Appendix 6 : Selected Excerpts From Hearing Testimony - Part 10

Live-Sighting Reports DeStatte 12/04/92

...a BBC radio interview with Ambassador Camadolin in which the ambassador stated he was, quote, sure there is no so-called underground prison here in the center of the city, and above all, beneath the Mausoleum, close quote.

Live-Sighting Reports Gadoury 10/15/92

Chairman Kerry: And have any of them given you a lead that you have been able to follow that you have considered real or found to be real with respect to an American being alive?

Mr. Gadoury: In my recollection, in all the people that I talked to, there were three people who provided information, first-hand live sighting information, of what they said were American prisoners or people being held against their will. In two of those cases, I participated in follow up interviews and even polygraph exams, and neither of the first two individuals were determined to be presenting truthful information. In fact, there was indications of -- ...Deception in each case. In the third case, the Stony Beach office followed up, and I understand that in that case it was determined that there was no substance to the individual's report.

Live-Sighting Reports Haig 09/21/92

Vice Chairman Smith: ...we get into these definitions of hard evidence, and iron-clad evidence, and evidence... we have got hundreds of live-sighting reports that have not been all debunked. We have got some other types of intelligence which we will be getting into in a couple of weeks...

...where is the proof that the men we did know were alive are dead? Where is that proof? Why do you not put the same burden on that?... where are they?

Haig: Well, the same suspicion I have put on another foot. And that is that the enemy that we fought cared nothing about the lives of human beings, including their own. And I saw it on the battlefield, as you did.

Live-Sighting Reports Maguire 08/04/92

...So far, the largest body of post- war intelligence about missing Americans is refugee source reporting...Over 15,000 source reports have been received since 1975, and that number grows every day...To date, we have received almost 1,600 first-hand reports. DIA evaluates these reports and our results are reviewed by an independent channel made up of representatives from other U.S. intelligence agencies.

Live-Sighting Reports Maguire 08/04/92

...As of today, over 100 reports are still under active investigation, as we've just discussed...In Vietnam, hearsay reports account for about half of all live-sighting reports, and they tend to echo the details and descriptions of actual firsthand reports. However, in Laos, hearsay reports account for almost 80 percent of the live-sighting reports, and in many instances they are vague in detail.

Live-Sighting Reports Mooney 01/22/92

Sighting reports, stand-alone sighting reports are essentially worthless unless they are cumulative. They beggar more questions and you can argue about them all day long.

Live-Sighting Reports Schiff 08/04/92

...In 1979, we received information from a source who said he saw 50 U.S. prisoners of war between 1973 and '78, while he was held in Quyet Tien re-education camp near the Chinese border.

Reports like this one, where sources describe seeing POWs with their own eyes, are categorized as first-hand live sightings. They receive our highest priority for investigation. We used all-source analysis to investigate this report. We looked at photography to locate the camp in the area the source described, and we found it.

However, the photography showed that during the time the source said he saw U.S. POWs in this camp, the gates were wide open... However, to be certain that no POWs had ever been held in this camp, we located some former inmates to ask if they knew of any Americans held there. These people all denied that any Americans had ever been held in this camp...

Live-Sighting Reports Schiff 08/04/92

Each of the former inmates that we had located from the camp provided accurate sketches, one of which you see here. In fact, the only person whose sketch of the camp was not accurate was the original source who claimed that he saw 50 U.S. prisoners of war in the camp.

The moral of the story is this. Relying only one source of information would have led us to believe that there were U.S. prisoners of war in the camp. Taking a multiple source approach convinced us that this was obviously not the case...

Live-Sighting Reports Schiff 08/04/92

...the U.S. Government's intelligence collection capability on the POW/MIA issue is continually being improved.

Live-Sighting Reports Schiff 08/04/92

...as the U.S. Government's expert on Indochinese prison systems, we routinely study the handling of all foreign prisoners in order to gain insight on how U.S. prisoners of war might be handled... The point here is that within a few weeks of the time a Westerner showed up in a maximum security prison in Indochina, we knew he was there.

Live-Sighting Reports Schlatter 12/01/92

...judgments of a source are a fundamental part of intelligence analysis. And the fact that some sources are weighed and found wanting is not an indictment of the analytic process or of the analyst; it is a fact of life.

Live-Sighting Reports Schlatter 12/01/92

It's a fact of life that you encounter people who either make up a story or who really are telling you the truth, but they don't have a clear view of what they're saying and they embellish a little bit, or you have people who simply come forward with a very straightforward story.

Live-Sighting Reports Schlatter 12/01/92

The charge is made that we believe everybody is lying. We do not. Demonstrably, seven out of 10 or more of the people who talk to us are telling us the truth.

I found a lot of frustration. I was frustrated every day I went into that office and every day I left, and I am still frustrated 2 1/2 years out of it. But to then take the leap from frustration to saying you knowingly and willingly turned your back on a valid report of a man that you could have rescued is absurd. And that is why I am so hard over on denying or declaring the invalidity of the mindset to debunk. Because that is where I found that argument to lead.

Live-Sighting Reports Schweitzer 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: Well, what do you say to the live-sighting report process? Here we are. We get live- sighting reports. People come in and say, I saw an American. What do we do?

Schweitzer: I've never heard one, sir.

Chairman Kerry: You have never had somebody come to you?

Schweitzer: No, sir.

Live-Sighting Reports Sheetz 08/04/92

...because the initial contact with that source -- our field collector was not privy to all the information have about a particular geographic area in Vietnam, may not be aware of all the subtleties surrounding that report, we've got to go back to the source in some circumstances to sharpen up the original reporting. We do that through what we call a source-directed requirement, or SDR. It takes a couple of months for that process to work.

I guess we balance off the need for thoroughness and completeness and accuracy against the risk that we would take in going off half-cocked with half-developed or poorly developed information in a live- sighting report.

Live-Sighting Reports Sheetz 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: But as a ready pool of sort of information, here you have boat people. These are people who hated the government. They risked their lives, they got into boats, they went out into the South China Sea, they were escaping communism, escaping the country, they had a reason to hate it and foul it up. And yet thousands upon thousands of them said they had never seen anything, is that correct?

Sheetz: Yes, sir.

Chairman Kerry: Now, is that as relevant as a counterbalance in terms of proving a negative, if we are working with statistics, as people who say they did see something as a hearsay?

Sheetz: In fact... one of the techniques we use when we deal with this bogus reporting coming out of reeducation camps. When we've got 200 and 300 inmates who were there who said that they never saw any Americans and then suddenly somebody appears who was there at the same time that says, you know, there were 50 Americans in this facility.

So you have to -- it's not enough just to take individual reports and throw them up on the map. You've got to look at them in the context of all that you know. This is another way of talking about doing all-source analysis. You know, evaluating each report in terms of what you know about the area and how that report fits in.

Live-Sighting Reports Sheetz 12/01/92

Things are on track, things are moving ahead with regard to those investigations. But the results are not all in yet.

Live-Sighting Reports Sheetz 08/04/92

Chairman Kerry: ...given the nature of prioritization and the increased access in Vietnam, that a live- sighting report rendered in the year 1991 or 1992 would be the highest order of priority and the fastest resolved. Can you help me understand why the bulk of those remain unresolved?

Sheetz: ...before we send those cases out there, we want to get a very quick, thorough analysis of the case, match it up with whatever data we hold in our files, present the live sighting investigator with a complete package to go our into the field with not only information on the particular sighting, but now we're also sending out, along with that sighting package, all other previously closed live-sighting reports and hearsay reports that are in that same immediate geographic area.

We're continually refining the process, I, too, am desirous of having it sped up, but we can only work it as fast as we can get the reports in here, analyze them, and get them back out.

Live-Sighting Reports Sheetz 11/15/91

DIA has held all along that the report of the mortician that he saw three Caucasians who were identified to him by another person as probably being Americans -- that report stands, there is validity to that report. . . . I am unaware of any firm, credible evidence that Americans were held against their will after Operation Homecoming.

Live-Sighting Reports Sheetz 12/04/92

What I think we were really referring to is the notion that yes, there is a foundation for that rather large structure. And embedded in that foundation, it now turns out there's a couple of generators and some other equipment that's related to the facility. Is that a prison? I think not...

Live-Sighting Reports Sheetz 06/25/92

Sen. Reid: Gentlemen, what is the latest live-sighting report that any of you know of?

Mr. Sheetz: We receive them all the time. The inventory of --

Sen. Reid: When you say all of the time, it would not be unusual to receive a couple a week?

Mr. Sheetz: Many weeks we could receive two or three or four or more. We have generally an aggressive inventory that we are investigating. Between 80 to 125, and about every 3 months, we hold a review board where representatives of the entire intelligence community plus the State Department and the Joint Staff and OSD come in and listen to our analysts describe what we have been able to do to resolve or otherwise investigate the case.

And cases get closed out at that point, and the inventory drops down to maybe 75 or 80, and then over the next couple of months it will build back up. And we will hold another review board. So it's a very fluid figure.

Live-Sighting Reports Sieverts 06/25/92

[Investigating live-sighting reports] remained an active, if not primary then secondary, mission of all the American intelligence agencies to my knowledge right into the mid-Seventies and even to this day. The problem is that the kinds of information that began arriving after '73 were qualitatively different from what was coming in before '73. It's not a question of attitude by analysts, but rather simply the information itself, and it's for that reason that I drew attention to what is, to me, a significant difference.

The absence of that kind of verifying information in which the name or some other detail that... would let you know that this was real.

I have sometimes said that the very large number of sightings themselves raised incredulity. There could not have been as many American prisoners as the live-sighting reports suggest were there.

Live-Sighting Reports Sieverts 06/25/92

The very large number of these reports should have triggered caution, since it was clearly improbable that there were ever enough prisoners to correlate with all the alleged sightings. It is noteworthy that in most of these reports no information was provided on the name or names of the people reportedly seen.

While the war was underway, we received reports on captured Americans which often had names associated with them. This was so even if the reports came from indigenous, illiterate people who would render an American name phonetically.... it was the way of validating that information. Among American prisoners we learned so clearly over the years that the exchange of names was the highest priority.

Live-Sighting Reports Sieverts 06/25/92

My work with refugees has made me deeply aware of the desperation that these people face and feel.

Live-Sighting Reports Tighe 06/24/92

...the only way you're going to prove all of these things is to go over there at the point that is under discussion, so you can query the local people even or examine the sight of a crash.

Live-Sighting Reports Tighe 06/24/92

[In] 70 percent of those reports, analysis that was done in our office said that those individuals told us the truth.

Live-Sighting Reports Trowbridge 06/25/92

Sen. Brown: My understanding is that we have hundreds of statements that are sworn statements, where people have passed a polygraph test, indicating there are Americans being held as POWs... That indicates Americans are being held. Now, how do we reconcile that?

Trowbridge: There is information that individuals have indicated that there are prisoners being held. Of that information, we don't have convincing information, or we have none that we have confirmed.

Live-Sighting Reports Trowbridge 06/24/92

Right now we have, I believe, 40 unresolved reports that talk about Americans living freely in Vietnam. We do not know who they are.

Normalization Ford 12/01/92

...I happen to believe that it's very much in U.S. interests to normalize our relationship with Vietnam. I spent two years in Vietnam. I have every reason to know that country and the horror of that war, but I think it's something we need to put behind us, both in a political sense and in an emotional sense, and I think economic and whatever. I think it makes a lot of sense to move forward.

Normalization Griffiths 12/01/92

Once we do that, I think that the United States should move forward just as rapidly as Vietnam acts in the context of the roadmap.

Normalization Kerry 12/04/92

...if you read what is in Phase Two, let us say you were to do the business piece that involved permitting U.S. firms to sign a contract, but they cannot execute on it, they cannot execute...you are whetting the Vietnamese appetite.

But Phase Two specifically says continue the rapid repatriation. Vietnam in phase two is not alleviated of any responsibility. Vietnam specifically is required to continue the rapid repatriation of American remains readily available to Vietnam.

Vice Chairman Smith: If they become available after Phase One, true.

Chairman Kerry: So they must continue the process. We have an expectation of the continuation of remains in Phase Two. The roadmap clearly contemplated it, and it leverages it.

Now, let us say a couple of companies move in. Let us say you chose to only let it be certain kinds of companies, whatever. They go in. The Vietnamese start to get excited: Hey, this is working. But you do not get more of those remains. They cannot execute on the contracts. Everybody is going to get angry: Hey, how come you are not able to move forward? Gee, we thought we would be able to make this a real business thing, but where are those remains?

All of a sudden you have increased your capacity to get them. You lose no leverage. You increase the leverage. Phase Two contemplates it.

Normalization Kerry 12/03/92

Now some of us may feel, just as policy people all over the agencies may feel, that one step or another may serve better to get some of those answers. But none of us feels that we should give up leverage. None of us feels that we should move to an actual commercial product-moving relationship. Every comment that we have suggested in terms of the roadmap suggests that those who have advocated some step are simply saying, we think we can get more information and still maintain leverage.

Normalization Quinn 12/04/92

...I think it's important to emphasize that we do have a policy in place to deal with Vietnam, the roadmap policy. And it's premised on two underlying pillars. One, that we should speak clearly and authoritatively to the Vietnamese, and so we gave them our policy in writing and we told them that it was approved by the President, by all of the relevant secretaries.

Secondly, the roadmap was premised on both parties taking steps, concomitant steps, to address the concerns of the others. That policy, plus the work of General Vessey, General Needham, all of the people from DOD who have been up here, has produced results and I outlined those in my testimony the other day in terms of offices and prisons access, live-sighting investigation, remains that have been returned.

Normalization Quinn 11/15/91

There was also a charge, a criticism, of our overall policy, particularly the State Department's role in the POW/MIA effort, that we are acting at the behest of commercial interests, that we are rushing to normalize relations with Vietnam.

I doubt that those who would charge this have heard from the American businessmen and businesswomen who see me almost every day, and who leave, for the most part, disappointed. I tell them that we will not have the domestic support system necessary for Government or a business to move ahead with Vietnam until we resolve the POW/MIA issue. I add that there is hope for the future, because our policy appears to be working; but the embargo will remain in place until the proof is in.

American economic interests have high standing in our foreign policy, but in the case of Vietnam, these interests are weighed against even higher priorities. It is true we are in a rush, a rush to obtain the fullest possible accounting for the 2,271 American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War. The uncertainty has gone on far too long. We are doing our best to energize the process and elicit the cooperation we need from the governments in the region.

We have had some notable success in the past year, but more must be done. As we get results, we will take the commensurate steps that will help put the past behind us. The response from Vietnam is slow and begrudging. So, too, will be the pace and scope of normalization. At every opportunity, we remind Vietnam of this fundamental reality.

Normalization Quinn 12/04/92

...the question now is how to keep it going. I believe the record demonstrates [Vietnamese cooperation] that the philosophy underlying our roadmap -- that when each side is taking steps that we're able to move ahead, but that whenever we stop taking those steps that we run the risk of bringing the whole process to a halt. I think it should be that philosophy which continues to guide us in the future.

Normalization Quinn 12/04/92

...If I could just say, I think the explanation you gave of how these steps were supposed to work is exactly right and exactly what was in our minds when we laid them out.

It was intended that as you took them to increase your leverage and too, as you draw nearer to what in our view is what the Vietnamese want from us, that that would impel them to do all the more that they could to respond to what we want from them.

Normalization Smith 12/04/92

...I think we lose all of the leverage that we have by moving to Phase Two at this point, and let me explain very simply why.

We got the information that we received from Mr. Schweitzer when we indicated to the Vietnamese that we knew that they had it. So they provided it to us. Understandable. Now, if we were to go at this point and accept the premise that they have no more remains and move on to Phase Two or accept the premise that all live-sighting reports are resolved and move to Phase Two, not only is there not an incentive for them to provide them to us; there is a disincentive, because if we move into Phase Two and there is a cache of remains somewhere or a group of Americans somewhere still alive, to bring that information forth would immediately stop the process of the roadmap.

Offers McCain 09/24/92

Sen. McCain: Let me ask, at any time, did you receive or know whether the Vice President or the President of the United States received information of an offer of Americans for money?

Murphy: I doubt very much that could have happened. It's something that he would probably have discussed with me if he had gotten it separate from me. He never did. I can only assume that it never happened.

Offers Perroots 12/01/92

Perroots: ...let me tell you, they turned into being inquisitions. And when I found that out I took steps to alter it. But I was probably to blame. This was part of the whole atmosphere that we generated to make sure that we were responding to virtually every critic, to make sure that nobody could make the suggestion that we were hiding anything.

We trailed that film. It was in Billy Hendon's office that he said he had the names of the people on that film that refused -- it is a two-way street. You have got to have cooperation with the agency responsible for the identification of those people. And there were other inconsistencies in the way the Congressman operated that resulted in our terminating that kind of activity.

Sen. McCain: It is worthy of note, Mr. Chairman, and I was going to wait until the hearing tomorrow, that former Congressman Hendon has also refused to cooperate with a committee request concerning our investigation of fraud and fundraising, and I think that is interesting, particularly coming from people who are demanding full disclosure of all other information...

Offers Schlatter 12/01/92

Schlatter: ...the episodes that we underwent was that we would be called to come to this member's office, and in support of his legislation he would have some of his colleagues there. And he would say all right, I want you to read this report. Well, we would take the report out and we would read the report. Well, stop right there. Read that again. So we would read this one sentence again. Now, Colonel or mister or whomever he was talking to, what do you make of that report? Well, we would lay out our investigation and our analytic findings.

We would then be subjected to considerable degree of criticism for our investigations or our findings. The end result was that we chased ourselves round in circles. The same reports were reviewed time and time again, the same questions asked and the same answers given. At one point, the member ordered an analyst to go stand in the corner after...

Sen. McCain: He told an analyst to go stand in the corner?

Schlatter: Yes, sir...

Offers Vessey 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: You have had the opportunity to raise this issue in the most personal way on behalf of the President of the United States?

Vessey: I have.

Chairman Kerry: Have you, in the course of those meetings, confronted the Vietnamese repeatedly with the question of live Americans in their country?

Vessey: I have.

Chairman Kerry: And what have they responded to you each time?

Vessey: We hold no live Americans.

Chairman Kerry: Has money been offered to them, deals been offered to them?

Vessey: No. I have not offered money, but I've made it clear that it is the fundamental basis on which we can move forward in any fashion.

Offers Vessey 12/04/92

Sen. McCain: Do you believe that would be a good idea to say to the Vietnamese that we will give you a couple of billion dollars if you will give us any live Americans?

Vessey: I think it's a bad idea.

Sen. McCain: Why do you think that would be a bad idea?

Vessey: Well, there are -- there are rules of international warfare. There's the Geneva Accords. And I believe that we should promote civilized behavior among nations and that we all ought to respect the dead, the captured in warfare according to those rules, and that we should expect nations to abide by those rules.

Oral Histories Bell 12/04/92

Chairman Kerry: ...I want to ask you, in your judgment, on the oral histories, do you think that is sort of a gold mine, so to speak, and something we ought to pursue significantly?

Mr. Bell: I think the oral-history program is not only important from the standpoint of the interviews with the individuals for verbal testimony, I think it's also important in that they can identify areas where records are stored or areas where records were stored at one time. And also, a lot of the personnel -- in fact, most of the personnel who participated in the war kept personal diaries, and they retained those as much as possible and they still have those around today.

Oral Histories DeStatte 12/04/92

I agree that what we have referred to as the oral history program is very important. As a matter of fact, this is something I've been discussing with my counterpart and the people at the museum. Having a record that documents the fate of the missing person is really only one step in the accounting process. The final step should be, wherever possible, to return the prisoner's remains. And to do that, in many cases, it's going to require the help of witnesses, eyewitnesses.

Oral Histories Schweitzer 12/04/92

220 million Americans and 70 million Vietnamese couldn't do this. And yet Colonel Dai and I got together and these things just started coming out. And it was just so natural and so easy for us. There was nothing to it. But, when you look at it is seems mysterious, and I don't think it is. I just think it was the time and it just happened, and it's going to continue happening. It's just the beginning, and I think all the rest is coming.

Peace Talks Daschle 09/21/92

Mr. Aldrich, on the 24th of January of 1973 Dr. Kissinger stated at his press conference that there were no secret understandings in the sense of secret commitments. He said that there were statements by each side of its intentions or interpretations of the agreement on which the other side might or might not choose to rely...That is very important public pronouncement, probably equal in consequence, in many respects, to the pronouncement of the President a couple of months later....Dr. Kissinger announced on the 24th that there were no secret agreements, and that was left unchallenged. No one came forth on his staff, in the administration, by the President, to clarify a fundamental mistruth.

Peace Talks - Implementation Godley 09/24/92

The Symington Amendment was the final blow. That amendment, as I recall it, limited the dollar value of our military expenses in Laos to $300 million a year. This was to cover ammunition, aircraft sorties, bombs, food, and to pay indigenous personnel.

I don't believe that in the history of warfare there has ever been a military commander operating under such budgetary restrictions. We were beaten, not by the men in the field, but by public opinion at home, and were negotiating from a position of abject weakness...

Peace Talks - Implementation Godley 09/24/92

Any efforts to obtain a full accounting of POW/MIAs were doomed to failure unless the North Vietnamese could see some advantage in acceding to our request.

Peace Talks - Implementation Grassley 09/22/92

[quoting General Walter's Testimony] "Something like half the prisoners that were known to have been captured alive never came back to France after they reached a deal with the North Vietnamese."

Peace Talks Haig 09/21/92

...the bombing halted and the negotiations began at a time when Hanoi could see clearly that the Congress, the American people and the American psyche no longer had the stomach to do what it had to do.

Peace Talks Haig 09/21/92

What I'm saying is be sure you know the constraints that existed, because it's my personal judgment, maybe wrong, maybe naive, that Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon never made a decision that they didn't think (with some probably minor exception) was not dedicated to the proposition that we want to get our prisoners out, all of them, as quickly as possible. And I believe that. So that's my contribution to your deliberation.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kerry 09/24/92

I enlisted in 1965, was commissioned in 1966, went over in 1968 twice, came back in 1969, and volunteered, volunteered to go over, volunteered to go down to the southern part where we were fighting in the Navy, and went over to win. But I came back in 1969 convinced that what was going to happen in 1975 was going to happen. And the notion of trying to fight a war with these crazy restrictions that we were trying to fight it with just convinced me that you cannot fight a war that way.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kerry 09/22/92

There is nothing in the record that suggests you asked the Congress of the United States for the right to bomb because they were holding prisoners that they would not give back. Nothing.

Peace Talks Kerry 09/21/92

I do not want this to be confrontational. It is not meant to be; no member wants it to be. But 20 years later, folks, you know as well as I do that we are here because, for better or worse, the intentions we sought in 1973 have yet to be fulfilled. We do not have a full accounting.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kerry 09/21/92

...The debate is about what happened in this country in our attempts to get our prisoners back and were families dealt with honestly, were the American people dealt with honestly...We are not here..to rehash the war, to renegotiate the agreement. We want to know what decisions were available to us and how we might have made choices to get them back.

Now, you said we did not get a full accounting. All we are trying to do is understand why we were not able to get that full accounting. Was there anything disingenuous in that process of not getting it? Were we lied to? Were families not told the truth? Was it inadvertent, was it simply impossible as a consequence of the circumstances you have described?

Now, I have taken up more than my time here, but I would ask you what it was that prevented us, once we knew that did not have a full accounting, from going to the American people and raising their consciousness around that reality? Would people not have coalesced around the notion that they were not getting back Americans who were supposed to come home?

Peace Talks Kerry 09/22/92

A lot has been said and written about the man the committee will hear from today, but the one thing that has never been said about him is that he was out of the loop.

Peace Talks Kerry 09/22/92

The pressures on our negotiators during those critical years were real and unavoidable. We had a President elected in 1968 who took office in 1969 on a pledge to end U.S. participation in the war. We had a public hungry for that moment, anxious for the goal to be achieved. And we had a complex set of political and military objectives throughout Indochina that were at risk. We had a very determined and skillful adversary, and we had tantalizing but imperfect information about the number and status of prisoners in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kerry 09/22/92

[citing Kissinger's memoirs] But what is very clear, we were willing to move heaven and earth to support President Thieu, we were willing to move heaven and earth to enforce the bombing on the violations for infiltration, but we never talked about moving heaven and earth to have that full accounting and never did the American people learn, never did this come to the Congress. And I think it would have been one of the great levers that you had, but it was not there.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger

It did not matter whether we could have added one or another clause to the agreement. The provisions with respect to the missing in action were perfectly plain. They just didn't carry them out.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

Most commentators -- I would say all commentators, Congressional or media -- opposed any effort to stand up to Hanoi, arguing that the United States had no right to retaliate at all against the North's blatant violations. ...By the middle of April, Hanoi's violations were overwhelming.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

Unfortunately, it was also no secret that these efforts to pin Hanoi down amounted to firing empty cannons. In theory we had three sources of leverage available: bombing the North, offering economic aid to Hanoi and giving military and economic aid to Saigon to deprive Hanoi of the hope of military victory.

The Congress took all three levers away, denying us both the carrot and the stick. When the Congress eliminated our leverage, we were trapped in the classic nightmare of every statesman. We had nothing to back up our tough words, but more tough words.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

...Hanoi sensed our leverage was rapidly eroding. A host of congressional resolutions made it clear that we would have no support for military action.