Consultant, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
State of Oklahoma House Veterans Affairs Committee
March 26, 1991
My name is Harvey Andrews. I am employed as a consultant/researcher for the minority staff, Foreign Relations Committee, United States Senate. I am responsible for providing assistance and research for the minority staff's inquiry of the Prisoner of War/Missing In Action (POW/MIA) issue. The inquiry was initiated in the Foreign Relations Committee by the Honorable Jesse Helms, Senior Senator from North Carolina. During the early stages of this inquiry, the Honorable Charles Grassley, Senior Senator from Iowa was the motivating factor for my participation in this issue. This concern originated with Senator Grassley's staff, then passed to Senator Helms of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Senator Helms became concerned over the controversy that there was a possibility that United States citizens were left behind in Southeast Asia at the conclusion of United States involvement in the Second Indochina War.
The Foreign Relations committee has authority to engage in oversight of POW/MIA issues implicit in its broad mandate to study and review foreign policy. Senate rule 25.lj, specifically refers to the Committee on Foreign Relation matters dealing with "[11.] Intervention abroad and declarations of war", and "[15.] Protection of United States citizens abroad and expatriation."
The inquiry was initiated in July 1989 and is ongoing to date. The minority staff has published one report, entitled INTERIM REPORT ON THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN POW/MIA ISSUE, dated October 29, 1990, and, presently, is preparing an addendum to the Interim Report, due to be released soon. During this presentation, issues covered in both reports will be addressed. The majority of information collected for these reports was done by personnel with extensive experience in the field of criminal investigation, to include intelligence collection and analysis from a criminal investigation perspective. The investigators responsible for this portion of the inquiry are also military veterans of the war in Southeast Asia. The staff has also been assisted in certain areas by private researchers on the POW issue. In an effort to better understand the United States Government's position in the Southeast Asian POW/MIA issue, we broadened our research to include the Korean War (1950-1954), World War II (1941-1945), the American Expeditionary Force (Archangel) to Northern Russia (1918-19), and the French experience with POW/MIA as a result of the First Indochina War (1946-1954). This statement will only address the American personnel unaccounted for as a result of the Second Indochina War. Remember, these are only preliminary findings; this inquiry is by no means complete.
The information in our files was developed through personal and telephonic interviews; reviews of government documents of a classified, declassified, and unclassified nature; and information derived from private sources and published works. We have employed historical research methods in the collection of primary and secondary evidence in order to substantiate our findings. I must emphasize that no classified information will be addressed in this statement or during any question and answer periods that may follow.
The focus of our inquiry has centered on the following questions:
1. Does the United States Government possess valid information concerning living American POWs left in Southeast Asia after the Paris Peace Accords of 1973?
2. Has the United States Government failed to act on information it has relating to living American POWs in Southeast Asia?
3. Has the United States Government tried to intimidate, coerce or discredit sources which have valid information concerning living American POWs still in Southeast Asia?
I will address each of these three questions separately in this prepared statement.
The first question: Does the U.S. Government posses valid information concerning living American POWs left in Southeast Asia after the Paris Peace Accords of 1973? The staff position on this issue is, yes.
Our Interim Report of October 1990 addresses this in broad terms, but the addendum report we are about to issue provides more specifics and cites the source material for our conclusions or inferences in the October report. Our research has derived some support from a key person on this issue. It was noted that Dr. Henry Kissinger, the United States' chief negotiator during the Paris Peace talks arranging for the end of the U.S. military - role in Vietnam, states in his memoirs on the Vietnam Peace Accords (YEARS OF UPHEAVAL , pp 33 & 34), "The United States was aware of at least nineteen American POWs in North Vietnamese custody that were not accounted for by the Vietnamese." Documentary evidence from Department of Defense files, the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of State and this statement tend to support our conclusion that the United States Government knowingly left U.S. citizens as prisoners of communist governments, or revolutionary forces in Southeast Asia at the so-called conclusion of hostilities in 1973.
Stuart A. Herrington, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (ret.), in his book PEACE WITH HONOR?, was one of several U.S. military intelligence officers assigned to South Vietnam during the period 1973-1975 to work with the North Vietnamese and People's Republic of China representatives to account for missing Americans in Vietnam. During 1974-75, Herrington was one of the officers responsible for collecting information on the location and return of POW/MIAs believed to be held by the communists in North and South Vietnam. Part of his job was to develop a rapport with his North Vietnamese counterparts. According to Herrington, North Vietnamese officials told him that the failure to have all American POW/MIAs returned or accounted for was because of the our government failed to live up to President Nixon's promise to pay four billion dollars in war reparations to North Vietnam. In Herrington's words, the North Vietnamese position was: "U.S. casualties under North Vietnamese control would be accounted for and prisoners returned after fulfillment of the promise [to pay war reparations]."
Evidence of the existence of live American POWs still in Southeast Asia during the period April 1973 -75 was further established by our interviews with other American personnel who had been assigned to Vietnam during the years 1973-75. According to these individuals, there is information in U.S. Government archives to support the premise that our government was aware of several Americans (although some were collaborators, military deserters, or persons absent without leave (AWOL) when captured by communist forces) still held by Vietnamese and Lao communists.
For example, in this group was Mr. Robert Garwood, a former Marine, captured in DaNang in 1965 and released from Vietnam as a result of his own efforts in 1979. Mr. Garwood, later court-Martialed for collaboration with the enemy and striking/mistreating a fellow prisoner. He is living proof that the U.S. Government's public position in April 1973 that there were no live Americans were left in North Vietnam, was false. Declassified reports, memoranda, and message traffic from Southeast Asia during the 1964-1975 period released by Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in compliance with a 1978 court order, titled UNCORRELATED INFORMATION RELATING TO MISSING AMERICANS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, as well as declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports made available to staff show that Garwood was tracked by U.S. intelligence agencies from shortly after his capture in 1965 until his return in 1979. They knew he was alive in April 1973. They even knew the name of Garwood's primary National Liberation Front (aka, Viet Cong, or VC) interrogator during the years he was kept in South Vietnam jungle camps.
Garwood, during his debriefings with the U.S. Government, stated that he had seen Earl Clyde Weatherman, a Private First Class with the U.S. Marines Corps., alive in Hanoi in 1977.
Although Weatherman is listed as a deserter, his desertion is as a result of his capture by the enemy. According to intelligence reports reviewed, Weatherman escaped from a Marine brig to see his Vietnamese girlfriend when he was captured by National Liberation Front soldiers. Shouldn't Weatherman's status, once he was captured, have been changed from AWOL to prisoner of war? Is Weatherman actually a deserter, or an unfortunate individual captured while AWOL and never given the opportunity for return to America? Has the Defense Department ever asked the Vietnamese about him, or do they assume he does not want to return simply because he is carried in deserter status?
There is a lot of information on another American, a person known to have defected to the communist side in Cambodia. He is Mckinley Nolan, an American soldier who defected to the Viet Cong in Cambodia so he could stay with his Cambodian wife. Garwood says he knew of Nolan but did not see him. Mark Smith, a former POW in Cambodia, reported he saw Nolan in 1973 in Cambodia. Since then, a Department of Defense source in Bangkok has said that Nolan was killed by the communists in 1976. In April 1973, our government knew Nolan was alive. Did anyone ask him what he wanted to do, go home or stay in Southeast Asia? There is a list that is purportedly drawn from U.S. Government files showing eighteen U.S. servicemen in North Vietnamese custody in 1973. These men are listed as AWOL, deserters, etc. The entry for one of them indicates he went to the beach in Vung Tau (Republic of Vietnam) and never returned. Is he a Deserter? Possibly he was captured by the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong were very active at that time in the Vung Tau area, It should be quite evident from our report and these examples, that the position the U.S. government took in 1973 was incorrect when it said, there are no live Americans still held as POWs in Southeast Asia after the conclusion of "Operation Homecoming." Remember, no American prisoners were returned from Laos during Operation Homecoming. Nine U.S. personnel were returned through Hanoi by the North Vietnamese government. These are listed as having been POWs in Laos. What happened to the remaining estimated two the three hundred missing Americans believed to have been prisoners in Laos at the end of the War?
The U.S. Government has published lists of the missing from the Second Indochina War and these lists are updated from time to time. The State of Oklahoma has forty nine of its citizens on that list. Some of these men were lost in Laos, some over North Vietnam, and many in South Vietnam. Now, they are listed as having been returned in 1973, killed in Action/body not recovered, died in captivity, or given a presumptive finding of death status. Yet, on these lists, the men originally listed as AWOL/deserter have gradually disappeared. They are none persons.
This list has other inaccuracies as well. Also on this list are two men released from People's Republic of China after having been captured in 1952. One was released in 1971, the other in 1973. Both, I have been told, are CIA personnel who were aboard an Air Force bomber shot down over North Korea during the United Nations war with North Korea. Two Americans from the Second Indochina War are properly on this list as having been released but not in Cambodia as indicated. One of these two men has personally told me about his release. Dan Pitzer, former POW of the Viet Cong, and a companion were taken to Cambodia, fattened up, placed on a Czech airliner for passage to Eastern Europe, and were to be used for propaganda purposes. According to Pitzer, they were accompanied on the trip by an American activist, Tom Hayden, an unidentified Cuban, and the flight crew. While in Teheran, Iran, Pitzer managed to slip a note to a ground crew man and the two Special Forces POWs were rescued in Iran, not released in Cambodia as indicated on the list. What other misstatements of fact are there on this list? We plan* to find out.
The second question was, "Has the U.S. Government failed to act on information it has concerning living American POWs in Southeast Asia?" This is also be answered, yes. This is really a two fold problem. First, the analysis of live sighting reports by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) may be flawed; second, the various procedures used by the United States Government to "resolve" cases of U.S. citizens unaccounted for from the Second Indochina War (1956-1975) may have a negative impact on the individual cases.
The first issue seems to be the greatest part of the problem. All during the war in Southeast Asia, and the years since then, the DIA was a recipient of information collected the various military services, Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, and its own resources on American POWs. It appears, the majority of the reported information concerning sightings of live American POWs was during the time frame of 1960 through 1986. This is also the period in which the analysis of POW information from Southeast Asia seems to be flawed or, at least, short-sighted in some instances. From a review of a portion of the live sighting reports, it appears that Department of Defense analysts started with the premise that the information provided by non-government sources was false and then worked towards substantiating that premise as truth. In other words, there tendency was to disprove reported live sightings, rather than work towards proving the information provided to them. I am told that is the way military intelligence personnel are trained to analyze information from outside sources. In contrast, for the most part, criminal investigation methods tend to accept information as truth and then try to support it with independent evidence, or inferences. That is probably why this inquiry questions the results of DIA analysis of live sighting POW information, we see it from a different perspective.
In some of the cases reviewed, where information would tend to substantiate a sighting as being accurate and that of a live POW, the information was disregarded. In one instance, a DIA analyst was asked why such pertinent information was disregarded and his reply was that the source had recanted that portion of his statement. But a statement, or some evidence that the source recanted that portion of his statement was nowhere in the file. It seemed that the analysis was biased toward establishing the source as a liar, rather than attempting to substantiate his information. Much of the intelligence collection and analysis on the subject of POWs by the DIA and the Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) reviewed during our inquiry does not seem to be adequate in our judgement. In support of DIA and its casualty resolution activity, it has been established that at the height of the information collection period after the war, there was a shortage of qualified personnel to do the work.
In addition to the example previously cited, the staff found instances where the Department of Defense merely excluded from its analysis certain details of a valid sighting, such as a source's statement about the number of POWs sighted, their physical condition, a description of the camp or cave held in, whether they were shackled, or, whether they were gesturing for food. By excluding such corroborating details, anyone reading a summary of an individual file, or an analyst's report of a live sighting would not know these details. Because of this, a panel or board reviewing a live sighting report, or even an individual case file could come to wrong conclusions on the status of individuals, or whether or not live U.S. POWs remain in Southeast Asia. There were instances in which a timely follow-up interview may have expeditiously resolved a live-sighting report, but there was a general lack of emphasis on resolving the case through timely investigation and the follow-up interviews did not occur for many months.
To show how the Department of Defense excludes information that is contrary to their analysis, I'll summarize the case of Navy pilot Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) James E. Dooley, missing and presumed KIA/BNR. It is used to illustrate how intelligence analysts tend to disregard new information.
According to a file provided to this inquiry by interested persons, then-Lieutenant (jg) Dooley was shot down October 22, 1967 while on a bombing run near Hanoi while flying an A-4E aircraft. He crashed south of Do Son, Haiphong province, North Vietnam. Limited observation by fellow pilots, weather and the swiftness of the incident may have led to some confusion over whether or not Dooley survived the crash. In 1973, a returning U.S. POW claimed he saw Dooley's name written on the wall in a prison cell in Hanoi; two Thai special forces soldiers also released by the North Vietnamese in 1973, identified Dooley's photograph as that of one of the persons they saw in prison with them; and a propaganda photograph of captured U.S. pilots in Hanoi, dated after the Dooley casualty, shows a partial profile of a person that strongly resembles Dooley.
In 1987, a North Vietnamese refugee interviewed by U.S. intelligence personnel, while in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, described the downing of an American jet he witnessed in 1968, while fishing in the area of Do Son, Haiphong Province. The refugee stated that he saw the pilot bail out with a tri-colored parachute, land in the water on the Tonkin Gulf side of the peninsula and try to swim out to sea to escape capture. While swimming out to sea, the pilot fired a pistol at his pursuers, who were in boats chasing him. He was finally captured, stripped of his one-piece flight suit, placed in the sidecar of a motorcycle, and driven across Do San Airfield. Then the captured pilot was taken away by North Vietnamese officials to a waiting Chinese-made automobile. During this incident, according to the witness, other American aircraft were flying in the area presumably looking for the captured pilot. The witness said the downed jet crashed in the water of the Tonkin Gulf.
An early DOD analyst's evaluation of the source's information noted a number of discrepancies; Judged the refugee as incompetent because of his lack of education and the years since the sighting. According to the analyst, he believed the source witnessed the shoot down of Navy pilot J. M. Hickerson, which occurred in the same general area as Dooley's shootdown, but in December 1967. Hickerson survived his crash near Do Son and returned as a POW in 1973.
In April 1989, after having been informed that the DIA analyst indicated the refugee in Hong Kong may have witnessed his shootdown and capture in North Vietnam, former POW Hickerson voluntarily made a written statement regarding the incident. Hickerson said, he parachuted near Do Son, landing on the inside of the peninsula, not the Tonkin Gulf side; could not have swam out to sea from that location to attempt to avoid capture; did not fire use his pistol because it was under his flight gear; his parachute was solid white; wore a two-piece Marine utility uniform rather than a flight suit; and was taken to prison riding on the back of a bicycle. He added, that at no time did he see an airfield, nor was he transported across one after capture. Additionally, he said the ceiling was less than one thousand feet that day due to overcast and there were no other U.S. aircraft visible under the low overcast. In spite of the new information, the analyst maintains his position that the refugee's information pertained to the Hickerson crash and not Dooley's.
The second problem is that of accounting for the missing through various processes, such as: declaring a person as killed in Action/ Body Not Recovered (KIA/BNR); making a "Presumptive Finding of Death" based upon review of an individual case; or the identification of repatriated partial human remains at the Army's Central Identification laboratory-Hawaii (CIL-HI) and attributing them to a known casualty. These actions can permanently closes a file and subsequent live sighting information on an individual may be disregarded, or discounted because the individual concerned is assumed to be dead.
In line with the resolution of live sighting reports, is the accountability of missing through the presumptive finding of death, which has been used by the Department of Defense to write-off all unaccounted for U.S. personnel listed as missing in Laos. Authority for a "Presumptive Finding of Death" is found in Title 5 USC, Section 5565 through 5566, for civilian employees, and Title 37, USC, Section 555 through 557 for U.S. military personnel. These statutes permit the secretaries of departments and heads of independent agencies to declare an individual dead after the person has been missing for 12 months, under circumstances indicating he or she may have died. Once this declaration is made, surviving spouses, next of kin or children are entitled to government sponsored death benefits, e.g., six months pay for spouses of deceased military members, government life insurance, etc. After a declaration of death is made, the individual is then removed from the active roles of the military service or agency responsible for him/her.
An example of the KIA/BNR presumption can be found in a documented case of a U.S. Marine corporal who was last seen severely wounded on a Vietnam battlefield and subsequently listed as KIA/BNR. A year later, he had to be reclassified as a POW when a handwritten letter from him, dated after his supposed death, was found on the body of a dead Viet Cong soldier on a South Vietnam battlefield. The letter has addressed to the Marine's parents and talked of life in a Viet Cong prison camp. Based on this information, the Marine Corps changed the corporal's status to POW and promoted him in absentia to sergeant. At the conclusion of Operation Homecoming in 1973, he was not returned to U.S. jurisdiction, or otherwise accounted for. Since then, a presumptive finding of death was made without evidence that he had in fact died while in captivity. This case is a key part of a television documentary titled, WE CAN KEEP YOU FOREVER.
In addition to poor analysis of information, or failure to follow-up timely to information received, the accurate identification of repatriated skeletal remains by Department of Defense is suspect also. The Army's Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CIL-HI) is responsible for the identification of remains returned from Southeast Asia, Korea, or any other place in the Pacific area. The laboratory examines remains from the Korean War, World War II in the Pacific, and present day tragedies affecting U.S. personnel in the Pacific. The laboratory sent one of its people to examine the charred remains of U.S. servicemen from the infamous Gander, Newfoundland charter airline crash of a few years ago. The man from CIL-HI positively identified the last few charred corpses when other experts failed to do so.
During our inquiry, it was noted in cases where pieces of bone, or sometimes collections of bone fragments were examined at CIL-HI, they were identified as the physical remains of persons previously listed as MIA or, KIA/BNR. We agree, there is a high probability that such remains are those of the persons known to have perished at a particular aircraft crash site, or other such incident where individual skeletal remains were consumed by natural or manmade forces; but conclusive proof that the bone fragments belonged to a specific individual(s) is sorely lacking in many of these examinations.
Research shows, that at the core of the problem was an anthropologist who worked for many years at the CIL-HI, Mr. Tadao Furue, now deceased. Nr. Furue called himself a doctor, was usually referred to as a doctor, and signed documentation as a doctor, when in fact, his total academic achievement was that of an equivalent to a bachelor's degree from the school in Tokyo, Japan during the late 1940s. Additionally, Mr. Furue employed a questionable process for identification of remains which he called "Morphological Approximation." He used this process when identifying remains that could not be identified by any of the accepted anthropological methods.
In September 1986, the Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, held hearings to discuss specific problems at the laboratory. A follow-up hearing was held approximately one year later to review the changes made by the Army as a result of a commission appointed by the Army to make recommended changes at CIL-HI, as well as the findings from the initial House of Representatives hearings. It should be recognized that the Army instituted the majority of the changes that were recommended; those they didn't implement, they had reasonable answers as to why not. But, in those instances where Mr. Furue's procedure for "Morphological Approximation" was used as the means for identification of remains, those cases were not reviewed using accepted, scientific methods of identification to verify his past work. The Arms initiated a stop order so that the procedure was no longer used for identification purposes until it could be evaluated by a board of certified Forensic Anthropologists. According to expert witnesses, Mr. Furue's procedure has not been accepted as having sound scientific basis for utilization as a method of identification. To date, none of the remains identified as a result of Mr. Furue's nonscientific procedure have been reevaluated.
According to independent examination of partial remains, or review of the examination documents prepared by CIL-HI, recognized experts in the field of forensic anthropology indicate that in excess of fifty sets of remains positively identified by the CIL-HI could not have been correctly identified using accepted procedures. One of these experts, Dr. Michael Charney, Professor Emeritus University of Colorado, has levied these serious charges against CIL-HI both publicly and to Committee investigators. Dr. Charney states, "This facility, [CIL-HI], entrusted with the analysis of mostly skeletonized remains of our servicemen and women in the identification process, is guilty of unscientific, unprofessional work. The administrative and technical personnel have engaged knowingly in deliberate distortion of details deduced from the bones to give credibility to otherwise impossible identification."
Another prominent physical anthropologist, Dr. George W. Gill, former secretary of the physical anthropology section, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and a member of the board of directors of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, substantiates Dr. Charney's statement concerning CIL-HI. Dr. Gill stated publicly, "It is clear from their bones that the problem in the CIL-HI reports results either from extreme carelessness, incompetence, fabrication of data, or some combination of these things." As of this date, these charges levied by Dr. Charney and Dr. Gill against CIL-HI as early as 1986 have not been challenged or refuted by the Department of Defense.
The third question, "Has the U.S. Government tried to intimidate, coerce, or discredit sources which have valid information concerning living American POWs still in Southeast Asia?" can probably be answered yes, but I would like to reserve a positive statement to that question for the present.
People with information on this subject tend to believe representatives of the U.S. Government have tried to intimidate, discredit, or coerce them. Some individuals have been brought up on criminal charges, resulting in jail terms, or forced to spend considerable funds to defend themselves from what appears to be spurious charges. A number of our potential witnesses claim their income taxes have been scrutinized more than normal since openly stating they had information that would prove we left, or that there are living Americans left in Southeast Asia against their will. A few even claim unknown agents have tried to assault, or assassinate them for their activist roles in this issue. Some of these allegations can be dismissed quickly, but others will have to looked at much closer to see if there is merit to their claims.
What I do know is that a number of persons that may be witnesses to our inquiry refuse to cooperate out of fear of government reprisal. I can witness to the fact that while attending a personal briefing on this subject at DIA headquarters, one of the briefers was quick to attack the credibility of a former Congressman whom he thought was helping us in the Far East; another briefer claimed that if a person withheld information on this subject from DIA it was criminal, except he had to back down and say he thought it was criminal rather than actually a violation of criminal statutes.
All in all, there appears to be some serious friction between the various camps on this issue. One activist who receives official government sanction for her role in this has written letters to the Secretary of Defense's office in an attempt to stop Senators Grassley and Helms from looking at live sighting files; she has attacked our Interim Report as the work of amateurs; and, according to House of Representatives testimony, she is quick to accuse other activists of wrong doing. I'll have to admit, our investigative group is small, lacks the sophistication of investigations usually conducted by the Senate, but it does have dedicated, serious, professional personnel trying to find some answers to the POW/MIA problem from the Second Indochina War.
Finally, there is the case of the U.S. Air Force technicians lost on Phou Pha Thi mountain, Sam Neua Province, Laos in March 1968. The site on the mountain is commonly referred to as Site 85, the number assigned to the CIA landing site near the installation. Site 85 housed sophisticated electronics used to direct bombers in to bomb the Hanoi area during adverse weather conditions. The site was classified and the Air Force personnel were not permitted in Laos under international treaty. While at the site, the Air Force men were listed as Lockheed Corp technicians. On the night of March 10-Il, 1968, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops overran the site, killed many of the people on the mountain. Only four Air Force personnel escaped, via a CIA helicopter. The site was bombed to destroy the equipment, no bodies were ever recovered. The Air Force and Department of State said the missing eleven Air Force personnel died on the mountain.
Well, over the years many people believed at least three of the missing were taken prisoner. The widow of one of the missing from Site 85, Ann Holland, has fought an uphill battle over this for years. Her husband may have been one of the survivors and taken prisoner. She has managed to overcome all sorts of obstacles placed in her way, some just the result of bureaucratic red tape. During our inquiry, Mr. Usry interviewed a Thai witness who was on Phao Pha Thi on March 10-Il, 1968 and he says he saw three of the Air Force technicians taken prisoner. He reported it to the U.S. Government in 1968, but there are no indications it was ever reported to the next-of-kin. Then, in 1990, an Air Force captain traveling in Laos on a research project talked to a Lao officer who took part in the attack on Phao Pha Thi. The Lao said they took three prisoners and turned them over to the North Vietnamese. What happened to these men? Why has it taken more than 20 years to get this information? Has anyone thought to ask the attackers about prisoners?
I would like to use a quote from a document published by the National League of Families, a POW/MIA activist organization. The document is titled CONSPIRACY AND COVERUP, dated October 1988. It provides one person's perspective on whether or not there is a conspiracy and/or coverup by U.S. Government agencies in regards to the truth on what happened to the missing Americans in Southeast Asia.
"Those long involved are acutely aware that information was distorted or withheld in years past; however, now is not the time for those who are currently working this issue to undertake an historical investigation of past efforts - history will take care of itself. The league holds the firm conviction that efforts must focus on the present and future. Our men's lives may well depend on current decisions; they "do not depend on history except in the context of policy negotiations."
Our group in the Senate believes the real issue with the POW/MIA problem can be found in its historical aspects. The historical aspect includes evaluating the intelligence information that was poorly handled, analyzed with a bias of disproving the information rather than seeking truth; the inaccurate, or less than adequate identifications of repatriated remains by what some people believe to be fraudulent methodology; and review of the Department of Defense, Department of State, and other executive agency files to determine who these agencies are hesitant to discuss what happened to our POW/MIA in past wars. As a group, we are seeking to prove answers to the following questions: Did we leave people behind in Southeast Asia in 1973; did we as a government do it intentionally; and who made the decision to do such an act? The answers are in the historical context.
In the present, we have ongoing dialogue with the communist governments of Southeast Asia for trade, lifting of economic sanctions, exploration and drilling for oil, tourism, humanitarian issues, and diplomatic exchanges. There are enough experts and activists in and out of government to work these issues. Some are even tying the return of live Americans, or full repatriation of remains of Americans in Southeast Asia from the Second Indochina War to the issues of trade, oil, tourism, diplomatic recognition, etc. We wish them well, but we will concentrate on why did this [the POW/MIA issue] happen and who was responsible for the decision. From there we can tell you how many and who was left behind; hopefully, somebody will tell us what happened to them since that time in April 1973 when our government representatives publicly stated, "There are no American POWs left alive in North Vietnam." With your support, we will move this issue one more step in the right direction to get answers to our questions, from the historical perspective.