Appendix 6 : Selected Excerpts From Hearing Testimony - Part 11

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

Monday-morning quarterbacks can argue that the Paris Peace Accords were not perfect. I agree. To me, the ideal outcome would have been an American victory. But, Mr. Chairman, we had to deal with the war in the specific circumstances we faced.

Even with the perspective of 20 years, I am convinced that in those circumstances, no better agreement was obtainable. For example, just as I was leaving for the final negotiations in January 1973, the House and Senate Democratic caucuses each passed, by very large margins, resolutions calling for legislation to cut off all funds for the war. ...since Congress removed both incentives and penalties for Hanoi's compliance, how exactly would any achievable amendment have changed Hanoi's behavior?

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

The problem with the Paris Accords was not with the words, but with their implementation by North Vietnam. ...the U.S. Congress even more vigorously, and successfully, undercut our ability to enforce those accords.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

We have had many disagreements on policy, and honorable people will differ about this. But on the fate of our prisoners, Mr. Chairman, there can be no division. We had all an equal concern.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

There were also numerous Congressional resolutions. Most were Congress resolutions which were not binding. But whether they passed or not, they were all known to the Vietnamese and weakened our negotiating position. 35 of these resolutions were introduced in 1972 alone.

...During this period many political leaders, including Senator McGovern and 30 other U.S. Senators, were calling for unconditional, unilateral withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam without any formal North Vietnamese commitment or the concurrent or even subsequent return of our MIAs and POWs, or accounting for the missing in action. . . .

At the same time, members of the American peace movement were spreading the word that they had been told by the North Vietnamese that setting a deadline for our withdrawal would create favorable conditions for the subsequent release of American prisoners of war.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

Privately, you see, the problem was they were counting a great deal on our domestic opposition, so they were going extremely slowly in the negotiations.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

Oh, it's a fair question, Mr. Chairman, and the answer to it is that this body prevented the enforcement of the agreement. When we spoke of iron-clad guarantees we never thought we were dealing with a bunch of Lord Fauntleroys whom we could hand a document to. We thought we had the right to enforce the agreement, which was then taken away from us.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

From the day we entered office, we had no more consistent goal than the release of the brave Americans held prisoner throughout Indochina and a full accounting of their missing colleagues. The negotiating record makes clear that this matter was insistently raised with the North Vietnamese. There was no issue on which American officials, from the President on down, were more adamant. Yet here we are 20 years later being pilloried in leaks without a shred of evidence, with the unforgivable libel that we knowingly abandoned the very group whose suffering was the biggest single incentive for our exertions.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

The problem with the Paris accords was not with the words, but with their implementation by Vietnam. From the very start, Hanoi began violating the accords. The record shows clearly that while the executive branch tried strenuously to bring pressure on Hanoi, in particular those relating to POWs and MIAs, the U.S. Congress even more vigorously, and successfully, undercut our ability to enforce those accords.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

If the Vietnamese violated these provisions it was not because of any omission by the responsible U.S. officials but because we had been stripped of the weapons we might have used to enforce that commitment.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

We had, in meetings with many groups, said forever that if we got the terms we asked for we would end the war. That we were not pursuing the war and that we were not making these proposals as gimmicks; we meant it.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

Despite all these obstacles, strenuous negotiations resulted in a joint communique on June 13th, reaffirming and strengthening all the POW provisions, ...We made no secret of our outrage with Hanoi's violation.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

I therefore cannot accept, Senator Kerry, that information was knowingly kept from the American public. Nobody had a monopoly of anguish in that period. Nobody had any conceivable interest in deceiving the American people.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

In response to my presentations, Le Duc Tho disdainfully read me editorials from the American press and speeches from the Congressional Record.

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

[quoting from his 1973 statement] "...as for us at home it should be clear by now that no one in this war has had a monopoly of anguish and that no one in these debates has had a monopoly of moral insight. And now that at last we have achieved an agreement in which the United States did not prescribe the political future to its allies, an agreement which would preserve the dignity and self-respect of all parties, together with healing the wounds in Indochina we can begin to heal the wounds in America."

Peace Talks Kissinger 09/22/92

If Saigon collapsed, the residual American force would become hostage. The number of our prisoners would increase exponentially. In the end, we achieved the terms we set out to obtain, and which our critics had repeatedly told us were unattainable. In the process, we dramatically improved the conditions for the return of American forces. We demanded and obtained release of all prisoners.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

Only when our leverage was in the process of being dismantled, while the Saigon Government was disintegrating, in the absence of a cease-fire, would we be permitted to talk about our prisoners under conditions of unspeakable chaos.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

Nobody ever questioned that the accounting for the missing was unsatisfactory. We raised it at least 60 times during 1973. The only difference is that we did not know of confirmed prisoners. And had we known it, we would have taken the most drastic steps. As I will say in my statement, but it is better clearly understood now, I advocated the resumption of military operations to enforce the agreement starting in the middle of March, 1973.

Peace Talks - Implementation Kissinger 09/22/92

...we never accepted that They're all dead, and continued to express our dissatisfaction with Hanoi's failure to account for the MIAs.

Peace Talks Laird 09/21/92

I knew about the secret negotiations probably as soon as Ambassador Harriman went over there. I was a member of the -- we had, at that time, a smaller committee in the House of Representatives that handled highly classified operations. As a member of the Defense Appropriations Committee, I was informed of those negotiations as they went forward in Paris. And I was kept informed regularly, of course, as Secretary of Defense.

Peace Talks Lord 09/21/92

I believe the final agreement was the best possible one at the time, given the mood in America and the pressures on the U.S. side. It was a far better deal than almost anyone on the American scene thought possible, and that almost all of Congress and the media and certainly the demonstrators were calling for.

It is unfair, retrospectively, to forget the atmosphere of the times in evaluating the agreement today. It is unfair to examine our maximum positions during the course of the negotiations and complain that they were not all realized in the end. By definition, any agreement had to be a compromise and reflect the realities of both the battlefield and American domestic support.

Peace Talks - Implementation Moorer 09/24/92

The country was in a state of near anarchy,...

Peace Talks - Implementation Moorer 09/24/92

...I don't think that any nation has ever fought a war with 500,00 troops and let the capital of the opposing nation have a sanctuary.

Peace Talks - Implementation Richardson 09/24/92

The question is one of what the public will support, what Congress would support in the circumstances, what the international political costs are of a new use of force. And, indeed, I don't know exactly when the vote taken by Congress was, but it was not long after that Congress specifically prohibited the use of force for this or any other purpose having to do with Vietnam.

Peace Talks - Implementation Richardson 09/24/92

those of us here in Washington and in the Government -- when you and your fellow prisoners of war returned, it was a tremendously, to me, moving and exciting moment. I had the opportunity then to talk with many of you, and it was an indelible experience.

And I think that this feeling, very broadly shared, may have had something to do with the whole feeling that peace had been achieved, the prisoners were home, it was over. It had been truly a nightmare.

All I can say is that it would have been a very tough call, when the North Vietnamese in effect abrogated the whole agreement by re-invading or invading South Vietnam. Then surely had the political -- had it been politically feasible, bombing and, I think, other military responses should have been initiated.

Peace Talks - Implementation Robson 09/24/92

Chairman Kerry: After that initial 60-day period beginning with 29 January to the end of March, what happened in terms of your effort to gain accounting for those people? Can you describe that for us?

Mr. Robson: Yes, sir. We had that series of folders, as I said, approximately 80. I don't remember the exact number. But we also developed some more information. I say we, the services, JCRC, and the intelligence agencies developed more information which was fed to JCRC in Thailand, which in turn was passed back to us, and we ended up with a total of 104 folders with information on people that the enemy should be able to tell us about with any great amount of difficulty. And I personally passed that list and stuff to them, I believe, on the 17th of April.

Chairman Kerry: What kind of response did you get?

Mr. Robson: Nothing.

Peace Talks - Implementation Robson 09/24/92

Chairman Kerry: ...When we deposed Colonel Bernie Russell, who is --

Vice Chairman Smith: The U.S. head of the Four-Party Joint Military Team, he said otherwise. He stated that in early May the Vietnamese were linking U.S. aid commitments to cooperation with the MIAs. And when the vote came, or when the word was passed down to the Vietnamese, or passed to the Vietnamese that there was no aid forthcoming, or at least not in the immediate future, that they stopped cooperating.

Colonel Robson: There is no contradiction there, sir. That's exactly what happened.

Vice Chairman Smith: What?

Colonel Robson: When they got the word that the aid was cut off, they just --

Vice Chairman Smith: Bailed out.

Colonel Robson: Just started bailing out. I mean, they'd sit and talk to you.

Peace Talks - Implementation Robson 09/24/92

Chairman Kerry: When you say nothing, they just --

Mr. Robson: They took it and they said we will study it. The same thing they told Dr. Kissinger in Hanoi.

Chairman Kerry: So in effect, the process that was put in place to get the accounting was truly not working almost from the beginning.

Peace Talks Schlesinger 09/21/92

...but one must assume that we had concluded that the bargaining position of the United States in dealing with Vietnam, North Vietnam, was quite weak, we were anxious to get our troops out, and that we were not going to roil the waters if that could be avoided. That would be my judgement.

Peace Talks - Implementation Secord 09/24/92

Sen. Brown: But faced with the cutoff of funds, what would you have recommended? What should we have done? What should the Administration have done faced with the cutoff of funds for military alternatives?

Secord: If the Congress totally tied our hands with respect to ability to wage another offense, another bombing campaign, then what I alluded to earlier seems to be the only option. That would be to mount an intensive intelligence operation using all of our intelligence community and really putting some dollars behind it.

Peace Talks - Implementation Shields 09/24/92

Chairman Kerry: But you did choose 14 that you did know were prisoner.

Dr. Shields: No, we did not -- Senator, we did not know they were prisoner. We knew that they could have been prisoners. We never had any intelligence that they actually entered the prison.

Chairman Kerry: That's not what you said on that day.

Dr. Shields: I don't know the press conference transcript.

Chairman Kerry: I will show you. "These 14 individuals were at one time identified by the DRV as having been captured, but were not listed on the so-called complete list provided on 22 December." We carried them as POW. We believed they were POW. We held a press conference saying they are POW.

Peace Talks - Implementation Shields 06/25/92

Shields: I believe we failed to get as complete an accounting as we could have gotten at that time, yes, I do. There is no question about it. In mind, had Article 8B been implemented, we would have had the accounting that we desired.

Chairman Kerry: And your interpretation of why it was not implemented is?

Shields: We never had access to the areas where we needed to go. We needed to go into the areas where our men were lost. We needed to begin with the incident of loss and track down what happened to them from that point... in the area of Laos, we did not have access. We were not allowed to go. The government was hostile. The same was true of North Vietnam.

Peace Talks - Implementation Shields 06/25/92

The record of our efforts to implement Article 8(b) have been well documented. Without cooperation from the other side, the JCRC sent teams into the field to investigate crash and suspected grave sites. An extensive and sophisticated underwater search effort was made off the cost of South Vietnam at suspected crash site locations.

The last U.S. military man to die from hostile fire in Vietnam in a U.S. initiated action was killed in December, 1973. He was a member of a JCRC field team, and with the ambush of that team and his death, our field efforts ceased.

Peace Talks - Implementation Shields 06/25/92

Shields: Now, the families had all of the information which we had available. The family of Richard Van Dyke, now living I think in Salt Lake City, knew about his case. They knew about what the men in the prison camp had to say about him. They knew about Commander Ford. So this information was passed onto families. It was not information that anyone tried to hide.

Chairman Kerry: But the point is, obviously, that here we are 20 years later with a list called, discrepancy cases. And General John Vessey who will testify later, who is an extraordinary public servant, who has devoted his time going over there, has a list of people that 20 years later we are saying to the Vietnamese, hey, wait a minute, we thought these folks were alive. Now, if 20 years later we are doing that, it just occurs to me that 20 years ago the presumption, the information, the probability, the expectation,... were a hell of a lot higher, and the moment was riper.

Shields: Certainly, Senator. We had at the time of the Paris Peace Accords an Article 8B which, as Mr. Sieverts has pointed out, contained all of the authorities we needed for an accounting.

Chairman Kerry: So there was a real failure to pull off the Accord itself and get the accounting?

Shields: Absolutely.

Peace Talks - Implementation Shields 06/25/92

Even though we were not having the cooperation that we needed, we made overtures to the Vietnamese time and time again. A Presidential commission went to Hanoi and to Vientiane, Laos, in 1977 appointed by the President, manned by distinguished Americans, specifically for this purpose of accounting for the missing. We had a complete set of hearings, and numerous hearings within the Congress on this issue, and the Department of Defense spoke out and maintained contact with families, and let the families know exactly where this issue was. So if there was not a hue and cry in the country, it was not for want of effort on our part.

Peace Talks - Implementation Shields 06/25/92

We pinned our hopes on article 8(b). We negotiated. We staffed the FPJMT in the field. We had the JCRC in the field... We did not have access to Laos. We did not have access to North Vietnam. We did not have access to most of the areas in South Vietnam where we thought we could go. The man who was killed, Captain Reese, was killed in an area which we felt was under friendly control. As it turned out, of course, it was not.

So we could not go into the field, we were limited to negotiations, a part of a treaty which was never observed, and never implemented. We faced extraordinary difficulties in those days.

Peace Talks - Implementation Sieverts 06/25/92

...our overriding objective during this entire period was to assure that all our prisoners were returned, and to assure that we were pursuing all available means to secure the fullest possible accounting for our men.

Peace Talks Sieverts 06/25/92

...the January, 1973 Paris Agreement was the first agreement ending an armed conflict that contained such extensive provisions for accounting for the missing and dead.

Peace Talks - Implementation Smith 09/22/92

...we did have iron-clad agreements with the Vietnamese but what happened is they did not comply with those iron-clad agreements.

Peace Talks Smith

I think it is important to understand the politics of the times, people in the streets protesting the war, 300 men dying every week. And those were the times that you entered onto the political scene with the President, and there was a great amount of political pressure to end the war, trying to end the war in an honorable way. And you proceeded into negotiations to try to do that, since there did not seem to be the political will to win it militarily. So these were difficult times, and you insisted on many matters concerning POWs and MIAs in those negotiations.

The issue, as far as I am concerned, is did the Vietnamese and the Lao respond to what you insisted on?

Peace Talks - Implementation Vessey 06/25/92

Chairman Kerry: Do you share a feeling that climate of 1973 may have contributed to... and attitudinal approach that accepted a sort of willingness to, perhaps, ask some tough questions and deal with some realities?

Vessey: ... there were many people interested in this issue at the time. There were unanswered questions at the time.

At the same time, the country seemed to be desperate to get out of Vietnam and be separated from that issue. And I think that people made the decisions that they thought were the best decisions at the time, based on the information that they had.

Peace Talks Walters 09/21/92

I think it was Ambassador Lord who said, you know, we cannot second guess every aspect of it...I am here to talk about POW/MIA, and what we knew about that and how that issue figured into these negotiations, and perhaps some larger issues about the negotiations and how they may have impacted our ability to get the full accounting that we sought.

Perot Childress 08/12/92

It is my opinion...that Mr. Perot's trip was counterproductive to U.S. efforts.

Perot Kerry 08/11/92

We may leave some questions out there because we are not capable, as humans, of resolving all of this 20 years later. But the record will be more complete. And the evidence will be greater and I think the effort more significant -- thanks, in part, to your participation and contribution.

Perot Perot 08/11/92

Mr. Perot: ...The POW project had to be a completely private project, otherwise it would have had no credibility with the Vietnamese, and these were the people we were trying to impact.

Chairman Kerry: But that was your suggestion that it be kept private?

Mr. Perot: ...No, I think that was actually Dr. Kissinger and/or Colonel Haig said this has to be done privately....

Perot Perroots 08/12/92

Mr. Perot's activities during my tenure had no adverse affect on my mission. I considered his efforts to be a reflection of his patriotism and sincere concern over the issue and that still applies. He made no mention of any enumeration nor any offer by the Government for any payback.

Perot Perroots 08/12/92

Soliciting Mr. Perot's support as a member of my advisory board and authorizing him access was my idea.

Perot Perroots 08/12/92

The White House had acknowledged Mr. Perot's efforts in support of the POW/MIA issue and commended him for his efforts.

In view of his past activities, I made a decision to provide him access and to keep him personally involved for our mutual benefit.

Photos Gray 12/04/92

Mr. Gray: We talked to the sources who sent these photos out. The individual that sent them out said he was never told that these were American prisoners. He was told simply by the source of the photo to find out who these Americans are. But en route to the American embassy in Bangkok the story became that these are American prisoners.

Sen. McCain: You do not know who put the names on them.

Mr. Gray: Well, we asked the source who said -- the ceramic merchant in Khompong Chang, Cambodia, why did they -- the photos that came forward as those of American prisoners. He said, well, if the Vietnamese who gave him the photos were looking into these photos, then they had to be American prisoners, but he was never told they were prisoners.

Now, the names were not associated when he sent those photos forward. None of the names were associated. The only names associated with the photos were actually the ones written on the photos, Chester Wimmer and others, names which were not of Americans who were missing. So not until later in the year of 1990 were names associated with the photo.

We determined that the names Robertson and Stevens actually came from a handbill that had been out in Southeast Asia since 1987. And it said across the top $1 million dollar reward being offered for American prisoners and the two photos across the bottom were Robertson and Stevens.

Photos Kerry 12/04/92

[to Chambers] I think an interesting example of that was your own explanation of what happened on the Lundy-Robertson-Stevens photo where it went from one person as a photo of Americans and by the time it got out of the car it was a photo of prisoners, and by the time it got somewhere else it had names of people, and by the time it got to America it was on the front page of Newsweek with three people, startling new evidence, and so forth.

Photos Sheetz 12/04/92

The photographic experts who used the computer-enhanced techniques at the U.S. National Labs to determine if the alleged Robertson-Stevens-Lundy photograph was accurate, they noted that the handwritten sign that the Senator is referencing was not on the original photograph, that was a paste-on, and then the photograph was re-shot. There was no question about that.

Priority Apodaca 11/06/91

Earlier this year, I was actively involved in a highest national priority, Operation Desert Storm... I don't know if this is a good comparison, but if the POW/MIA issue has the highest national priority, why are hundreds of remains still in Vietnam today? Why are agencies allowed to not follow through on reports? Why can't we find the fingerprint records for almost 25 percent of those still missing?

I would not be so upset if the Government had called this a high national priority, but they didn't. For years it has been the highest national priority, and for years I've wondered.

Priority Childress 12/01/92

...in January of '82 ...In the intelligence area, manpower and priorities were at an all-time low and I believe the POW branch had only nine personnel assigned.

Priority Childress 12/01/92

Let me put it in a perspective. When we talked at the national level about a matter of highest national priority, we were referring to not just resources that the director of DIA or someone in the Pentagon could put to the problem based upon the priorities we were giving them in the national documents. There's a difference between implementation of the priority which allows them to move forward or tells them how are you doing, moving forward, and saying that, well, we didn't have enough people.

Priority Gaines 12/01/92

Sen. Daschle: ...give me your sense of which of these criteria...had the most to do with our failures over the last 10 or 15 years? Colonel Gaines?

Colonel Gaines: I would like to offer that lack of priority as the one.

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Priority Kerry 12/01/92

It is hard for me to believe. I mean, if you have got 70 people responding to this committee's requests. We have got a staff of 15 or 20 people working on it. We have got 58 people in Vietnam. This is 1992. Here you are with files that, by your own admission, were not organized. Are you saying to me you could not find people to organize the files? You could not put people to the task of collecting the lists? You could not bring all the documents into one house?

I have to tell you, as I sit here, it just strikes me that this is one of those Government euphemisms that -- and I do not blame you guys. I do not think any of you made this policy...you were not the policymakers, you were carrying it out. But I think a lot of you folks were left dangling in the dark. Some people paid lip service to the notion this was the highest priority, but in fact, as you just said, it was not resourced, and that is the way you get things done, is resources. It does not do you any good to have a policy up here, and then you do not have the resources...

Priority Kerry 12/01/92

Chairman Kerry: In all of your reviews, did you find that this was indeed treated as and resourced as a nation's highest priority?

Mr. Wiand: No, Senator, I did not.

Colonel Hargis: ...no, I do not...

Mr. Nagy: No...

Admiral Brooks: Most assuredly not...

Colonel Gaines: No...

Priority Kerry 06/25/92

I want to, obviously, point out that the committee feels very strongly that the effort of the last year, two years, has increasingly been augmented, that the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense and Secretary Cheney have put money and personnel where they have put their stated priorities. And today we can boast greater attention to this issue and greater effort to put it to rest than at any time, I think, in the history of this issue. So it is not something that, I think, we are achieving and we are doing it on a good schedule.

Priority Nagy 11/06/91

...The kind of assets that we have now applied against the problem would have been best applied then [20 years ago]. I can't recover from that, and I can't apologize enough to the families personally.

Priority Perot 08/11/92

Chairman Kerry: Mr. Perot, does all this not really stem from the fact that in reality, despite all the rhetoric about highest national priority, this issue has been bouncing around with no real general -- you know what I am saying, no person really having seized the cudgel and managing it. Is that not accurate?

Perot: Yes sir, it's like a ship without a rudder. Every now and then a group will get interested and then let several years go by and then, another group will get interested, but there's no consistent logical program to resolve it.

Priority Perroots 12/01/92

There was no question within the agency that the POW/MIA issue was the top priority. We gave it not only top budgetary priority, but top disclosure in terms of exposure.

Priority Williams 12/01/92

Chairman Kerry: And the fact is I just have a sense that there was a kind of disregard, is a polite way to put it, for the real relevance of this, for what some of that evidence might really have meant. And it was kind of a convenient political highest priority but not really the highest priority. The highest priority was figuring out what the Russians were doing with missiles; the highest priority was responding to Grenada, Panama, a lot of other priorities. But this just was not there. That is my sense. Much more there today in 1992 than it ever has been at any proceeding time in history since 1973.

General Williams: I think that is a fair statement. I wold also say, though, that it was not until probably 1982 that the Reagan administration had a chance to reverse the long decline in intelligence manpower. The agency, DIA, had gone from -- had about a 35 or a 40 percent reduction, and you do not just reverse that in the program and budget cycle immediately. But you are absolutely right.

Chairman Kerry: And also, with the demise of our position in Southeast Asia we lost our on-the-ground assets. We were basically shut out for the 4 years after Saigon fell in 1975. There are clear things that ad into this that we need to take into account. And I acknowledge all of those.

General Williams: And you are correct about your impression.

Private Groups Duker 12/02/92

Well more times than not it can't be verified, so we have to pass it on as that. This is an article that came through to us and we could not verify it with Government agencies as to whether it was authentic or not. That's how we pass it on. We don't -- we won't say it's authentic if we cannot prove that it is authentic.

Private Groups Duker 12/02/92

So it puts us in a position of what is the truth and what isn't. Where else do we have to go to get information but the Government. I mean that's where the answers are, it lies within your committee, it lies within the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency. That is the sources that we have. That's where we have to go to try to verify the information that we get, the rumors, the speculation, and so forth.

Private Groups Duker 12/02/92

...there are just absolutely thousands of pieces of information out there that cannot be verified, and so it does make our position difficult in terms of our membership because at times I think they may think we are not pursuing it as actively as we should, but we are. But again, we will not pass on information that we can't verify.

Private Groups Eddy 12/02/92

...the Prisoner of War Committee of Michigan operates as a nonprofit, nonpartisan POW/MIA public awareness organization. The committee's primary source of income comes from the sale of public awareness merchandise. For example, bracelets, pins, t-shirts, and flags, mostly through mail order. The most expensive item we have available for sale are a lined Windbreaker jacket and a 3 by 5 POW/MIA flag, each priced at $30. The least expensive is a small bumper sticker priced at 25 cents apiece...

In addition to the sale of public awareness merchandise, the committee occasionally receives donations from veterans' organizations, concerned citizens, and others who support the work and the objectives of the group.

Private Groups Ford 11/15/91

...the people that really get hurt by this are the families who have these people coming around preying on their uncertainties and their concerns about their loved ones, and it ought to stop. That's one reason we think that this committee is one of the best ideas going, because hopefully we will get to the bottom of this.

Private Groups Ford 11/15/91

If I have ever seen a cover-up, this is it. The fact is that what is being covered up, for whatever reason, is that Jack Bailey went to Southeast Asia with our assistance, with our hopes, with our prayers, and came up empty.

Private Groups Gadoury 10/15/92

...in addition to our own governments efforts to search for information about potential American POWs and unaccounted for Americans, there were a number of private American individuals and organizations who were engaged in similar activities, some more extensively and in a more organized fashion than others.

Private Groups Gadoury 10/15/92

While we work for a full accounting of our missing and unaccounted for, we should also demand a full accounting from those who have engaged in fabricating information to further their personal or organizational financial goals, and at the same time falsely raising hopes of the American people, especially the families of our missing and unaccounted for.

Private Groups Quinn 12/01/92

...I think the need for some sort of better mechanism to reach out to other organizations, be they veteran's organizations, other POW/MIA, other family organizations, who have often expressed to me and raised the question about why they are so far on the outside when others are on the inside.

Private Groups Sampley 11/07/91

The pattern has continued. Rather than focus all available resources on resolving the problem of our missing Vietnam veterans, much of the effort has been directed toward destroying the credibility and/or reputation of the critics.

Private Groups Sheridan 12/02/92

The scholarship program that was established in 1970 has become one of the most important activities of the organization. It provides scholarship assistance to the dependents of those uniformed servicemen listed as missing in action or killed in action who were associated with the war in Southeast Asia, as well as those uniformed servicemen missing or killed in action associated with armed conflict through Operation Desert Storm.

Since 1971, when the first three $1,000 grants were given, 613 scholarships totalling over $760,000 have been awarded. This year, 26 students alone were awarded scholarships totalling $100,000...

The Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association has tax exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We are eligible for contributions from the Combined Federal Campaign under the umbrella of the Independent Charities of America. Other funds are derived through annual membership dues, contributions from the private sector, local chapter fundraising activities, and the generosity of the American public.

We have never used the services of a professional fundraiser.

Private Groups Steadman 12/02/92

I provided this committee with a chronological summary of our public efforts at influencing the Government on this issue, but I'd like to just highlight a few of our major efforts.

First, VFW has consistently urged accelerating government-to-government contact with Southeast Asian countries in pursuit of the fullest possible accounting. Second, we have consistently held that it was a legitimate function of our Government and its duty to the families to provide this accounting. Third, the VFW has consistently maintained that maximum economic and diplomatic pressure should be exerted on the Southeast Asian governments to obtain their full cooperation in resolving the fate of our missing men.

Since 1987 the VFW consistently supported public release of more information about our POW/MIAs and since then we have consistently called on the Government to increase its efforts to recover our missing men from the Korean War as well. Finally, with the revelations of Senator Helms and Senator Grassley over a year ago and Colonel Peck's allegations, we have supported a public investigation of the Government's handling of this issue...

Concerning finances, we do not solicit any funds for ourselves or any other organization on the basis of the POW/MIA issue, nor do we use professional consultants as fundraising organizations to do it for us. The VFW supply department sells POW/MIA flags and emblem devices, but the monies derived are quite small in comparison to our overall sales.

Private Groups Turner 11/07/91

It was apparent to me that there existed the strong possibility that actions by an agent of the U.S. Government had deliberately killed a viable operation to rescue American prisoners of war, and I wanted to find out what I could about it.