Correspondence, Responses and Documents
October 29, 1994
HONORABLE GARY L. ACKERMAN
Chairman - Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
707 O'Neill House Office Building
Washington D.C. 20515
References:
1) The Chairman's letter to me dated 8 April 1994. Subj: Chairman's expression of thanks for my testimony of Feb 10 94, and request for further assistance from me, to the Subcommittee.
2) Ltr from your Subcommittee, recv 7 June 94, Subj: Request to submit corrections of transcript provided, to my sworn testimony before you, on February 10, 1994.
3) Letters from B. A. Toll to Chairman Ackerman, dtd I Mar and 24 May 94. Subjects; Failure of Subcommittee Staff to "follow up with Mr. Toll", per the Chair's instruction, record of hearing, Feb.10, 1994.
4) Ltr from B. A. Toll to Chairman Ackerman, dtd 1 June 94, Subj: Review of furnished transcript of my testimony of 10 Feb 94 before the Subcommittee, containing my "corrections' to transcript.
Dear Mister Chairman,
I am glad to be able to provide Mr. Bob Necci, a constituent of yours and a citizen who has been of immeasurable service to the spirit of our Constitution and the POW/MIA families, this Statement, as I will accordingly, at least be satisfied that you actually received it, and read it (as Mr.Necci informs he intends to hand deliver this to you). I have doubts whether my other communications, as referenced above, ever reached you personally.
The reason for that doubt is simply explained; in my sworn testimony before you on February 10, 1994, you asked me if I "would cooperate" with your inquiries into the POW/MIA matter, residual from our Southeast Asian conflict. I told you I would, provided "I saw the effort was an earnest one". Your further statements from the Chair that day regarding your intent to pry loose documents I cited, induced me to then say (words to the effect), "Upon that representation of the Chair, then yes, I would cooperate". As I wrote you in Ref.3 however, despite remaining in Washington a few days, and several attempts at telephonic and fax communications with your Staff within the weeks following my departure from Washington, your staff never attempted to fulfill your directive to them, given from your Chair in hearing in February to "get with Mr.Toll on these documents he has, and his knowledge of where other documents reside in archives".
When you sent me Ref.1, reiterating your request I assist your Subcommittee in three specific areas of inquiry back in April, I was therefore surprised, because you seemed uninformed I had been trying to provide you that assistance all along, to no avail or response from your Staff. So I reaffirmed my willingness to assist, but then once again, I heard nothing whatsoever from your Staff. The only conclusion that I can reasonably now draw is that your "left" hand, does not know what the "right" has ordered, or, there is deliberate intransigence on the part of someone other than the Chair. Since I have seen other of my sworn testimonies sequestered away, or kept behind closed doors on this issue before, (and so testified before you under oath as to my frustration at that fact), I am therefore, not surprised.
Please allow me to refresh your recollection as to why you ordered your Staff Director, Mr.Wilson, directly from the Chair in that hearing of February 10th, 1994 to immediately follow up with me in the first place.
I testified that I had given to Anthony Lake, the President's National Security Advisor, and his Senior Director for NSC Asian Affairs, Mr. Kent Wiedemann, some 40 documents conatining POW/MIA intelligence, in the White House, on November 4, 1993. I was at the White House in accordance with the President's stated personal request to discuss the matter with Mr.Lake privately, after an ongoing series of discreet communications having preceded in the period late August, 1993 to January, 1994, Mrs. Carol Hrdlicka (who also testified February 10, 1994), wife of known Laos POW, Major (USAF) David Hrdlicka, captured May 18, 1965, Mr.George Carver (former Nixon White House NSC Aide as Chair of the White House Special Action Group's (WSAG) Indochina Subcommittee on Strategic Intellingece, and retired from CIA as Special Assistant to three (3) different Directors of Central Intelligence for Vietnam Matters, and then Olin Fellow to The Center for Strategic and International Studies), and Lieutenant General Eugene Tighe, (USAF, Ret., and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and producer of the Tighe Commission Report), all of whom had joined with me, in an ad hoc "team effort" at my personal request during that period, in an attempt to convince the new President CLinton, that he was not being given the full intelligence picture, and critical capstone evidence regarding this matter, as he came to decisions in early 1993, whether to improve relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and lift the 25 year old Trade Embargo against that Communist nation. I wanted you to understand that as such a "team", we were three former intelligence professionals that had actually handled the critical POW/MIA inteligence during the era; we were not merely researchers or staff perusing isolated, declassified documents in a contextual vacuum by themselves, but were "hands-on" holders of the material during the Nixon Administration, and throughout the era, with a plethora of special accesses and operational experience.
As such, we well knew the critical intelligence materials had been withheld from the Senate's Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs (SSC). In fact, LTG Tighe, George Carver and myself, had each in turn, either testified under oath or stated publicly several times, the exact same thing; that at the conclusion of the war, and subsequent to Operation Homecoming on March 28, 1973, the highest probability intelligence, and the consensus within the U.S. intelligence community rendered to the Nixon White House, believed approximately three-hundred (300) U.S. servicemen had been left behing and kept behind, in Laos alone. We did not make these statements, lightly, Mister Chairman. We made them under penalty of perjury, on oath. The materials I gave to the Clinton White House, which they admitted they had not seen before, buttressed and corroborated several of the key tenets of what we'd told the President's key Aides and Assistants privately, in previous meetings with Mr.Lake, Mr. Wiedemann, Mr. David Gergen, Mr.Sandy Berger, Ms. Nancy Soddeberg and Mr. Rod von Lipsey. Much of our discussions with these people revolved around what that intelligence picture actually was then, and where these materials probably could be found hidden in U.S. archives, that we had directly handled in the course of our service during the era.
To summarize: we told the Clinton Administration (and demonstrated by providing certain key documents, as I've referenced) that the following critical, capstone, all-sourced type of intelligence materials had never surfaced during the SSC's "investigation.":
1. The critical, all-sourced, Military Assistance Command Studies and Observations Group (MACVSOG), Division 80 (SOG-80) (Recovery Studies Division, in its unclassified organizational chart designation), consolidated POW/MIA intelligence archive. (Please see my sworn Affidavit, dated 2 Aug 94, regarding my discussions with Anthony Lake and George Carver, in the White House as to the nature, scope, location and criticality of this undisclosed intelligtence archive, a copy of which I've provided Mr.Necci for your perusal, given in support of lawsuits to force it out into the public venue). MACVSOG, as I testified, was the strategic intelligence gathering operation, controlled and directed under the authority of the President himself, through the Nixon WSAG. MACVSOG Division 80 was to serve, as its highly classified mission statement of September 1966 states, "as the focal point for all POW/MIA related intelligence throughout Indochina, and rescue planning, SUBSEQUENT to Search and Rescue (SAR) efforts". MACVSOG was America's most covert operation of the Indochina conflict, Mr.Chairman.
For example, the Son Tay POW rescue attempt was conducted under the auspices of SOG-80, and you may be surprised to learn that on average, some forty (40) POW rescue attempts a year, during the late years of the war, were being attempted, with the direct authority of the President of the United States to cross international borders covertly, in Laos and Cambodia. (This is detailed now, for the first time, in Harve Saal's THE HISTORY OF MACV SOG: THE MEN AND THEIR MISSION, Volumes 1 through 4, 1,650 pages, published late last year, and copies provided to the President himself per White House request of the author, during the discussions with Mr.Lake, et al). SOG was literally running in peak years, over seven hundred (700) covert, cross border forays in one Division alone (SOG-35, Ground Studies Division) just in Laos and Cambodia, involving American soldiers, on the ground there, proceeding only with the express imprimatur of the President. There were several other Divisions, in addition to SOG-35 and 80, also involved in constant cross border operations, including into North Vietnam. SOG reigned throughout Southeast Asia. Its origins can be traced ultimately to Presidential decision papers, signed by President Kennedy, in mid-1963, when he greatly expanded covert operations in Laos, and wrested control of them from CIA (whom he was distrustful of in the wake of the Bay of Pigs embarrassment), and put them under military control.
These decision documents, between McGeorge Bundy, President Kennedy, John McCone and others, have only recently become declassified and I've obtained them from the Kennedy Library. They show the President was consciously violating his own recent signature to the Geneva Accords on Laos Neutrality, and continually concerned about deniability. That is the historical root-cause of the whole POW/MIA conundrum. SOG continually expanded its octopus tentacles throughout its deliberately-designed-to-thwart- enemy-counter-intelligence labyrinth-like architecture. Its product, flowed directly into the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon White Houses. I testified under oath to this archive's content in June, 1992, for the SSC. That testimony was kept behind closed doors for the duration of their jurisdiction. The SOG-80 archive has never been released and in fact, the SSC states in its Final Report, its lament that although I and one other testified to its existence, it was never recovered for the investigation. As you will see from my detailed Affidavit, Mr.Carver directly handled the MACVSOG intelligence product as it flowed straight into the Nixon White House, and my testmony and his statements to Mr.Lake recounted herein, have long told the Clinton White House where that archive resides. Sadly, like all documents I testified to before the SSC, the Bush White House refused access to it, and in this particular case, refused access to all CIA archives on the materials that I testified of, as to their content (as they did the critical NSC files I cited, and certain days of the President's Daily Intelligence Briefings in the era, and certain Red Rocket messages destined straight to President Nixon on POWs and MIAs, in the White House).
You may also wish to consider that the DOD's DPMO office, over signature of ASD Wold, has admitted to Mr. Ken Carr (brother of Major Donald Carr, MIA Laos, 6 June 71, as a member of MACVSOG covert operations), in a letter dated 29 Aug 94, that the JCS does indeed have critical MACVSOG historical summaries, and is reviewing them on FOIA appeal, for declassification. Although this is the tip of the proverbial iceberg of the MACVSOG archives, it is an unprecedented admission they exist, as other FOIA requests to DOD and JCS have resulted in flat out denials the DOD or JCS held ANY MACVSOG archives at all! So, this is an admission contradicting previous assertions by DOD (researcher Roger Hall has the previous, formal, FOIA denials), and those previous denials have had the effect of having stalled FOIAs from going forth to the Courts, for two years.....an example of the type of shenanigans citizens, and investigating entities of the Congress, are made to endure on the archives attendant this sad matter. Mr.Carr and others belive that my Affidavit of 1 August 94, forced this admission.
It seems I am being called upon repeatedly lately to swear to such Affidavits, as the families and citizens pursue their only remaining avenue toward truth, since the Congress fails to exercise its proper Constitutional oversight responsibilities. That reality saddens me, Mister Chairman. As you yourself opined in that February 10th hearing to the families "You sholdn't have to fight your government to get the truth", and "I know you've been lied to...." The pending CIA FOIA pertaining to this has been addended with that Affidavit and Mr.Lake is aware of it and has a copy of it. Your Subcommittee needs those materials and I suggest you get them. Had these materials been produced when I first testified to them and their content, in June, 1992, the issue would have been fully vetted and the truth more clearly exposed, and no improved relations with the SRV would have dared proceed, based upon a mutual lie and contrivance. Instead, the SSC was "stonewalled" (Senator Smith, R-NH, and Vice Chair of the SSC), and the political will to force the archive open through Subpoena powers granted the SSC, was never mustered. This failure led Senators Smith and Senator Grassley (R-Iowa), to threaten to resign publicly from their SSC appointments, during the investigation, in 1992. The SSC moved to the edge of the abyss, looked in, saw how ugly the truth was, and quickly backed away, thereby earning the wrath and contempt of the families and any serious researcher, or historian or journalist alike, upon issuance of its mushy, vague and waffling Final Report. Even still, those eleven Senators signed a report stating men had probably been left behind in Southeast Asia. A gross under-statement if there ever was one, on the mounds of evidence forced out.
2. Imagery intelligence archives (IMINT), consisting of satellite, high and low level aerial reconnaissance photographs and infra-red gathering means, had been withheld from the SSC's investigation. As I testified under oath before you, I provided Mr.Lake and Mr. Wiedemann one of forty-eight IMINT reproductions, derived from a mere fifteen percent (15%) perusal-search of U.S. IMINT archives, that HAD NOT been studied or provided to the SSC's investigation, with deliberate fashion. This portfolio of IMINT shown to me, contained the codes and assigned symbols, or names, of dozens of men still missing from the war. The specific reconnaissance photo I both faxed into, and hand delivered to the White House, straight to Mr.Wiedemann's hands (with accompanying analysis), with Carol Hrdlicka and George Carver as sitting witnesses observing, in the West Wing on Nov. 4, 1993, contained the four digit secret authenticator code, assigned to USAF Captain David Allinson, shot down over North Vietnam in 1966; that authenticator code was irrefutably stamped out near the Dong Vai communist POW camp as "8888", beginning first in late 1973. It appears six separate times over the years intervening, at various locations. The last such satellite photo I viewed pertaining to David Allinson, and discussed with Mr.Lake in the White House, being sourced in October, 1992, Mister Chairman.
Mr.Wiedemann has refused numerous written and telephonic requests to return that document, and other documents I gave him despite Mr.Wiedemann's "word of honor" given to me that day in the White House's West Wing, with Mr. Carver and Ms. Hrdlkcka as direct witnesses, to "express mail the documents back to you tomorrow or Monday at the latest". I have also seen six different IMINT images, especially satellite, depicting the clearly spelled name "WRYE" stamped out in Laos, the last one being taken in the spring of 1988, which clearly shows the name and words "WRYE-SICK", just above a trail in northern Laos, where the Laotians still refuse to allow our teams to investigate. This is the name of USAF Major Blair Wrye, shot down over Laos, coincidentally (or otherwise), the exact same day as the aformentioned USAF Captain David Allinson. Intriguingly, Major Wrye's remains (a tooth, I am informed by reliable sources), were returned without any explanation as to circumstances of death or capture, in the spring of 1989, by the SRV. Mr.Lake confided to me that knew of certain "WRYE" IMINT already, that the public and SSC had never seen, and we discussed this case at some length. There was also a second "SEREX" IMINT photo. I had been instrumental, along with Carol Hrdlicka in the logistics of getting the family of USAF Major Henry Serex brought to Washington, and through White House intervention, they were allowed to view one IMINT photo pertaining to "SEREX" taken over Vietnam in later years, at the National Photographic Interpretation Center. But the Serex family was only shown one IMINT photo....there are two, and I so told Mr.Lake and Mr.Wiedemann in our discussions.
You may be interested in contacting Jennifer Serex to hear her views on what she was shown, the process leading up to that display, and what she herself saw at the Navy Yard. She was allowed to bring Mr. Larry Burroughs, ( USAF Retired Colonel and former Acting Director of NPIC, and SSC IMINT consultant) to that meeting through our entreaties to the Clinton White House, after the DOD initially refused to allow Colonel Burroughs' attendance. As I testified before you, I told Mr.Lake the analysts finding these IMINT materials, had done so with only a perusal of a small portion of the total IMINT archives, and they wanted the Clinton White House to know that testimony before the SSC, that represented (words to the effect of) "all IMINT materials have been studied and we only found these few", were flatly false. They were curtailed in their search of archives during the SSC's intvestigation, and they wanted this President to know that. They found these 48 images subsequent to the SSC closing up shop in January, 1994, while searching on their own time and initiative, out of conscience, and were greatly fearful of political retribution being taken against their careers for having done so. They requested the President's guarantee that they would be "protected" for bringing the images forward, and disobeying supervisory orders restricting them not to look for them (contrary to what had been testified to under oath, before the SSC, by Bush appointees).
Mr.Lake and Mr.Wiedemann, promised us that in lieu of the Independent Commission LTG Tighe, Dr. Carver and I had recommended be created by the President to gather all the materials being withheld from the public and President for comprehensive analysis outside of a political atmosphere, that they instead would proceed with a discreet, secret, internal investigation (within NSC structure) to gather the materials for President Clinton. (We had brought to Mr.Lake, for the President over 100,000 signed endorsements of a Four Point Agenda I'd authored, recommending the opening of the Independent Commission, bearing signatures of a vast array of POW/MIA families, ex-POWs, and veterans' group leaders and members) Mr.Wiedemann represented over and over that Mr. Lake had obtained the direct permission and imprimatur of President Clinton (at my explicite request to so Presidentially verify) to hire "up to six investigators to gather the materials discreetly". Mr. Wiedemann made these representations repeatedly to Carol Hrdlicka as well as myself. They sought my recommendations as to which investigators might be hired. No such investigative action occurred, instead, the President precipitiously lifted the Trade Embargo on February 3, 1994.
Mr. Widemann lied to us repeatedly in my opinion, to keep us from going to the press and public with these documents. One investigator from the intelligence community went at my urging, and Mr. Lake and Mr. Wiedemann's direct request, to the Clinton White House in December, 1993, and outlined the "problems and solutions" to them in a two and one-half hour confidential meeting. I have the recommendations and anaylsis of that "archive problem and politicization problem of the POW/MIA office in DOD" in my possession now. The fact is that the Clinton White House had assured Mr.Ross Perot that our "team" was going to see the President himself, in August, 1993, and on September 9th, 1993, I had in my possession the portfolio of satellite imagery and was going to present them, as I'd agreed with the sources, directly to President Clinton, and indeed, one of the anlysts was going to risk his career and accompany us to the White House to see the President, and the White House was so informed. Instead, forces in the White House not watning the President to be confronted with the images directly, intervened and in the last moments of that afternoon, we were told we would not see the President that day, but were to meet with Mr.Gergen, Mr.Berger, Ms. Soddeberg and Mr. Wiedemann and Mr.von Lipsey in the White House Situation Room as a "preliminary meeting." Seeing we were being headed off, I then refused to bring the photos and to attend that day, and instead, sent Mr.Carver and Ms. Hrdlicka to the White House without me, as the sources fearing retribution, did not want me disclosing the materials to anyone but the President himself (and the White House was so informed all along, as to that condition, Mr.Chairman) LTG Tighe, who had taken very ill, and was literally on his deathbed during this period of delay to see the President, had spoken to the President via telephone in advance of our arrival, according to Mr.Gergen's statements to Mr.Carver and Ms. Hrdlicka, that day).
The point I am making here, is that there are large amounts of IMINT being hidden on this matter, that if laid before the American people, would explode the charade of this sad affair once and for all, Mister Chairman; "for seeing is believing". And no one, as Mr.Lake agreed with me in our private talks, is going to believe that the Laotian and Vietnamese communists are deliberately stamping all these secret authenticator codes and names out in Laos and Vietnam, to provoke us, at a time they are ostensibly seeking reconciliation and normalization of relations. There are no "vegetation or anomalies" intelligent enough to form these accurate sequences of codes and names depicted, either. Statisticians factoring the alph-numeric equation necessary to produce such an "anomaly" have determined the odds astronomical.
On February 10, 1994, I listened intently as you questioned Mr.Ed Ross, Acting ASD DPMO, as to the "satellite imagery" archives. You asked him directly had the archives been reviewed? Mr.Ross said (words to the effect of) "Yes. All of them.".... You then pressed Mr.Ross in a follow up question and he demurred and slip-slided away with the disclaimer, that "Well, I didn't personally review them, but there was sworn testimony before the SSC that they'd all been examined by DOD officials" (words to that exact effect). He is apparently referring to the testimony of Duane Andrews, a man whom the sources giving me the photos, said "He flat out lied....we were not permitted to search the archives." ( and so I advised Mr.Lake of their assertion). I directly gave Mr.Lake the locations at Vint Hill and at Bolling and Norton AFBs, of IMINT archives that HAD NOT BEEN EXAMINED according to the analysts, and I gave Mr.Lake those locations in writing, and the aforementioned analyst who visited the White House at their request, told them so also in his meeting.
In short; the IMINT archive and its content, are being hidden and contain explosive images and the Clinton White House well knows it, as Mr.Lake admitted he's seen one such "WRYE" photo. But he also admitted he had only seen the 1986 "WRYE" photo and had not been aware of the "WRYE-SICK" photo of 1988, nor the other four "WRYE" images. This is why I told you that you aren't going to get the materials that will show the "WRYE" images. This is why I told you that you aren't going to get the materials that will show the potential perjury, until you muster the will to consider Subpoena, if neccessary, Mr.Chairman. It is a scandal and will outrage the American public, and embarrass high officials from many previous administrations, if these images are indeed there, and the representations of the analysts true. I know they are, because I have seen them at length, they would not have produced them, nor volunteered to go into the Oval Office and risk their careers, if they were not, as logic well supports, Mister Chairman.
3. The CIA's Executive Registry Files contain POW/MIA Intelligence I testified to relating to believed transfer of American POWs to the USSR (through Eastern Bloc Nations) and the PRC, of a highest probability nature, from the era. They were politically sensitive, tightly controlled, as to protect Rapproachment and Detente, both then ongoing. In fact, IMINT reconnaissance was halted over Yunan Province, China for some time, out of concern for Rapproachment, and I provided Mr.Lake documents, going to the White House, NSC, CJCS, and all service chiefs, showing B-2 rated, Controlled American Sourced analysis rendered in the week of September, 1972 (same week as the origins of the Quang Document show, derived from Soviet Politburo archives), that the Vietnamese communists intended to move up to 200 American POWs into a camp built specifically for them in Yunan, Province, PRC, so as to "use them for bargaining chips later, and where the U.S. government will not risk global confrontation through reconnaissance or further rescue forays."
George Carver also brought documents himself to Anthony Lake, dated in 1972 and 1975, authored by George, going straight to the Director of Central Intelligence, regarding men left behind, that are now locked up in CIA Executive Registry Files. (Again, see my sworn Affidavit accompanying). The supposed "declassification" of the POW/MIA related materials is a charade. It is akin to flooding your legal adversary with uncollated and uncorrelated discovery materials, numbering in the millions of pages, at the last minute. It is withholding the "wheat" and instead providing the "chaff", for fear of what the "wheat" will show; a conscious abandonment of the men for politically expedient motives, that would have precipitated movement in the House to vote on a Bill of Impeachment already offered against Richard Nixon, for "Conduct of an Illegal and Unconstitutional War in Laos."
The men were left behind in Laos predominantly; that is what George Carver, Gene Tighe and I have always said, and we handled the materials personally and have so testified. To reveal the extent, the true numbers, of the 600 men missing in Laos at the time, would have been to admit the Nixon Administration had been lying all along about "no combat forces in Laos" and would have fueled and precipitated the Bill of Impeachment already pending there on the secret war in Laos. That is one reason they hid the facts, Mister Chairman. People forget that one of the chief Articles of Impeachment arising in the House against Nixon was the Illegal and Unconstitutional War in Laos.... NOT WATERGATE....UNTIL LATER.
Further, I testified under oath, that in the late spring/early summer of 1975, the CIA and NSC began a massive attempt to purge and consolidate all critical POW/MIA intelligence from sensitive, classified material custodians (of which I was then one, and exhibits so attest accompanying my SSC testimony). They wanted the documents certified destroyed, or returned to their CIA or NSC originators and I testified that this was a clear signal to me that they intended to cover-up the reality of the shortcomings of the Nixon Administration and the lies told the Families and Public and Congress on the matter, in the wake of Nixon's resignation. I testified this event, precipitated me to take the risky step of demanding immediate discharge from an otherwise exemplary career, and literally risk being thrown in the stockade. A series of Top Secret debriefings ensued of me, as intelligence agents descended from Washington (as corroborated by sworn statements derived by SSC investigators of Affiant J. Lawrence Wright, then of the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps and Steve Grobel also of JAG, both of whom told of the numerous debriefings and threats from DIA against them revealing what I'd told them in 1975 as reasons for my extreme actions). The SSC investigators were never given access to the voluminous records of those debriefings, because they will show my contemporaneous recollections of the POW/MIA cover-up, and several other embarrassing "unconstitutional and deceitful acts perpetrated by the Presidents, on the public and Congress, that will no longer allow me to continue in uniform in good conscience." I specifically cited this purge and consolidation within CIA Executive Registry files of these materials.
It is appropriate to mention that at that time, DCI Colby was testifying on the Hill, before the Church Committee, and was "spilling the beans" on many theretofore skeletons in CIA and intelligence community closets. A reading of the histories of this period will show that Dr. Kissinger, then SECSTATE, went to President Ford and warned that Colby must be fired before he could tell too much, and that President Ford did so, and then appointed immediately, George Bush to be Acting Director of CIA (Isaacson's Kissinger. I say they were desperate to hide these debacles and deceits before any Democrat could gain office, and I witnessed the purging and the consolidation of that archival material in CIA Executive Registry Files at the time. When asked by Mr. Lake in the White House on November 4, 1993, as to "What am I to tell the President as to the Carter Administration's culpability in this?", I responded, 'Simple. Exactly as I testfied. When Carter got there, the cupboard was bare then President Carter prematurely sent Leonard Woodcock to offer unconditional normalization to the North Vietnamese within three weeks of having assumed the White House ... the Vietnamese REFUSED Carter's offer! They wanted the money promised by Nixon's secret promissory letter of Feb. 1,1973 guaranteeing at minimum 3.25 billion in 'reconstruction aid'...a semantic device of avoiding the implication of paying ransom for the men kept behind devised and recommended by the Rand Studies commissioned by Dr. Kissinger, in 1969 and 1971 that if you review Mr. Lake, and which you probably saw in your Nixon NSC duties as Aide to Kissinger, and which recommendations in the studies, Kissinger otherwise followed to a "T" throughout the negotiations, are still being hid.
Further, by the time they finally got Kissinger behind closed doors of the Congress later in the Carter Administration, and discovered this secret promissory letter had been tendered, hidden from the people and Congress, Woodcock had returned, and Carter and he had said 'there are no POWs alive"- they were therefore stuck, committed. However, later the Carter Administration realized they had been bamboozled and Carter can be credited for restoring the Strategic Intelligence Collection Requirements for POWs and MlAs, and directing the satellite re-prioritization that discovered the Nhammarath symbols in 1980, leading to the Reagan Administration's CIA driven rescue attempt there later ... it was Carter, after the return of Garwood in 1979, who turned the lights back on over Southeast Asia, which led to the conclusion that men were alive in Laos at Nhammarath ... not Reagan ... so he did try to rehabilitate the situation."
And I still stand by that statement and you may wish to read Doug Waller's recent Time magazine piece on the Nhammarath, Laos 1981, rescue planning and reconnaissance, dated October 17, 1994. Mr. Waller spent several days with me in Florida back in May. The point here, Mr. Chairman, is that you are looking for materials that were deliberately consolidated and hidden long ago, known only now to but a handful of persons originally, and a small group of political appointees, and essentially controlled by George Bush's influence over CIA for 14 of the last 19 years, as either DCI, VP or President. If the documents themselves are not there, I assure you the record of their official certified destruction will be voluminous and telling in themselves. To not certify their destruction would be a prima facie violation of the United States Code. Both George Carver and I and Gene Tighe believed they are still there, and President Clinton admits he is withholding over 200,000 POW/MIA critical, capstone documents on grounds of continuing national security. How can you get to the bottom of this issue once and for all" (as President Clinton promised the families and public in a national TV address) when you withhold the most critical 200,000 documents? The charade of declassification is a cynical manipulation of the Congress and the People, and represents a continuing of the abuse of the national security imprimatur and must be brought to an end, so the processes of effective Congressional, Constitutional oversight can be restored, and republican representative democratic process can be rehabilitated. I remind you that Harry Truman opined before he died that the 'two worst things I ever did were to sign the National Security Act in 1947 and the bill creating the CIA. The CIA doesn't prevent wars ... it goes around starting them secretly'.
The people cannot put behind them what they know they've been lied to about for years- and this a prime reason why the public is socynicized at this time. The POW/MIA issue is the quintessential icon of that continuing abuse, that has a corrosive and deleterious effect on the climate of government and the cynicism of the public. This is not about political dirty tricks and covering them up, Mister Chairman. It is about the lives of hundreds of Americans gone in harm's way for this nation and the concerted lying to, and deception of, their loved ones, the public and the Congress for twenty years. (Note: Senator McCain (R-AZ) was fond of redundantly pontificating in the public hearings of the SSC that "there isn't a single shred of U.S. evidence that a second-tier POW system existed...we knew of all of them (the POWs themselves returned), through our tap-knock system". But I gave Lake and Wiedemann, as did Carver, 1967, 1969, 1972 and 1975 documents going directly to the DCI, showing the detailed all-sourced analysis depicting down to the eight digit grid coordinates (within 10 meters on the earth) locations of respectively 47, and 54 known, confirmed POW camps used in Laos. They contained the known number of Americans in them at those times, and many American lives were expended in cross border operations of SOG gathering that continuing, confirmed, information over the years in Laos, and those documents, some authored by George Carver, are in CIA Executive Registry. Also, there are legions of recon photos of these 'second tier" camps, contained within CINCPAC and PACOM "Laos POW Camp Studies).
4. The Nixon Tapes: Anthony Lake questioned me closely as to "which of the Nixon Oval Office tapes should we listen to first Barry? If you had to pick one Nixon tape to listen to which one should we get first?". "No contest" I said. "The first tape listened to should be the April 11, 1973 tape wherein Roger Shields, head of the DOD's POW/MIA effort, is brought by Acting SECDEF Clements to the White House, for direct discussions with Nixon, with Brent Scowcroft in attendance for Kissinger. Shields, horrified at Nixon's national TV pronouncement on March 28, 1973 ("All our POWs are on their way home tonight), told Clements the next day the President "can't say that". Clements, according to sworn testimony, told Shields then "The rest of the men are dead, Roger". Shields objecting, persisted and was fearful the Presidents statements were being used to change official U.S. policy, which the Eagleburger Memorandum of 27 Mar 73, clearly shows believed up to 350 men remained alive, kept behind in Laos and recommended massive B-52 strikes and a carrier task force group be sent in to restart a large portion of the war. (Notice that then Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger was never called before the SSC to explain exactly where he got this information, upon which he was urging restarting a major portion of the war?
Elliot Richardson, then leaving as SECDEF, removed the "carrier task force group", kept the B-52s, and seconded the Memo to Kissinger and Nixon at the White House). Shields testified he thought he was going to be fired 'on the spot" and persisted in saying "You can't say that!". Clements repeated to him ominously, 'You didn't hear me Roger...the rest are dead!". The occasion was on the eve of Shields' then upcoming, planned press conference to address mounting public, media and family concerns on the limited men returned from Laos (only 9) Shields was then taken by the earlobe to the Nixon White House for "treatment" and his press conference postponed, in lieu of Nixon's shocking pronouncement (which I testified precipitated a near-mutinous atmosphere within the JCS ... quote from Admiral Moorer, CJCS "The bastards have still got our menl. Nixon and Kissinger are at it again ... the SECDEF and SECSTATE have been cut out of the loop ... they've made another secret deal with the communists!". Even Dr. Schlesinger testified before the SSC my recollection of that back-channel from Admiral Moorer to other CINCs was verbatim correct as to Moorers' statement to him that "The bastards have still got our men!". And it should be remembered that Admiral Moorer had issued Top Secret, Eyes Only, LIMDIS orders on 21 Mar 73, ordering a total halt to our withdrawal from Vietnam "over the men still being held in Laos", and that Nixon ordered it rescinded the next day. So Shields was taken before Nixon on April 1 lth, 1973, with Scowcroft attending (that name familiar? ... he was the NSA to Bush when the Bush White House first refused ("stonewalled" as Senator Smith called it "the materials I had testified to behind closed doors for the SSC in June, 1992).
The tapes of that meeting, wherein Shields was convinced somehow to go out on April 14th, in his press conference, and not contradict Nixon's statements, are the first that should be listened to. I then gave Lake and Wiedemann, at their continuing request, a list of the dates most probable to contain POW/MIA discussions with Nixon, based on critical dates of action regarding the POW/MIA matter. They promised they were going straight to the archives to review them 'discreetly'. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the Nixon Oval Office tapes "belong to the American people". A review of them will cut to the heart of this matter most probably, but the Clinton Administration does not have the moral courage or political will to face the truth and so the people and the families are deprived of what their Supreme Court has said is theirs; the right to know their true history .... shades of an Orwellian State! (NOTE: Between 20 Mar and 4 April, McChord agrees to talk, 4 key Nixon officials are indicted, the Nixon Cabinet is playing musical chairs and all the above happens under siege of Watergate, while the only remaining viable legacy of the Nixon Administration, is conduct of Foreign Affairs. Chaos reigned)
Finally, Mister Chairman, I have written you earlier in response to your request that I personally provide you with "questions" your subcommittee should ask government witnesses. Let me state that Winston Lord deceived you on February 10, 1994, under oath, when you asked him directly "when you were Dr. Kissinger's aide and in the Nixon NSC, and involved with the peace negotiations, did you have access to POW/MIA information or intelligence?" (words to that exact effect).
Lord, sworn under oath by you previously, replied immediately and curtly "No!".
As I've told you in previous letters in response to your requesting I suggest "questions" to be put to government witnesses, go look o/a page 455 of Kissinger's The White House Years, and you will see Kissinger praising Winston Lord for having completed an exhaustive study of the MACVSOG covert operations, that was presented to President Nixon. Of course, as I've told you under oath, the MACVSOG operations had as a major component, SOG-80, POW/MIA Recovery Studies Division actively processing ALL POW and MIA intelligence and running dozens of rescue attempts on the second tier system we well knew, tracked, and expended many American lives upon in Laos, to gather that intelligence through SOG, and flow it directly to the White House into George Carver's hands, who worked with Winston Lord. I believe Winston Lord either lied deliberately to you, or has taken leave of his senses and is suffering from some diminished capacity, as he seems to have forgotten this exhaustive study he'd done for Nixon, on SOG. Or, he didn't understand the simple, plain English you phrased your question within. He needs to be recalled as that testimony was under oath, and Mr. Lord's proven, disingenuous statements continuing on this matter are disgraceful at this point. He insists repeatedly that the Vietnamese are fully cooperating. Yet the emergence of the "Druid Smoke" sourced photos bought by DIA, from an American civilian, surreptitiously derived from Vietnamese archives, conclusively and irrefutably shows that the Clinton Administration, had the proof themselves all this time, that the SRV had been, and continues to withhold a massive amount of POWIMIA information of a conclusive nature. Ergo sum: No rational statement can be made as to their "excellent cooperation" by any responsible official. You'll be reading about these false-on-their-face statements emanating fromState (Lord) and other USG entities, in U.S. News and World Report, perhaps soon.
I complained bitterly to Mr. Lake about Mr. Lord's numerous misleading official statements leading up to the lifting of the trade embargo, as I also proved false, some media statements of Mr.Ed Ross, by producing documentary evidence. I told Mr. Lake that we were in danger of repeating the same error of history he witnessed when he was Kissinger's aide in the Nixon White House, before he too resigned on principle, citing deceit of the People and Congress over the Cambodian invasion in April, 1970. Specifically, I told Lake "you and I have three things in common rather unique experiences, that lead me to trust you and tell you these things, in the hope you can convince this President not to continue the shameful lies of the past one; we both resigned and abandoned otherwise exemplary careers on principle, citing deceit of the Congress and People by the Executive. two; we both suffered intrusive, coercive and threatening illegal surveillance of ourselves and our loved ones as a result of fears we'd go to the press, and that is a matter of Congressional record as to that illegal surveillance of us, and, three; we both have publicly expressed regret that we did not go to the public and media at the time, with what we knew."
If we proceed upon a lie, a dance of deception with the Vietnamese, into a new relationship based upon that mutual contrivance, we will make the same mistake you saw Kissinger make in the Nixon White House, in that he followed a policy of having one set of Public positions in the Peace Talks, and yet had another, different set of secret positions, he contrived to the Viets in his clandestine peace talks (*** which he and Nixon kept from the JCS, SECDEF and SECSTATE *** ). Thusly, he, Kissinger, defeated any strength in our negotiating position by empowering the Vietnamese communists with knowledge of what we would not tell our own public and Congress. Accordingly, the communist Viets were able to proselytize and manipulate world press to suit that chink in our position and negate our postures effectively, throughout the entire process of negotiations". Lake, looked at me and said emphatically "Exactly, Barry!", nodding his head in agreement. He also told me that he believed "this whole matter is grounded in the Nixon deceits ... I know that", and that "Besides what you've recommended, I am going to tell the President he should rip this open for the sake of the men like you who actually had to fight that war ... they deserve to know the true history of their war, before they die". Lake's words truly moved me to tell him more.
(*** Illegally lending the CJCS, Admiral Moorer, to establish a spying operation against the President and Dr. Kissinger, detailed in Congressional testimonies long hidden, as "The Radford Affair" and documented extensively in Colodny and Geitlin's Silent Coup: The Removal Of A President, and precipitating the "near mutinous" atmosphere I testified to within the JCS, after Ehrlichman caught and exposed Moorer and Admiral Wielander's White House spying operation. And this is the reason you can't get Admiral Moorer to tell the whole truth. He was directly recalled as a result of my testimony for SSC, and significantly changed his previous testimonies, and finally admitted in September, 1992, that he'd actually ordered a halt to the withdrawal from Vietnam, over the men still held in Laos, almost two months after the Records had been signed!).
Sadly, this President did not listen to Mr. Lake or Mr. Gergen, and that is why this issue is not going to go away. He broke his promises to the families. His Assistant Mr. Wiedemann lied to us and promised the investigation and insisted to Carol Hrdlicka and I repeatedly he'd obtained Lake and the President's personal imprimatur to proceed with it; they did not do it. They are hiding the evidence and lying about Vietnamese cooperation. Yet I continue to believe Anthony Lake is a man of impeccable integrity who tried his best to get the President to do the right thing. Mr.Wiedemann, as Mrs. Hrdlicka and I will unflinchingly testify, is a liar and a deceiver. He is the prime example of the failed argument that the President wrongly chose to follow, along with the recommendations of Mr. Lord, whom I believe has deceived you under oath. Wiedemann has been removed from NSC duties, and is now at DOD-Asia.
Five United States Presidents have stood before the American people at one point or another in their terms, and exhorted the American people to, quote, "put Vietnam behind us as people", unquote.
All of them, to no avail. Vietnam continues to linger and pervade our culture, throughout our daily lives for this simple, fundamental, undeniable reason: Anyone living in this society that can read, watch television or movies, well knows that virtually everything their Executive once told them originally about the war in Southeast Asia, has subsequently been shown to be a lie. Lie, upon lie, upon lie, redoubled.
A people, cannot "put behind them" Mister Chairman, that which they know they continue to be lied to about by their Executive, and those lies suborned by a Congress without the moral courage and constitutional sense of responsibility to exercise its oversight responsibilities. Hence; the lies continue to emanate from Washington to this very day, this very minute, and the people don't believe government.
So there will be no, true, healing now over Vietnam, as this President took the politically expedient way out of the conundrum. He has missed a golden, historic opportunity, to incur the good offices of many of 27 million veterans and many more concerned citizens. He has made an error that will haunt him in 1996, and which insures that final, healing and closure we so deservedly need and are due as a people, cannot ensue in his term. The Congress remains the last vestige of hope for the truth emerging properly.
The truth will out, Mister Chairman; that is an inexorable reality now. Won't you please exercise your oversight responsibility and help bring about the closure and healing, through truth, we all want in an appropriately, honorable, constitutional fashion? Put an end to this disgraceful dishonoring of the legacy of these men that were kept behind. And signal the communists in southeast Asia, the game of lies is over, and you may see some men who still just might want to come home to the government that abandoned them, emerge from those jungles.
I leave you with this thought, of which I have oft reminded myself during the last three years I've battled on this matter.
"To Sin By Silence When We Should Protest, Makes Cowards of Men"...Elijah Wheeler Wilcox
Sadly,
(signature appears here)
BARRY A. TOLL
Witnesseth (signature here).............Witnesseth (signature here)
ROSALEE POLIHRONOPOULOS...................MARIAN R. TOLL
August 2, 199
AFFIDAVIT OF BARRY ALLEN TOLL
STATE OF FLORIDA)
Ss.
County of Pinellas)
THE UNDERSIGNED, being first duly sworn, upon oath deposes and states:
I am a resident of (address here) St. Petersburg, Florida xxxxx currently engaged in completing a manuscript for publication, pending contract before selected publishers. The subject being, specific national security matters of historical interest of which I had became privy to, during service to the United States Department of Defense in highly classified duties.
During the period June, 1967 to mid-August, 1975, when I was Honorably Discharged, I served in the United States Army, or was detached to the Office Secretary of Defense at various times, in a number of Joint, or international Joint organizations and service staffs. I served as an Operations and Intelligence Specialist, for which I was decorated or commended numerous times. I am also a veteran of heavy combat in Vietnam, during 1968. Recently, between June, 1992 to present, I have testified as a Witness under oath to Congress, before the Senate Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs, or the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, at those bodies' subpoena or invitation. From September 1993, through the present, I have visited the White House, at the request of the President and remained on engaged several months in a series of communications with the President's National Security Advisor, Mr.Anthony Lake, and others, regrading intelligence matters I had knowledge of, or participated in, and highly specialized expertise I have developed over the years. One aspect of these discussions and testmonies, regards my expert, or experiential knowledge of the handling and archival storage of highly classlfled materials of concern to the aforementioned bodies, or the President's National Security Council, that have been under investigation during this recent period.
Official Exhibits to my sworn testimony for the SSC from my Department of Defense Personnel File, exemplify my access to, and expertise in handling, extremely sensitive classified materials pertaining to the national security with the following the words:
"A highly intelligent and tactful young man who has proved to be a valuable member of this Joint Service Staff. He was responsible for establishing procedures which resulted in an efficient security and control mechanism for a large volume of extremely sensitive material. His outstanding abilities permit him to routinely perform complex duties .... performs duties as an Operations and Intelligence Assistant on a Joint Service Staff of all services. Maintains proficiency as an air-crew member of high altitude aircraft. Requires inordinate degree of integrity, responsibility and tact dealing with high ranking officers, and extremely sensitive materials". Signed, Wallace W. Crompton, Colonel, United States Marine Corps, July 3, 1974.
Colonel Crompton was then my Commander, and the Senior Colonel in the entire Marine Corps. Our duties at that time were to stand ready to brief and assist the President of the United States, or his designated successor, the National Command Authority, in carrying out the nation's highest, strategic, nuclear policies. In short; we were a highly specialized team carrying the President's Nuclear Execution Codes, and standing ready at a moment's notice, to enable the President to respond to a nuclear situation. As such, I was privy to the combined, integrated output of the entire United States Intelligence Community, as it flowed to the President, in order to be momentarily aware of precisely what he knew, and did not know, that may impact his decision making process in a nuclear emergency.
To carry out these duties, for years I was granted access to, and was the designated Official Custodian of huge volumes of classified materials the President may need, up to and beyond classification of Top Secret, including SIOP-ESI-SI (Single Integrated Operational Plan, Extremely Sensitive Information, Special Intelligence), and numerous Top Secret Codenamed Special Access Programs far too lengthy, and still remaining classified, to mention herein.
The limited purpose of this Affidavit, is to recount and attest to my knomedge of the last known locations of specific Top Secret archives, derived from some of the nation's most covert operations and intelligence gathering methods and techniques, pertaining to American Prisoners of War and Missing In Action, both armed service and Central Intelligence Agency personnel during the Third Indochina Conflict, commonly known as the Vietnam War, and what I have told Mr. Anthony Lake, National Security Advisor to the President, about their location and contents, as a result of my duties in that era.
Specifically, I am referring to that archive specialty caveated and accessed, flowing directly to the White House, derived from the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group, hereinafter referred to as "MACVSOG" or "SOG', and its various attendant numerical sub-divisions such as 'SOG-80" or 'SOG-35" or 'SOG-34". It is important to note at this point, that the authority for the covert operations conducted by SOG, was derived from, and proceeded only, with the direct, personal, authorization of the Presidents of the United States, during the era.
My first familiarity with MACVSOG and its highly compartmentalized and covert operations, occurred in mid-1968, while I was serving as a volunteer Team Leader of Top Secret, clandestine, intelligence gathering reconnaissance teams, along the Tri-Border region of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In such operations, I typically worked with only one other American, and the rest of our clandestine team was composed of indigenous, ethnic, personnel from the region. These highly trained mercenaries were provided to us from joint CIA and MACVSOG commando schools, and were composed of various Montangnard tribal groups, Chinese Nungs or Vietnamese. Our mission was to sneak amongst the enemy's base areas.
During September, October and November 1968, I was detached and relocated to MACVSOG, Operation 35, Ground Studies Division, operational Mission Support Site, codenamed "Sledgehammer". The location of this covert site is variously given in historical texts now as 'in Cambodia', although the border between then South Vietnam and Cambodia was ill defined. Mission Support Site "Leghorm", was approximately 20 miles away, also occupied by SOG-35, in Laos. This area is at the precise junction of Laos and Cambodia. The term "Ground Studies Division" is the unclassified designator meaning in actuality, the Top Secret, covert, ground forays for strategic reconnaissance purposes, proceeding across international borders into, for instance, Laos and Cambodia, with the President's direct authority.
During this period, MACVSOG operations suffered losses of covert operational teams, across the borders, in Laos and Cambodia and I was directly involved in communicating and coordinating with the teams, and the various support assets assigned to assist us in these covert operations. Several teams simply disappeared, either without notice, or after short or prolonged fights with the enemy in Laos or Cambodia during the period, and teams disappeared in our area from other SOG operations, such as SOG-32, Air Studies Division.
Upon disappearance of one or more, or all members of a team in Laos or Cambodia, codename "BrightLight" teams, standing by in Vietnam, routinely were inserted in attempts to locate survivors, retrieve bodies of SOG members, or quickdy exploit opportunity to liberate them from their recent capture by the enemy. After initial Search and Rescue operations, for them, and aircraft pilots or personnel of the various armed services or Air American assets, shot down in these cross-border operations supporting SOG operations, the responsibility passed to MACVSOG Division 80. SOG-80's unclassified name was listed for Intelligence cover purposes on organizational charts to deceive the enemy, press, and those not granted access for lack of need-to-know, as the "Recovery Studies Division" of SOG.
The classified reality is SOG-80 was the central, bottleneck, through which all POW/MIA intelligence derived from all agencies operating in Indochina, whether they be CIA, NSA, SOG, NRO (aerial imagery), or regular armed services, or even State Department, flowed to the White House. As such, SOG-80 was responsible for analyzing, developing, coordinating, and planning POW and MIA rescue attempts throughout the Indochina region. It was our covert attempt to rescue POWs in Laos and Cambodia, and even North Vietnam. All intelligence pertaining to POWs and MlAs in Indochina, flowed through SOG-80, and made their way to the White House in final form, after analysis.
My exposure to the operations, covert knowledge of the organizational structure of the labyrinth-like SOG administrative design, allowed me this understanding.
Later, in Hawaii, assigned in sensitive Command and Control Operations Center duties as an Operations and Intelligence Specialist with caveated accesses to POW/MIA material, I maintained my familiarity with SOG operations, and through the anecdotal experience of communicating with numerous SOG associates over the years, I maintained knowledge of the operations. As the war wound down, increasingly, those of us privy to the SOG awareness, became fixated on the resolution, through rescue, or negotiated return, of the many hundreds of men missing, or known captured in Laos and Cambodia, from SOG, or the air operations supporting them. This awareness and my duties, which involved briefing the Flag Officers I served directly, kept me abreast of the SOG picture, Further, I would talk with Colonel Arthur "Bull" Simon, who had led SOG at one time, who was assigned as the Special Operations Officer at the Commander-In-Chief-Pacific (CINCPAC) Unified Joint Command in Hawaii. Bull Simon would later lead the SOG-80 attempt to rescue American POWs in North Vietnam, at Son Tay. I also would attend specialized briefings on the POW/MIA situation from CINCPAC, at times from later Lieutenant General Eugene Tighe, then Colonel, who was J-2, Intelligence, at CINCPAC. The SOG experienced and accessed community was a tight-knit one, obviously.
CINCPAC was the interim flow-point, for SOG-80 intelligence heading back to the White House. As such, Colonel Simon's placement there, monitoring SOG, was no coincidence.
At various times it was necessary to publicly expose SOG-80's operations, and at those times, the cover designation of SOG-80's assigned mission, to recover POWs and MiAs or their remains, would surface as the "Joint Personnel Recovery Center" (JPRC), or later, in late 1972 and early 1973, as the overtly designated "Joint Casualty Recovery Center" (JCRC).
As the American part of the war wound down, I became aware that SOG-80 would convert, and arise publicly postured, as the JCRC. Being very concerned, knowing the true classified picture of the hundreds of men believed captured or missing in Laos and Cambodia from these covert activities, being hidden from the American people and Congress, I went to Bull Simon to volunteer for, and expedite my immediate assignment to the JCRC, which was going to take up overt operations in Thailand. Our loyalty to the missing men was undying and profound to us.
Ultimately, I would end up suddenly assigned, with only a few hours notice to depart Hawaii for Thailand, to Top Secret Intelligence duties, detached from the Defense Office of the U.S. Embassy, in Bangkok, on Temporary Duties from January to April, 1973. This was when JCRC formed. Recurrent malaria, and attendant relapses, kept me medically profiled, and prohibited from being assigned permanently to JCRC, but I was there in Thailand as it swung into action, attempting to foray into Cambodia and Laos in the wake of the signing of the Paris Accords in January, 1973, to overtly search for remains of Americans missing, or last known held prisoner there, and covertly, stand ready to effect their rescue in the known, second-tier POW camp system operating in Northern Cambodia and Laos, that we had extensively detailed, photographed, and ground reconnaissanced throughout the war era. We had vast "studies" of these camps in Laos, derived from SOG operations, Imagery Intelligence (IMINT, satellite, low and high altitude aircraft), and much agent reporting from SOG-34, or SOG-36 Operations and CIA operatives reporting on the Americans held in these camps in Laos.
At the time of Operation Homecoming, we believed our highest probability intelligence showed an estimated 310 to 350 men alive in camps within this second tier system in Laos. In 1973, 1 became aware as a result of my intelligence assignment in Bangkok as JCRC geared up for operations, that a considerable portion of the massive, many-years-accumulated, SOG-80 source archive had to be transported from Hawaii to Thailand. The reason for this is, as JCRC began to plan operations to recover remains, they discovered quite readily that the individual armed services, in order to protect SOG operations, had officially been ordered to falsify the actual incident-loss locations of the covert operations personnel lost cross border in Laos or Cambodia. Hence, in many cases, JCRC didn't know where to look, having false location data, designed to conceal the concerted violation of the international borders of Laos and Cambodia, as the last known location of American personnel.
Since the existence of the SOG-80 operations during the years 1966 through the end of the war, was so highly covert and classified, the administrative problem of resolving these cases was severely exacerbated. Further, since President Nixon had been denying (like his predecessors, Johnson and Kennedy), to the Congress investigating, and the American public, the existence at any time of any American combat, or covert forces in Laos or Cambodia, the issue was extremely sensitive politically. The matter of our signature to the 1962 Geneva Accords on Laos Neutrality, and international law, and our credibility and liability were at stake, Even further, the Congress had been literally breathing down Nixon's neck, with the McCloskey Hearings, focusing in recent years, on alleged illegal and unconstitutional acts of war proceeding covertly in Laos and Cambodia, and the attendant mass-bombing supporting these operations throughout the war. There was real fear, I saw manifested in "back channel" cables emanating from the Nixon White House, directly from Henry Kissinger in certain cases, that the discovery and public disclosure of the full extent of these covert operations and the true MIA figures for Laos and Cambodia, could result in potential impeachment. It is historically important here to note that one of the chief Articles of Impeachment arising eventually in the House of Representatives, in 1974 against Richard Nixon, was Conduct of an Illegal and Unconstitutional War in Laos.
Given the statements of the President publicly on March 28, 1973, before a national press conference that "Tonight all our prisoners of war from Indochina are on their way home", it would have been catastrophic politically for the public and Congress to become suddenly aware that in reality, we fully expected approximately 300 to 350 Americans to be released from Laos alone, out of a true figure of 600 men missing there.
Being kept tightly secret, in Top Secret, Eyes Only, Limited Distribution papers, were the memorandum written on that very same day, March 28, 1973, by then Assistant Secretary of State for International Security Affairs, Lawrence Eagleburger (later Secretary of State under George Bush), stating the expectation that Laos was still holding '350 American POWs'. Eagleburger, strenuously recommended therein, that a large portion of the war in Indochina be virtually restarted. He advised in his memo to Secretary of Defense Elliot Richardson, that we should start a massive B-52 bombing campaign immediately against Laos, and that an aircraft carrier task force group be hurriedly moved into the Indian Ocean, to resume air bombing operations against Laos. Considering we were supposedly bound to withdraw all American combat forces from the Vietnam war effort, under the terms of the Paris Accords, and the Congress had stopped all funding for combat operations there, beginning June 1 st, 1973, these were potentially explosive conclusions and recommendations.
SECDEF Richardson, removed the suggestion of the carrier task force group movement from Eagleburger's memo and quicldy passed it on to the Nixon White House; but Nixon had spoken publicly, and desperately needed the withdrawal to proceed smoothly from Vietnam. He was also beleaguered by Watergate, being hounded by Congress.
Compounding this situation, was the reality that on or about March 20th, 1973, the week before, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, had issued a Top Secret Eyes Only Limited Distribution message, ordering the Saigon command to "halt the withdrawal from Vietnam immediately", pending the resolution of the Laos POW/MIA situation. As he and the President well knew, of the 600 men missing in Laos alone, the United States Government insisted, fully 80% of those men, had fallen into areas of Laos directly and totally under North Vietnamese control. This order, had it become public, would have resulted in a massive media conflagration, given the state of political anathema, in the public and Congress, for anything but immediately ending the Vietnam conflict finally. Admiral Moorer, was prompted to write this astonishing order, because he knew that on February lst, 1973, in a top secret exchange of letters, between an American intelligence operative, and the North Vietnamese in Paris, arranged by Kissinger, we received the "Laos POW list", and there were only nine American names on it, instead of the expected 300 plus. Nixon, had secretly been forced to provide as his end of the exchange, a promissory letter, guaranteeing the North Vietnamese a minimum of 3.25 billion dollars in ransom for the Laos men, under the guise of wording that this sum would be "reconstruction aid'. All of this was being withheld from the American public and the Families of the missing, and the Congress, while the President disingenuously lied and said "All our POWs are on their way home tonight'. As I testified under oath, the atmosphere inherent in the Joint Chiefs of Staffs back channel messages at this time, became "near mutinous" in tone. It is important to understand that Nixon was literally besieged with Watergate that very week in 1973. In essence, the expected return of 300 plus American POWs, based upon highest probability intelligence forecast to the Nixon White House, much of it derived over the years from the SOG-80 integrated intelligence archive directly flowing to the White House, and the resultant ransom/hostage situation implied, was being swept under the rug from political expedience, and to forestall revelations that could quickly result in impeachment of a President, already beleaguered by Congressional angst. This revelation also probably would have destroyed the last remaining legacy being shepherded by the Nixon White House, as to their foreign policy competence and expertise.
To these, and other events of which I had personal awareness through intelligence traffic, and virtually riding the spinal cord of the POW/MIA hidden nervous system over the previous years, I have testified extensively to the Senate Select Committee and to a lesser degree, the House. Senate Investigators spent over 50 hours interrogating me under oath, through sworm statement, or live testimony behind closed doors, or in interview.
In the confusion and chaos that followed leading to Nixon's impeachment, the truth was swept desperately under the rug. Voices of dissent, like those of Roger Shields, Chief of the DOD's POW/MIA Office, were squelched. Shields, in that infamous and secret week at the end of March, 1973, was called into Acting Secretary of Defense William Clements' office to discuss his upcoming press conference on the status of the POW situation. Clements, as Shields would later testify, said for Shields to say "The rest are dead". Shields, stunned, said to Clements "You can't say that!" and Clements quickly replied in such a manner that Shields later testified he thought he was about to be fired on the spot warned "You didn't hear me Roger ... the rest are dead". Shields, later was taken by Clements to a secret session with President Nixon in the White House, with Brent Scowcroft attending, on April llth, and thereafter dutifully stated words to the effect at his press conference on or about April 14, 1973, that the rest of the men were dead, dashing the hopes of hundreds of families.
In the years that followed, and the Ford Administration ensuing, the evidence was ignored, kept tightly secret and hidden, and eventually a purge I testified to, began in 1975 of certain POW materials, from archives, with the intent, I believe, to bury the dark secret forever. With CIA Director William Colby spilling the beans on CIA misdeeds on Capitol Hill, President Ford and Henry Kissinger sought damage control; Colby had to go. The purge continued as George Bush was appointed Acting Director of CIA. Faced with the ignoble collapse of Saigon and Cambodia, and the onset of a genocide in Cambodia that President Ford chose to conceal clear evidence of from our public, so as not to acknowledge any political culpability for that human catastrophe, and to avoid revisitation of the lies of the Nixon Administration, the legacy of the hundreds of men was falsely sealed and a perverted history was put in place, with an officially stated public policy that we had certainty obtained the release of all our POWs and MlAs in Southeast Asia. In short, observing these ominous events, in my mind, the men were being written off.. Strategic Intelligence Collection Requirements (SICRS) were drastically altered, to virtually prevent agencies from searching for signs of any POWs. Especially curtailed, were satellite imagery collection efforts; a sure sign of not wanting to literally see evidence of the men's presence in Southeast Asia, signalling through symbols they were trained to surreptiously construct skyward, around their prison camps.
These lies led me on July 4, 1975, to refuse formal transfer and acceptance of the Presidential Nuclear Execution Codes at assumption of my duty period scheduled, and to demand immediate discharge. I stated that in good conscience, I could no longer wear the uniform under a lying Executive. A series of top secret intelligence debriefings began as intelligence agents arrived from Washington, wherein I stated the basis of my decision and revealed what had occurred, and what I had witnessed. I could not speak publicly for fear any remaining men would be summarily executed by the Communists. Such disclosure could negate any discreet opportunity to pay the promised 3.25 billion without the stigma of ransoming hostages to our credibility, and also for fear of real, imminent prosecution of disclosure. I simply abandoned eight years of exemplary service, leaving after having attained the pinnacle of responsibility, and as records attest, while serving as one of the top three men rated in my career field of Operations and Intelligence Specialists within the entire Army.
This secret, in my opinion, became one of the darkest, most tightly held of the modem era, out of fear of public disclosure. No President wanted to grasp the nettle of the issue, and disingenuous statements, and outright lies, continued to emanate from the various White Houses, and the DOD. Congress, unaware of the Nixon secret promissory letter to the North Vietnamese, refused any "reconstruction aid" to North Vietnam. It took four years for the truth of the secret promissory letter from Nixon to surface in Congress. The reasons behind the need for the letter, were obfuscated, and the Top Secret Rand Corporation Studies commissioned and followed by Nixon and Kissinger, recommending this approach to avoid the stigma of paying ransom for hostages, remained sequestered away. By then, many of the knowledgeable were continuing to rise in government and no one wanted to revisit the issue, including the American press, save the Families of the missing men. Apathy towards, and benign neglect of, anything 'Vietnam' reigned.
So it was I testified and described to the Senate Select Committee these events, and the necessity of locating the critical, all sourced, SOG archives. Despite finding evidence, as I'd testified to, of the 1975 purge of critical materials, the SSC could never locate the SOG archives and admits so in it's mushy final report. Documents and archives pertaining to other decisions and critically telling POW messages after Operation Homecoming, were blatantly withheld from the investigation by the Bush White House on grounds of Executive Privilege or national security rationales. I had testified to exact CIA and National Security Council documents, and upon that testimony the SSC challenged the Bush White House for them and was "stonewalled" in the words of several Senators. Ineffectively, the Senate voted unanimously in a 96-0 passage of a Resolution, that the Bush Administration should declassify POW/MIA materials soon after my testimony, adding a harsh clause that the Nixon NSC materials and tapes should be immediately forth-coming. The Bush White House ignored the Resolution and the weak Select Committee failed to confront them with subpoena.
In August of 1993, at the continued urging of many of the POW/MIA Families, especially at their National Convention in Washington, I found nryself virtually drafted into proceeding on their requested behalf, to "form a team" of experts, and go to the White House and inform the new President (President Clinton) of what he was not being told. Meanwhile, persons eager to stifle further inquiry, pushed normalization with Vietnam
Coordinating with Mr. Ross Perot, I set about doing just that. I selected LTG Eugene Tighe and Mr. George Carver, with myself, to form the nucleus of such a "team". LTG Tighe, as I mentioned earlier had been Intelligence Chief at CINCPAC during critical periods, and later became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Then in 1986, he had been appointed by President Reagan to investigate the issue, and his Tighe Commission Report, although watered down for political reasons, concluded the "strong possibility that men remain alive in Southeast Asia "today". It was kept secret, and withheld from the Families, Congress, press and public.
Mr. George Carver, was retired from the Central Intelligence Agency, where he had arisen to be Special Assistant to three different Directors of the CIA, on Vietnam matters. Dr.Carver, had been retired, and in 1993, was an Olin Fellow, for the Washington think-tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he continued to lecture at Cambridge and Yale, often on Indochina matters. More importantly and specifically to my intent, George had been on loan from CIA to the Nixon White House where he served as Chairman, for the Indochina Subcommittee on Intelligence, of the Washington Special Action Group, headed by Henry Kissinger, Nixon's National Security Advisor, during the critical Nixon years of the Indochina conflict.
What I well knew, was that the nation's most covert, extensive, and productive strategic intelligence operations, MACVSOG, and all other gathering agencies, directly flowed their product into the Nixon White House, to George's Indochina Committee on Intelligence. In short, George was the hands-on recipient and coordinator of the entire SOG product. The SOG operations were controlled by the WSAG directly, with the imprimatur of the President himself, for the cross border forays, which in those years, averaged seven to eight hundred yearly, on the ground. As such, George was the most informed man in the United States on intelligence in Indochina. His knowledge and awareness was virtually unique.
In early 1993, George and I both had called for the new President, through letters and press statements (and George wrote Commentary pieces for the Wall Street Journal) to appoint an Independent Commission to review the critical, capstone, intelligence materials that had been withheld from the Senate Investigation by the Bush White House, and to analyze newly emerged intelligence documents come to light since the SSC closed up shop in January,1993. I had written five discreet letters to President Clinton and Anthony Lake, citing evidence not publicly known. George unequivocally stated publicly, that "a rock solid, core case presentable to a jury, that approximately 300 men were kept behind, alive in Laos, could be made".
LTG Tighe had essentially testified and stated publicly the same numbers.
I had stated the exact same numbers as well, under oath, behind closed doors, and later after the Bush stonewalling, in numerous public venues. We were unanimous.
The reasons for the similarities were quite understandable. We had all seen and handled the exact same materials. Simply put, we were three men, whom the government itself admitted had access to the materials and the flow of intelligence to the White House in those critical years, who had directly perused, briefed and archived the materials so attesting.
I chose George and LTG Tighe to contact for the nucleus of our "team", because I felt that this President could not ignore the statements of three men who actually were there, handling the materials, and knew what President Nixon had been given over the years. We were not merely experts, or historians viewing isolated documents, from a perverted and purged archives through the gloomy lens of history. We were direct witnesses.
George and LTG Tighe agreed to join the effort to convince President Clinton, and Ross Perot set about arranging the details with the Clinton White House. Much occurred within the period early September, 1993 thru December, 1993. LTG Tighe was gravely ill, and was forced to speak to the White House telephonically, from his deathbed. He would die in December after giving his recommendations and conclusions.
On September 9th and again on November 4th, 1993, we conducted confidential meetings at the Clinton White House. The principals present were George Carver, Carol Hrdlicka, wffe of known alive, but not returned, Laos POW, Major David Hrdlicka, and myself at various times. I refused to attend the initial meetings at the last minute after traveling to Washington, because we were stopped short of seeing the President himself. Listening for President Clinton, were variously Mr. Anthony Lake, Mr. David Gergen, Mr. Sandy Berger, Mr. Kent Wiedemann, Ms. Nancy Soddeberg, and Mr. Rod von Lipsey, from either NSC or the Chief of Staffs Office, for Mac McLarty.
We delivered intelligence materials in our possession, not known of publicly, and still classified. I spoke to Anthony Lake privately of satellite photos depicting explosive intelligence, having been withheld from the investgations, and from the President's knowledge.
Much of the discussion was to satisfy the President's personal request, according to White House letters and Mr. Lake's assertions, that I tell them where materials were hidden in U.S. archives. I gave detailed lists of materials not having been subjected to investigation, and having been shunted around and hidden by persons not wanting the issue opened up. Central to this, were the SOG archives, and satellite imagery showing secret symbols.
As I had always testified, the quintessential archive pertaining to this matter, would be that which contained the SOG materials; the record of our most covert intelligence gathering operations, flowing directly to the White House, into George's hands. It was clear to anyone studying the issue, that if the SSC investigation proved anything, it was that the materials upon which Lawrence Eagleburger recommended restarting the war, and Admiral Moorer halted the withdrawal from Vietnam of American troops, over the men kept behind in Laos, had not yet been discovered despite the extent of a year long investigation. Since LTG Tighe and I had testified to what these voluminous materials said, and other events such as Moorer's and Eagleburger's actions proved, and now George Carver joined in describing, it was clear to any rational person these materials did exist, although remaining undiscovered.
The SOG archive therefore, undiscovered, or the Bush White House, unwilling to disclose them for embarrassment, had to be located. I had discussed the administrative procedures, and handling mechanisms and the flow arrangement of the SOG materials with George in several sessions between August and November we held secretly with Ross Perot and others assisting from inside the intelligence community.
In the November 4th, 1993 meeting with Mr. Anthony Lake in the West Wing of the White House, Lake and I had agreed in advance I would speak to certain critical intelligence materials, alone with him, with no others present. Leakers, fearing political retribution for disclosure, wanted President Clinton to protect them, if they came forward. They had been prepared to see the President with me, and George and LTG Tighe and several selected Family members, had we gained entrance to the Oval Office. But we had been thwarted, initialy believing we were to see the President personally, only to have two months of intensive meetings and communications, with everyone but the President himself, to our vocal, protesting, disappointment. Ross Perot was irritated at this baking, also.
Yet, I insisted to Mr. Lake that I bring George Carver with me for that second meeting. Mr. Lake knew George personally, and had worked with him in the Nixon White House, as Lake had been a Special Assistant to Henry Kissinger while George chaired the Indochina Intelligence Subcommittee of the WSAG. Lake though, had resigned in April, 1970, protesting the Nixon decision to secretly invade Cambodia, on principle. Respectfully, he listened to George, and George proffered CIA documents he'd authored, as late as 1975, going to the Director himself, about Americans still held captive in Indochina in the hundreds. I provided CIA documents going to the Director himself, in 1967 and 1969, detailing our certain knowledge of the second tier prison system in Laos, and the numbers of American POWs being hold there at the time. Their exact coordinates were noted. These particular documents directly put the lie to the notion POW/MIA debunkers constantly offered, that no secret prison camps existed. They were lying; here was the evidence.
I wanted the SOG archive found. I knew where it was, and so did George, just as I'd testified, but I wanted George, who Lake personally knew handled these critical materials, to corroborate what I had testified. After George finished his presentation to Lake, and we'd made our international security policy arguments as to strategy with the Vietnamese, and our recommendations to President Clinton, I reminded Lake of my assertions that the SOG archive was the key to the whole hidden mess, and the President's promise to declassify POW/MIA materials.
I chose to elicit the corroboration of my statements from George Carver, through questioning, before the President's National Security Advisor, in Lake's Office that evening. My notes and recollections of exactly how I proceeded to do this, are as follow.
I said "George, the WSAG controlled the operations approval for SOG, right from the White House, did it not?". George replied, "Yes". I said, "The purpose of SOG was to provide the President directly with strategic intelligence in Southeast Asia to conduct the war, through these most covert operations, was it not?'. George said, "Yes". I said "And as Chairman, of the Indochina Subcommittee on Intelligence for the WSAG for Kissinger, all of those intelligence materials and product flowed directly to you in the Nixon White House, did they not?", and George said "Yes" again. I said "That would include the materials produced from cross border ground surveillance in Laos and Cambodia from SOG-35 right?". Again George nodded emphatically, "Yes" he said. "And that would also include the product flowing from and through SOG-80, POW/MIA Rescue and Recovery too, would it not?" I asked tediously. I wanted Lake to understand without question. "Yes" George said again, "all of the various SOG divisions' product came to us in the White House". I said "Weren't these materials voluminous?". "Yes, they were, hundreds of pages", George said earnestly.
"Did you keep them here, in the White House after you received and reviewed them for the President's information, George?". George immediately responded "Oh, no! They were too voluminous and we didn't want materials that dangerous hanging around the White House ... not with the press leaks we'd had."
I said, "Did you give them then to Blackburn, the SACSA?", referring to the Special Assistant for Counter-Insurgency and Special Activities, to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. Brigadier General Donald Blackburn, USA, was the "cut out" between the White House and the Joint Chiefs, monitoring the SOG-White House controlled operations. As such he coordinated and consulted with George frequently, and was whom the White House directed orders for SOG. The role of the SACSAS, though they changed, remained constant with SOG operations through both President Johnson and Nixon.
"Oh no" George said, "Blackburn didn't have the administrative facility or staff to deal with these hot materials...he couldn't keep them in his offices over the Pentagon."
"Did you give them to your buddies, your counter-parts from your alma mater, at the CIA, George, for storage?" I asked with a certain smile.
"Yes", George said, "I sent them back to Langley for storage, through the DO", meaning the Directorate for Operations in the CIA. That was the arrangement I had". he continued, "usually by courier."
"So insofar as you know, those materials should be, exactly as I testified, held at Directorate of Operations in CIA, at Langley?" I continued patiently.
"Yes. That's where I sent them ... they always went there, we didn't have the ability or need or want to keep them laying around here. They were far too sensitive ... too many leaks ... people nosing around." George continued with words to that exact effect.
"And George" I concluded, "if they weren't right in the Director of Operations files, those archives at Langley now, where else might they be now?"
"Well, if they moved them out of Operations, historically, they would probably be moved to the Director's files ... to the Executive Registry Files of CIA", George finished, while Lake nodded.
"One last thing, George" I said, "if these files had been destroyed over the years, there would have to be a formal, detailed official record of their certified destruction, would there not?"
"Absolutely!", George said.
This is in essence the same testimony or interview or sworn statement conclusions I had given the Senate Investigators back in 1992.
"Oh George!" I said, I almost forgot ... wouldn't a bunch of that stuff from SOG also have been siphoned off at CINCPAC out in Hawaii as well? Didn't they keep their own archive of SOG material passing through also, since they were in the Administrative flow and often oversaw operational support role for SOG too?"
"Yes" George said. "They probably had a lot of it out there too, Barry ... it flowed through there as well...through the Political Advisor to the CINC, or Special Operations staff."
The Political Advisor or POLAD staff position on the various Unified commands, is the cover designation, unclassified name, for the CIA representative on a Commander-In-Chiefs staff.
The point here is that although SOG was a military, covert operation, having been essentially taken away from CIA in 1963, insofar as Indochina operations were concerned, and given to the Pentagon, the intelligence materials still ended up for storage purposes at CIA, as I had always known and George corroborated. While SOG was essentially a White House dedicated and strategically tasked and ultimately controlled operation, run by the military in covert fashion, with full CIA support when needed, the product ended up at CIA, in Langley, when the White House was done with it. That material is voluminous. The SOG-80 materials focused exclusively on POWs and MiAs, and the second-tier system in Laos and Northern Cambodia, upon which SOG attempted dozens of raids and reconnaissance missions over the years, and therefore contained the best, integrated, all sourced record of our picture of the POW/MIA situation for the war. It would be the bible on POWs and MlAs.
If that archive has been destroyed, there will be a record for it, as you cannot destroy classified materials so sensitive, without legally certifying its destruction through certificate. It would be a violation of the United States Code to do so, and there would always be extremely strict accountability in doing so. If CIA doesn't have the materials, or the complete record, detailed and signaturized and dated as to destruction and who authorized it, some very serious felonies have occurred.
If one goes looking for the SOG archives the CIA is the place to start and finish, as far as George and I were concerned, and we so told Lake that day. It should be noted that I spoke with George about this archive several times, for a cumulative period of hours, in our association during those months of concerted effort to get the new President to grasp the nettle to the POW/MIA issue, and face the truth, so true healing can finally begin, once and for all, over the Vietnam experience that lingers for this country. Until they do face the truth, and acknowledge the legacy of the men left behind and kept behind, Vietnam will never go away.
Five United States Presidents, at one point or another in their terms, have stood before the American people, and exhorted them to "put Vietnam behind us". But a nation and its people cannot "put behind" them, that which they know they've been continuously deceived about by their leaders. And if there is one thing the American people old enough to know, or read, or watch TV really understand, it is that virtually everything their leaders once told them about Vietnam, and the war in Southeast Asia, has later been proven to be a lie, to manipulate them or hide illegal or unconstitutional acts by Presidents from them and the Congress.
Until Presidents are willing to stop this abuse of the national security imprimatur for politically expedient and self-protecting motives, of which the POW/MIA conundrum is surely the most embarassing icon, we are stuck with the lingering cultural cancer that was our Vietnam aftermath.
No true healing will occur, no resolution and satisfaction and closure can finally begin, until a President with the moral courage to stop the charade concerning the legacy of these men abandoned, steps forward and honorably and finally puts an end to this trail of tears and anguish and frustration of these Families. Only then. honor can be restored to their sacrifice on behalf of the nation.
This Affidavit was given for the limited purpose of providing background as to the location of the MACVSOG derived and integrated intelligence archive pertaining to POW/MIA information long hidden from the American people. It by no means constitutes even remotely, the extent or scope of my testimonies and recollections regarding the POW/MIA situation or the details of consensus conclusions of the higher levels of the U.S. intelligence community, and that should be understood by the reader. This, is SOG specific only.
Dr. George Carver died suddenly in Washington D.C. within the last 40 days at 64. LTG Tighe died at 72 of years late last year. While former Secretaries of Defense Laird and Richardson acknowledged in their Senate testimonies they believed men probably were left behind, and former Director of the CIA, and later SECDEF James Schlesinger also acknowledged that "I can draw no other conclusion ... in 1973 men were left behind, they have not been pressed and said little more about those times, and the extent of the consensus within the intelligence community, that up to 350 men perhaps, were kept behind in Laos alone. I give this Affidavit as the only remaining member of our "team" effort alive, of those that actually handled the materials, for whatever its historical or legal value, to citizens."
On January 10th, 1994 after months of pressing the Clinton White House and Anthony Lake and his National Security Council senior staff as to the disingenuousness of recurring, calcified official statements emanating from both Department of Defense, and especially of late from the Department of State, the State Department Office of the Spokesman issued the following Immediate Release in response to a Taken Question:
Q: Were U.S. POWs left behind in Laos? Is Laos doing enough on the POW/MIA issue?
A: This issue has received extensive review in both the legislative and executive branches. Following its yearlong investigation into the POW/MIA issue, the Senate Select Committee on POWIMIA Affairs noted in its Final Report "American Officials did not have certain knowledge that any specific prisoner or prisoners were being left behind. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that live Americans may be held in Laos." Both executive branch representatives and members of the Senate Select Committee followed up expeditiously in Laos on reports and photos suggesting that American servicemen might be alive. We continue to investigate any report of Americans in captivity. Cooperation on the POW/MIA issue is a priority in our relations with Laos. We will continue to press for additional cooperation and progress on this issue. 505 Americans remain unaccounted for in Laos. Last year, the U.S. and Laos conducted six joint field activities. However, more than 90 percent of the persons unaccounted for in Laos were actually lost in areas under the control of the North Vietnamese. This demonstrates the importance of the first ever Trilateral Operation with Vietnam, which was completed on December 20. End of State Department Statement.
We had fought months to force such a frank statement out of the Clinton Administration. What is not told, is that on September 7, 1993, I confronted Assistant Secretaries Herschel Gober of Veterans Affairs, and Ed Ross, of the Pentagon's POW/MIA Office in person, over their repeated public statements that "all live sighting reports of Americans in captivity have now been investigated". I specifically accused them of misstating the situation in Laos, to mislead the public. We were in the Secretary of Defense's Conference Room in the Pentagon at a "closed" briefing. They both dodged and ducked my challenging question, but shortly thereafter, the statistical slide for the status of Live Sighting Reports of Americans In Captivity In Laos was shown. It said plainly "Live Sightings: 82, Investigations Completed: 10. When I then pressed the briefer, reminding him of my earlier allegation and query as to "How are the Laotian's cooperating in the Trilateral meetings?", he responded grudgingly. "There is no real cooperation. They promise one thing at the talks, then never deliver.'
Nonetheless, President Clinton, against all major Veterans' Organizations protests, and those of the Families of the POWs and MiAs groups, lifted the 26 year old Trade Embargo against the Communist Regime in Vietnam. News reports in national magazines claimed "sources inside the White House say the President's National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake, was the last holdout" against lifting the embargo. The Clinton Administration has moved quickly towards full normalization of relations with Vietnam.
There will be no true healing, no closure for the nation, on the Vietnam stigma, during this President's term. Indeed, national polls taken immediately after the President's action in February, showed that 83% of Americans "dont believe the Vietnamese are cooperating enough to resolve the MIA issue, despite Clinton's assurances they were. Another poll showed "73% of Americans believe their government is lying about Vietnam POWs and MlAs, and an astounding "53% of Americans believe there is a live American POW alive today in Vietnam".
George Carver, LTG Eugene Tighe and I have always said the hundreds of men left behind were in Laos. Laos, is the Rosetta Stone to the whole POW/MIA charade and hall of mirrors the issue has become. The internationally illegal, and unconstitutional war and covert activities mainly in Laos, since immediately after Kennedy's signature to the 1962 Geneva Accords on Laos Neutrality, which we immediately began violating, is the whole reason we could never officially admit these men's fate there. In the years since, the preservation of a perverted history and a game of lies endures to preserve the reputations of those participating originally, as they continued right through the Bush Administration.
Winston Lord, the Assistant Secretary of State for Asian Affairs today, in the Clinton Administration, was in 1973 Henry Kissinger's Personal Assistant, replacing Anthony Lake when he quit, and later Kissinger's Chief of Staff when Kissinger became Secretary of State. Winston Lord insists publicly the Vietnamese are cooperating superbly and recommended lifting the Trade Embargo. When asked under oath recently at a House Foreign Affairs committee hearing on Vietnam and POWs and MlAs that I also testified at, if "Did we leave men behind in 1973?", Lord responded "I wouldn't want to raise unfair accusations". When further pressed if he'd had any special or intelligence awareness of the POW/MIA situation through 1973, when serving as Henry Kissinger's Special Assistant in those critical years the SOG materials were flowing to George Carver, then on to Henry Kissinger and the President in the Nixon White House where Lord worked, Lord answered "No. None". Ironically, Lord had filled Anthony Lake's role for Kissinger, when Lake resigned in protest.
If you look right around Page 455, in Henry Kissinger's _The VWhite House Years, you will see Kissinger's own words, describing what a terrific job Winston Lord did in an exhaustive study of the SOG operations, that Kissinger tasked him with in those years. Winston Lord, was under oath that day, as I was.
Let the chips fall where they may.
Dated this 2nd Day of August, 1994.
(signature appears here)
BARRY ALLEN TOLL
Subscribed to and sworn to (or affirmed) before us this 3rd Day of August, 1994.
Witnesseth (signature here).............Witnesseth (signature here)
Marian R. Toll...........................James A. Waterman
This is an information report, not finally evaluated intelligence
Report No. CS-311/07755-69
Date Distr. (28 August 1969
2-188
PAGE I OF 4
COUNTRY Laos
DOI 25 July 1969
SUBJECT Estimated Enemy Prison Order of Battle in Laos
9 Camps w/Amer in camp
3 of the 9 have 37 stated Americans
ACQ Laos, Vientiane (27- July 1969)
SOURCE (appears to have been approx. a one inch plus blacked out area here involving serveral lines. Approx. 6 lines blacked out)
1. As of 25 July 1969, there were an estimated 500 personnel committed to guarding, escorting, and providing support for prisoners of war POW's in 54 confirmed enemy camps in Laos. These personnel are reflected as a portion of the command and support personnel for Laos, mentioned in the summary of estimated enemy order of battle for Laos as of 15 July 1969.
2. Living conditions. Generally, POW's receive humane treatment by Asian standards. (blacked out) comment: Some POWs have stated that they had received unhumane treatment or were subjected to various Indignities.) Food, although often reported as minimal, unclean, and unseasoned, is sufficent for existence; however, it often leads to malnutrition and disease which claims a large number of POW casualties. Medical treatment, while not adequate by Western standards, is normally, available in prlmltlve form.
3. Pow camps. POW are confined to a cave and/or stockade type structure during the night, but are permitted to go outside sometime during the day for exercise.
approved for release
20 Aug
PAGE 2 of 4
camp locations are changed frequently to provide better security. in some cases all or part of the POWs are allowed beyond the prison confines under light guard to forage for jungle foods. Prison guard forces are usually made up of personnel who due to their age or physical condition are unfit for regular military duty. Pathet Lao soldiers normally make up escort and guard forces. Many POW camps have full or part time North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Advisors. NVA interrogators occasionally question POWs.
4. Political indoctrination. The enemy makes a concerned effort to Indoctrinate POWs to the Communist cause through long periods of political training ("brain washing"). If and when a POW shows favorable improvement, he is released to become a soldier, a farmer, or often a propagandist.
5. As of 25 July, enemy prisons were confirmed at the following locations:
Location....................Possible nationality and/or number of prisoners
TX 0102....................450 to 500 prisoners, complex surrounded by bamboo fence
QD 5118
QD 6455
TJ 0134
TJ 4210
TJ 7449.................300 to 500 Royal Lao Army (FAR) prisoners
TJ 752449...............FAR prisoners released
TJ 747500...............100 FAR prisoners
VJ 1101
RC 1290..................Political prison
RC 1291
TH 531773................17 crippled FAR prisoners
TH 6391..................31 prisoners in a cave
VH 0157..................American prisoners
VH 195545................Possibly 20 American pilots
VH 196556................Prison for American pilots
VH 1362..................American prisoners
VH 1965 vic..............Possibly two Americans
VH 2048..................Possibly 15 Americans
Page 3 of 4..............CS-311/07755-69
VH 2761..................American pilots
UG 1145 vic
VO 1351 vic
UG 134542.................Over 100 prisoners
UG 147536
UG 1552
UG 1553
UG 1758 vic
UG 1360...................Deuanist prison
UG 2741...................Possibly 100 prisoners
UG 2268
VP 0427
WE 2125...................Possibly 50 FAR prisoners
WE 397316.................Possibly 130 prisoners
WE 4401 vic...............Possibly in a cave
NE 4032...................Possibly 80 prisoners
WE 4131...................90 prisoners
WE 4132
WE 433332.................Possibly 80 prisoners
WE 8805...................American and Thai prisoners
VD 7884
WD 8089
WD 827323..................60 FAR prisoners
WD 850820..................FAR prisoners
VD 9727 vic................51 FAR prisoners
WD 9829 vic................35 FAR prisoners
XD 0927
XD 094312
XD 198757
XD 3017
PAGE 4 of 4 pages
CS 1/07753-69
XD 3244................... Possibly 143 FAR prisoners
XD 3356
XD 3357....................Over 100 prisoners, possibly four Americans
XD 365508..................Over 100 FAR prisoners
XD 366584..................Possibly 167 prisoners
6. Field dissem: State Army Air USAID USMACV JPRC
7th Air Force COMSEVENTHFLT CINCPAC PACFLT ARPAC PACAF TFA/NKP
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
COUNTRY LAOS..........REPORT NO..........CS -311/10503-67
SUBJECT...............Enemy Prisons in Laos Date Distr. 9 October 1967
NO. PAGES 5
INFO. April 1965 - I September 1967
PLACE & 1967
DATE ACQ. Laos, Vientiane, 11 July 1965 September
Comment: Between 1 July 1965 and 1 September 1967 (blacked out) (blacked out) reported enemy prisons in Laos as listed below. The list is provided only as a guide. Prison locations are unverified and there are instances where two or more entries probably refer to the same installation. Some of the prisons described in the list may bave already been moved or closed. The list includes prisons on which more detailed information has ready been disseminated.
LOCATION...........DISCRIPTION/REMARKS.........DATE OF LATEST INFORMATION
a. Muong Sing-QD 2445 area
(1) (QD 233448) Blacked out lines here May 1967
b. Nam Tha-QL 5018
(1) (QD 532185) 16-20 prisoners, 25-man guard force armed with small arms. Commander Major Somphon. April 1967
c. Muang Sai-RC 1291
(1) (post 6 km west (62 prisoners) of M.Xai) December 1966
approved for relase .................
Date...20 Aug 1978
Page 2 of 5
CS-311/10503-67
d. Muong Liet-VH 1163
(1) (VH 0662).................................................April 1965
(2) (VH 1158.................(10 pilots)......................February 1966
(3) (VH 126620)..............(8 guards).......................May 1966
(4) (VH 1263)................(204 prisoner, 8 guards).........May 1966
(5) (VH 125631).......(100 guards, commander Captain Inthong) September 1966
(6) (VH 122623)..(Approx. 200 civilian and military prisoners) October 1966
(7) (VH 135631)............(Approx. 100 prisoners).............October 1966
(8) (VH 128629)............30-40 prisoners in cave.............December 1966
(9) (VH 128627)................(8 guards)......................June 1967
(10) (VH 132625)...(prisoners in cave and used as laborers.) April 1967
e. Ban Nakay Heua-VH 1957
(1) (VH 191523)................................................July 1965
(2) (VH 196550)..............(3 Americans).....................January 1966
(3) (VH 194566)......Prisoners in cave. At least one American...August 1966
(4) (VH 2057)...(Guard company of 100 men. Commander: Sisomphon) October 1966
(5) (VH 1957) Prison in Cave. 3-5 Americans here, reported as all dead.December 1966
(6) (VH 196546)................(4 Americans)...................December 1966
(7) (VH 1955)...(Cave with 3 Amercans, 2 others reported to have died)..December 1966
f. Ban Na VIT NEUA-VH 2453
(1) (VH 256540 or VH 246533)(200 Prisoners mostly civilians May 1967 who do not cooperate with PL)
g. Xieng Mene-VH 3149
(1) (VH 314590) (Cave with 3 Americans, 32 guards, many FL in area) April 1967
h. Dane Phao-VH 3654
(1) (VH 366534) (American prisoners in cave) April 1967
i. Xieng Kho-VH 1101
j. Sam Neua-VH 0157
(1) (VH 0157) (6 American prisoners) August 1967
k. Kong Het-UG 9553
(1) (UG 946550) November 1966
l. Ban Khong-UG 6166
(1) (DC 628671) (Civil and military 1966 prisoners) November 1966
m. Ban Ban-UG 4971
(1) (UG 493710) January 1966
(2) (UG 482714) (20 prisoners) January 1966
(3) (UG 494707) June 1966
(4) (UG 439725) July 1967
(5) (UG 495728) (No prisoners) November 1966
n. Ban Ngan-UG 2366
(1) (UG 211662) Pathet Lao prison (Approx. 40 prisoners. Commander Second Lieutenant Bouathong) June 1966
(2) (UG 215686) (Approx. 40 prisoners) CommanderBonsu, 25 guards April 1967
o. Ban Vieng-UG 1363
(1) (UG 139631) (60 prisoners with approx. 15 guards; prisoners are Deuane Neutralist military and civilian) January 1966\
(2) (UG 145598) (Deuane prison, approx. 80 prisoners both military and civilian) August 1966
(3) (UG 140605) Prison under control of Deunae S-2 August 1966
(4) (UG 138605) (One building with four rooms and one underground room; Second Lieutenant Khammay is prisone keeper) August 1966
(5) (UG 162597) (totally blacked out) August 1966
(6) (UG 1260) (Approx. 70 prisoners of Deuane & Kong Le forces. Interrogation conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Phadit) April 1967
p.Khang Khay-UG 1654 @311/10503-67
(1) (UG 2C54) (military prisoners only, six holes each 15 meters deep, 8 meters wide and 9 meters long inner fence 1 1/2 meters high of barbed wire, outer fence of wood; 2 guards each hole, guards at fences. Building for guards in vicinity) January 1966
(2) (UG 134543) (PL prison with approx. 250 prisoners) June 1966
(3) (UG 135540) (Combined PL/Deuane prison, Commander Captain I'a (PL), Deputy M/Sergeant Vandy (Deuane) June 1966
(4) (UG 1754) (Interrogation Center from POW's and deserters) March 1966
(5) (UG 166556) Military prison far PL and Deuane November 1966
q. Xieg Khouang-UG 2839 Prison for civil offenders November 1966
(1) (UG 292376)
(2) (UG 271416) (Cave) March 1966
r. Kham Keut-VF 7119 August 1966
(1) Vicinity VF 7119 (10 POW's)
(2) VF 8807) June 1966
s. Ban Nape-WF
(1) (vicinity WF 0823) June 1967
(2) (Vicinity WF 048274) (PL prison, 2 buildings with 100 pro-Lao government prisoners and 30 guards) February 1967
t. Ban Nakay-WE 1362
(1) (WE 1463) September 1966
u. Ban Khoummarath-WE 1846
(l) (WE 176461) (Two buildings 15 x 9 meters and a cave a short distance south, 11 guards) January 1966
(2) (WE 195455) July 1966
v. Mahaxay-WE 2125
(1) (WE 182279) (Cave capable of housing 30 men. 6 guards) January 1966
(2) (WX 285254) (One building, 20 pri) December 1966
w. Ban Naden-WE 4333
(1) (WE 5046) July 1967
x. Ban Tha Pha Chon-WE 8705
(1) (vicinity WE 876053) (Cave, one American) June 1967
(2) (WE 886091) June 1967
y. Ban Na Nhom-WD 7884
(1) (WD 7683) (Four American and 9 Thai prisoners moved to Muong Phine XD 0927 area) December 1966
(2) (WD 828824) August 1967
(3) (WD 7884) Late 1966
z. Ban Nam Phay-XD 2081
(1) (XD 3089) July 1966
(2) (XD 198757) Late 1966
aa. Muong Phine-XD 0927
(1) XD 073272 April 1967
XD 966304
XD 094314
XD 094361 bb. Ban Popeling - WC 7694
(1) (WC 8795) (Prison ror local civilians) September 1966
cc. Ban Keng Sad-YB 0163
(1) (YB 0563) (50 ADC soldiers held prisoner guarded by 15 PL) January 1967
(2) (YB 075663) January 1967
dd. Ban sempo-XB 5910
(1) (XB 5219) (6 guards) August 1967
(2) (XB 4812) November 1966