Senate Select Committee - IX

Covert Operations

The Committee investigated whether the United States Government may have undertaken or supported covert operations in order to confirm the presence of U.S. POWs in Southeast Asia after Operation Homecoming and, if so, to review the intelligence information upon which those operations were based.

The Committee has identified only one operation of this type mounted after 1973. Although operational details remain classified, the fact that the operation took place has been reported publicly. The operation was prompted by a combination of human, photographic and signals intelligence concerning the possible presence of as many as 30 American POWs at a detention camp near the village of Nhom Marrot in Laos from 1979 until early 1981. The intelligence resulted in extensive and highest-level efforts by the U.S. Government to confirm the information. Unfortunately, the results of the covert operation were inconclusive and subsequent efforts were rendered impossible by press leaks.

Intelligence Support in Laos During the Vietnam War

During the Vietnam war, intelligence support for the U.S. effort in Laos was handicapped because Administration policy, at the insistence of the State Department, excluded the significant use of military intelligence assets. This was true despite the fact that accounting for missing military personnel in Laos was the responsibility of the respective military services, and despite strenuous efforts made by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to gain support for an improved POW/MIA related military intelligence effort. The Committee believes that an expanded wartime military intelligence effort in Laos might have increased significantly our ability to account for the Americans lost in that country.

Cooperation from Governments in Southeast Asia

It is not possible to account for the Americans who are missing from the war in Southeast Asia without cooperation from the governments of the region, especially Vietnam. The U.S. has requested this cooperation in four forms. First, we have requested information concerning live American prisoners, former prisoners or deserters. Second, we have asked for the return of any recovered or recoverable remains of missing American servicemen. Third, we have sought accesss to files, records, documents and other materials that are relevant to the fate of missing Americans. Finally, we have asked for permission to visit certain locations within these countries for the purpose of investigating live-sighting reports and searching actual or suspected airplane crash sites.

The Committee has done everything it could to complement the diplomatic and political initiatives of the Executive branch in seeking to encourage a greater degree of cooperation on POW/MIA issues from the governments of Southeast Asia.

Vietnam

The U.S. has long suspected that the North Vietnamese have been withholding a considerable amount of information bearing on the fate of missing Americans. The North Vietnamese maintained detailed records of U.S. servicemen who came within their prison system during the war, including many lost in North Vietnamese-controlled areas of South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. U.S. intelligence agencies are convinced, moreover, that the Government of Vietnam recovered and stored an unknown quantity of remains of American servicemen for release at politically strategic points in time.

The level of U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation in accounting for missing Americans has varied over the years depending on bilateral and global political conditions and on the degree of emphasis placed on the issue by officials of the United States. At the time the Select Committee was created, there was considerable progress being made in the investigation of discrepancy cases. In addition, an agreement had been reached with Vietnam to allow an official Defense Department investigating presence to be established in Hanoi. These steps were directly attributable to the work of Gen. John Vessey, the President's Special Emissary to Vietnam on POW/MIA issues.

The impetus for Vietnam's cooperation has come from several directions. Gen. Vessey has provided the Vietnamese with a respected and influential source of contact within our government. Bush Administration policies have established a clear linkage between different levels of Vietnamese cooperation and American response. The disintegration of the Soviet empire has deprived Vietnam of many external sources of economic assistance and political comfort. The rapid economic growth of other Southeast Asian nations has given younger Vietnamese leaders a strong incentive to establish their own contacts with the west. And the creation of the Select Committee has demonstrated anew the high priority attached to the POW/MIA issue by the American people and government. Obviously, the Committee does not know precisely how all of these matters have been factored into the calculations of the Vietnamese Government, but clearly the overall trends are hopeful.

Over the past year, Committee Members have visited Vietnam on four occasions to press for further information. Committee delegations met with a wide range of high-level Vietnamese officials, including those in charge of administering the wartime prisoner of war system. The Committee visits, coupled with ongoing efforts from the Executive branch, have yielded substantial results.

These results include:

• permission for U.S. investigators to carry out short-notice investigations of many live-sighting reports;
• permission for U.S. investigators to use U.S.-owned, maintained and operated helicopters in the course of investigations within Vietnam;
• grants of access to certain highly-secure prison and defense ministry buildings for the purpose of investigating live- sighting reports;
• guarantees of full access for JTF-FA investigators to political and military archives containing POW/MIA related information;
• access to certain key archival documents and personnel that had been long-requested, and long-denied by Vietnam;
• the provision of thousands of photographs of American wartime casualties;
• access to Vietnam's military museum, including hundreds of material objects once owned by American servicemen that might contain clues about the fate of missing Americans;
• declaration of an amnesty for any Vietnamese citizens illegally holding American remains to come forward with them without fear of punishment;
• a commitment to cooperate in the conduct of an "oral history" program that would seek to record information from Vietnamese military officials, soldiers and civilians who might have information about the fate of missing Americans;
• promises of full cooperation from Vietnam in working with Laos and Cambodia to investigate discrepancy cases involving servicemen lost in parts of those countries controlled by North Vietnamese forces during the war; and
• permission for POW/MIA families, if they so desire, to come to Vietnam and evaluate the investigation process.

The Committee welcomes the very substantial strides towards full cooperation on the POW/MIA issue that the Government of Vietnam has made in recent months. The Committee looks forward to the implementation of those steps in the hope that they will yield significant additional information concerning missing Americans and encourages the Executive branch to do all it can to see that the promises and commitments made by Vietnam are fulfilled.

In noting recent progress, the Committee does not wish to under- state the fact that the progress is coming very late--almost 20 years after the signing of the peace agreement, and after two decades of noncooperation, stalling and deception on the part of Vietnam's leaders. The Committee also recognizes that the recent changes in policy appear to be the result primarily of Vietnam's desire for economic contacts with the west. The closed and nondemocratic nature of the government in Vietnam argues for caution in accepting Vietnamese promises, for pledges given by a government unwilling to be open with its own people can hardly be taken at face value. Nonetheless, the Committee remains hopeful that recent improvements in POW/MIA cooperation are symptomatic of a trend in Vietnam that will lead ultimately to dramatic improvements in human rights, and political, economic and religious freedoms.

United States policy towards Vietnam should reflect the importance of freedoms that are central to American society and which have been central to our investigation. Without a free press or representative government, the American people would not have learned the full extent of our own government's knowledge about our POW/MIAs. Our policy towards Vietnam, as towards the other nations of Southeast Asia, should be predicated on a vision of the same freedoms for the people of that region that we enjoy here at home.

Laos

More than 500 Americans are still listed as unaccounted for in Laos, including 335 who were originally considered either POW or MIA. Accordingly, the Committee has attached a high priority to gaining greater cooperation from the Lao Government. The current leaders of Laos, who are successors to the Pathet Lao forces that contended for power during the war, almost certainly have some information concerning missing Americans that they have not yet shared. At a minimum, they should be able to provide specific information about the fates of a small number of U.S. POWs known to have been held by the Pathet Lao during the early stages of the war. Unfortunately, Lao leaders have been significantly less cooperative than those in Vietnam. The Lao have denied any knowledge of U.S. POWs; they have refused access to some requested sources of information; and they have been even more reluctant than the Vietnamese to grant U.S. access to their territory for conducting live-sighting investigations and inspecting crash sights. The atmosphere has improved to some extent in recent months, however. As a result, some discrepancy case investigations are underway and negotiations are ongoing for the establishment of a permanent POW/MIA investigation office in Vientiane.

Cambodia

The present government of war-ravaged Cambodia cannot be expected to possess documentary information relevant to the fate of missing American servicemen. Nonetheless, the Committee met with Cambodian President Hun Sen, who expressed his government's full cooperation with the U.S. in efforts to resolve discrepancy cases. Unfortunately, the Cambodian Government is unable to guarantee security in areas controlled by the brutal and lawless Khmer Rouge. The Committee is grateful to President Hun Sen for his help on this issue, given the scope and urgency of the other perils faced by his government and his country.