Page 8 Teo, who was attached to Office 22 but not part of it. They said Pham Teo worked for Col Hanh. If this mission was compartmented because of secrecy concerns, it is perhaps conceivable that Col Hanh was unaware of the recovery effort. We do not know the identity of Pham Teo’s parent organization or which element had physical custody of the remains— the parent organization or Group 875. One former colleague of Pham Teo has reported that Teo acted as liaison between Group 875 and PAVN’s Policy Office, which had wartime responsibility for collecting PAVN remains. According to former members of Group 875, the group’s cadre did not routinely take part in the physical recovery of remains. Instead, they traveled to the provinces to explain the policy and procedures, organized record keeping, gathered documents, inspected graves, and collected remains already disinterred. A veteran of Group 875 said that when assigned to the unit in late 1972, he and at least two of his colleagues were given the job of visiting every provincial military command in the North. There they drew up lists of remains in each province. Once the lists were completed, the veteran’s job was to monitor the recovery effort from his offices in Hanoi, while military personnel and civilians living in the area of the grave disinterred the remains. Local officials throughout Vietnam, as well as Vietnamese documents, corroborate this approach to the division of labor. On October 21, 1972, the Prime Minister issued Directive 286, which tasked provincial military headquarters, district and city security police, and concerned local authorities to inspect and reconfirm American pilots’ graves. This directive applied to Vietnamese organizations throughout Indochina. According to persons assigned to carry out these tasks, this directive was necessary to authorize the involvement of civil elements in activities assigned to Group 875, a purely military organization. In response, each province appears to have formed teams staffed by military and public security service personnel. In most, if not all, provinces these tasks were delegated to similarly staffed district-level teams. In turn, these teams notified village authorities and military units to collect information on U.S. casualties and graves and forward the results up the chain of command. Vietnam has given the U. S. a large number of documents that were generated as a result of this directive and cover 23 of the 26 northern provinces. Many of the documents were prepared during November 1972, but follow-up reporting continued through 1973. We have not yet been able to acquire a copy of Directive 286. Nonetheless, the similarities in the reports this directive generated make it possible to extrapolate its requirements and those of supplementary instructions directed to provincial and local officials. Of the 23 northern provinces represented, we have acquired casualty lists for 15. These lists, which contain very similar column headings, usually provide personal data (if available) on the deceased and identify the aircraft type and date and location of loss. They also note whether the remains were found at the time of the loss and, if so, in which village or hamlet they were buried. Some documents describe whether remains were interred in a coffin. Others note whether graves are still present and, if not, why not. In 11 of the 23 provinces, the Vietnamese have turned over sketches that apparently accompanied the casualty lists and showed how to find extant graves. We also have acquired a variety of other records for 10 of the 23 provinces. They include reports on individual loss incidents and graves, lists of downed aircraft, and