Posted on 03/14/2025 8:25:54 PM PDT by MAGA2017
In the early to mid-1980's I watched an episode of ABC's Nightline hosted by Ted Koppel. The topic was on the plausibility that there were still Americans being held captive or were held captive after the war in Vietnam.
I don't remember who the guests on the program were. What I do remember is a black & white photo that the program showed. It was a photo of a half-dozen or so Caucasian-looking men standing together. They appeared to be wearing what could have old worn uniforms or work clothes. I believe on one corner or side of the photo there was some cyrillic script. Supposedly this was a photo of American POWs.
I didn't really believe it at the time. The men in the photo didn't look American to me. Most, if not all of them had mustaches. They had a Eastern European or Slavic look to them. Think Lech Wałęsa.
But I'm curious what the story is with that photo. When and where was it taken? Who were those men? I've been looking online for it. But I cannot find it or any reference to it anywhere. Does anyone else here remember this? I'm pretty sure this photo was also published in newspapers around this time.
Well a good number of American POW’s (mostly Airmen) were captured by the USSR and Chinese when their patrol planes were shot down. Reason I know this is my Uncle was a Radio operator on a Navy PV-2 Neptune which flew up and down the China and Soviet borders and a number of planes were shot down and his nearly was several times. Also there was a book I have in storage detailing POW’s held after WW2 by Stalin as hostages called Soldiers of Misfortune as the Soviets overran a number of Allied POW’s who were never seen again as the Germans documented they had them, but they disappeared. Same goes for Korean War POW’s who were taken into China and rare reports of American pilots in prison camps by defectors.
We definitely left POWs behind. Read “Kiss the Boys Goodbye” by Monica Jensen-Stevenson. There are photos in this excellent book.
As I said, I vaguely remember something about it.
I’m a Nam vet and paid attention to the POW situation.
I’ll pass on that.
Another point that after the Soviet Union fell it was discovered that graves were found with a Russian buried on top of an American or Allied POW buried underneath as it was documented in Soviet records of this happening. Stalin was so paranoid and angry as the Allied held back a percentage of Russians captured in the West and never returned.
Yeah, that would be a slog to get through, if any info still existed.
1/2 dozen in this photo (Soviet connection/Hoax?):
That is what Ross Perot was trying to find out and prove. Reagan pretty much shut him dow because the CIA,FBI had convinced Reagan there were no live POW’s in vietnam. Then later, he tried with GHWB, again shut down. Perot also proclaimed the CIA had been heavily into drug trafficking from SE Asia but no one in congress was interested to looking into that. After knowing what we know today of what 3 letter agencies are not only capable of doing but willing to do so, I am not sure Ross Perot was wrong for trying to find out the truth. It has been said that the reason for him running for president was so he could find out the truth and also because GHWB was out to “get him”. Perot was convinced there was an assassination plot against him by not only our government but others as well. One thing he was right about was that giant sucking sound of jobs leaving America for Mexico.
Traitor AlGore and douchebag JohnMcCain buried the story and the evidence of U.S.POWs still alive and held in VietNam.
Hanoi wanted to use them as hostages for payment, just like they did with French prisoners after DienBienPhu, the French paid up.
No there weren’t. John McCain said so. /sarc
Or maybe they do come back - but "different."
Regards,
111
Communists were known to not return all living POWs but American's weren't the only Caucasians in SE Asia. Could have been Australian, or New Zealanders.
Might have been US, Australian, or New Zealand deserters undergoing political reeducation.
Might have been French leftovers.
Safe to say all by this time are dead.
My understanding is MIA status helps keep benefits flowing.
Thomas Jefferson would agree with your assessment.
kid i used to pal around had an uncle who never came out of korea. pics of him as a pow surfaced periodically until the late 70s. roger dumas was his name. nephew was greg.
AI did not exist in any form in those days. Image processing was done on large computers and took a lot of time. Photoshop did not exist.
I remember a news reel film of a captured American pilot in North Vietnam. He had been captive for a long time and in the film he is called forward, bows to the front, then right and left.
He was never released. Anyone else remember that?
I remember the MP’s marching Robert Garwood to work in the morning at Lejeune when I worked at Elmaco. The CO would have us all go to the windows and jeer him.
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