 09/24/92

What happened to those people? Nobody has explained that. We are talking about huge references to prisoners here. And this is intelligence data that you folks had. And nothing changed, as far as the testimony that we have received before this committee. Not a damn thing has changed that would indicate what happened to those people. Nobody said they were executed. Nobody said they were released. And nobody said they came home. So what happened to them, and do you folks have any information on that?

Godley: I do not.

Laos Smith 09/24/92

CIA has said in this memorandum, ``We studied other information to access activity in Houa Phan Province in general, and the Sam Neua area in particular, and we reached the following conclusions. An historical precedent exists for suggesting the presence of American POWs in the Sam Neua area. Photographs taken by a reconnaissance aircraft in October 1969 show what may be as many as 20 non-Asians, accompanied by Pathet Lao guards, near caves at Ban Nakai Tua, 20 kilometers east of the Sam Neua markings.

Laos Stockdale 12/03/92

Sen. Reid: But the only people that you know of that survived being shot down over Laos were people that were shot down and then captured by North Vietnamese military?

Admiral Stockdale: Yes...

Laos Trowbridge 06/25/92

...the Pathet Lao, over the years, they had a spokesman, Soth Petrasy, who made many statements relative to American POWs... As far as the intelligence reporting that we had, it wasn't supporting his statements. We have talked with him subsequent to that time and he has indicated to us that his statements about holding prisoners were for the purpose of propaganda.

Laos Vessey 12/04/92

The second thing is that Laos is not as homogenous a Nation as is Vietnam. It's tribal ethnic groups that are split up in various places, the communication during wartime was miserable, and I doubt that it's much better today.

Laos Vessey 06/25/92

Sen. McCain: What is your... best explanation, even if it is instinctive or intuitive, as to why there were so many not returned from Laos as opposed to Vietnam?

Vessey: Well, Laos is a sparsely populated and rugged country... we lost physical things in Laos that we wanted to recover and couldn't find after they had been dropped from airplanes... just finding anything in remote regions of Laos is difficult.

Additionally, Laos is a different sort of country. It is a tribal country with different ethnic groups. The central government under any regime in Laos has had very little control over many parts of Laos... We didn't have as much surveillance on what our own people did in Laos during the war. That is to say, airplanes were outside the radar coverage in Laos, where they were not necessarily in Vietnam.

Laos Vessey 12/04/92

But secondly, there's another reason, that the accounting will not be as good from Laos as it was or as it is likely to be from Vietnam. You've flown over the area. It's very rugged terrain.