POW/MIA ISSUES - "SOME STILL SURVIVE...BRING 'EM HOME! "
POWs IN LAOS: SOME STILL SURVIVE HELP BRING THEM HOME
There were 480 POW/MIAs lost in Laos. Colonel David Hrdlicka is one of over 60 known American Servicemen captured in Laos during the Vietnam War that were never negotiated for. American Prisoners of War (POWs) have since been reported alive in Laos for over three decades. Through thirty years of covert actions, political miscalculations, self-serving careerism, and cover-ups the US Government has been ineffective in bringing about their release. At the end of the Vietnam War the US government informed America that the Vietnamese would be responsible for all POW/MIAs including those in Laos and Cambodia. That was not true.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Declassified transcripts of the Paris Peace Accords "Secret Negotiation" reveal that the Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho would not take responsibility for POWs other than those held by the Vietnamese. He insisted that Laos was a sovereign country and that the US must negotiate with the Pathet Lao [Laotian communists] for the POWs they held. Henry Kissinger told Le Duc Tho that if the Vietnamese would neither object -- nor accept responsibility for all POWs publicly when he [Kissinger] said they would be responsible for all POWs in Indochina. -- that the US would not hold the Vietnamese to it. Laos was not part of the Paris Peace Accords; we never negotiated for POWs in Laos.
In January 1973 the US agreed to pay the Vietnamese $4.25 billion in reconstruction aid for the list of POWs in Laos. The Department of Defense (DOD) negotiators received the names of only 10 POWs captured in Laos by the Vietnamese. When the 591 POWs released from Vietnam returned and informed the Congress how they were tortured and some killed the Congress refused to authorize payment of reconstruction Aid. This confounded the problem of unreturned POWs from Laos.
In an interview with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Tom Moorer (1995)
he stated there was a rescue planned for 60 POWs known captive in Laos at the end of 1972. The rescue was canceled because of the Paris Peace Agreement. When questioned why the POWs were not rescued after the Vietnamese gave back their last returned POWs on March 28th 1973, Admiral Moorer maintains that there was no current intelligence at that time on which to the launch rescues. They could not be sure the POWs were still at the last known locations and would not risk a rescue. Following are some of these POW/MIAs that have been sighted in recent years, there are others.
SOME STILL SURVIVE
POW/MIA Colonel David Louis Hrdlicka (USAF), an F-105 pilot, was born in Minnesota and shot down in Laos. He was photographed in captivity and reported alive in the Russian Newspaper Pravda during the war. There have been numerous reported live sightings of David Hrdlicka throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His wife Carol who now lives in Kansas still seeks his return through the Defense POW Office (DPMO) and would like the Congress to use their legislative powers to require government to get him out before he dies in Laos and the government settles for his bones. She states they have done nothing constructive to locate him.
Colonel Frank Gould a navigator aboard a B-52 from the Bronx NY parachuted over Laos with the rest of his crew after being hit during a bombing run over Hanoi. He was the last man on the ground, the helicopter rescued the other crewmen. Gunfire at the helicopter and nightfall prevented his recovery. The following day rescuers could not locate him. Reports that Frank was alive and wanted to come home have come out throughout the 1990's. His wife Marie resides in California and would like to know why Congress is not exercising their oversight ability to assure the Department of Defense gets him home.
CWO William Milliner, from Kentucky, was flying a Cobra helicopter Gun Ship over Laos in March 1971 when he was last heard from. A businessman in Thailand with contacts inside Laos gave information to US officials (1989) that "Milliner" is alive and can be brought to the Thai border. When the Laotians requested a reward they were turned away. His father Joe a returned WWII POW and his mother Mary travel to Washington annually trying to get the government to bring him home. Their plea's bring no response.
Army Special Forces Sgt. Charles Huston from Ohio was on a reconnaissance mission in Laos in 1968. He was left on the ground along with Sgt. George Brown, and Sgt. Alan Boyer when their extraction helicopter came under fire and had to leave. In 1989, an oriental prisoner captured by the Vietnamese in Laos escaped and made his way to Thailand where he was interviewed by US officials. He stated that he spoke with UY-STON [Charles Huston] who told him if he ever got free to let the world know "that my name is Huston, and there are other American's held with me." His brothers John and Robert strive to have the DOD get him out.
The Defense POW/MIA Office (DPMO) has historically excluded the living unreturned POW/MIAs from constructive consideration. They either refuse to negotiate for those known to have survived, or they are completely ineffectual in doing so. The DPMO was in Southeast Asia on October 23rd and 24th, 2003 to negotiate with the Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Laotians on POW/MIA matters because these countries want improved trade relations. Individual cases, where live POW information exists was not discussed. Hundreds of classified documents on live POWs are still denied the public. The field investigators that implement POW policy don't have negotiating authority, access to senior Communist officials, or knowledge of all classified material.
WHY ACT NOW
The Laotians want improved trade relations. We previously normalized trade relations with Vietnam and a road map for an accounting of POWs known alive in communist hands at the end of the war is still not productive. It is ineffective and individual live sighting cases are ignored at the Defense POW office. The DPMO does negotiate for remains from battle and crash sites, a worthy effort in itself, but DOD always drops the live POW matter and compromises on live POWs. The DOD repeatedly falls for the communist "remains" tactics and has not made any headway on the POWs last known or reported alive. It is easier and less embarrassing to discuss dead bodies, rather that discuss who may still be alive. The DOD is not performing due diligence in accounting for live POW/MIAs; and Congress is not using their oversight authority.
The policy makers are satisfied with the quick fix accounting acceptance for remains. An accounting that does not seek out unreturned survivors distorts the truth. The POW/MIA families want action taken for recovery and POWs returned home. Do not let negotiator's come up with another road map that does not assure the return of our live American servicemen left and still alive in Southeast Asia.
YOU CAN HELP BRING THESE MEN BACK
Contact your Senators; the Senate Intelligence Committee, Armed Services Committee, and Foreign Relations Committee need to initiate legislation to require live POW negotiations. The Congress must then exercise oversight authority assuring qualified negotiators secure release and return of surviving POWs. Let the Laotians return POWs and join in improved trade relations.
What to do
Send letters to: The Whitehouse, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington, DC; your Senators, the Chairman and members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee. There is already a reaction from the Department of Defense to the Senate. Be part of the solution in bringing surviving POWs home from the Vietnam War. Make it happen.
Contact Roger Hall, 301/587-5055, 301/585-3361, rhall8715@aol.com For additional Senate contact and Donation information: www.powfoia.org
April 1992: Select Committee Delegation
On April 16, five members of the Select Committee -- Senators Kerry, Smith, Robb, Brown and Grassley -- embarked on a ten-day mission to Southeast Asia. Members of the delegation spent three days in Vietnam. Their purpose was twofold: first, to obtain the necessary assurances of cooperation from senior Vietnamese leaders; and, second, to ensure that those guarantees of access would be carried out.
The Senate delegation's stay in Vietnam demonstrated both the significant progress that had been made on the POW/MIA issue as well as the formidable obstacles which still remained to obtaining the fullest possible accounting for the 1,655 servicemen lost in or over Vietnam. The senators arrived in Hanoi on April 21, shortly after 58 JTF-FA and CIL-HI crash-site and live-sighting investigators had arrived for the nineteenth "joint iteration" and had divided into five teams to conduct 30 days of excavations and investigations in seven northern and central provinces in Vietnam.
Meetings in Hanoi. During meetings with numerous senior Vietnamese officials in Hanoi, the Senate delegation received assurances of continued cooperation on the POW/MIA issue. Initial meetings on April 21 with Foreign Minister Cam and Defense Minister Khue, while promising in tone, did not yield specific plans to advance Vietnamese cooperation. Both ministers adamantly reasserted that there were no American prisoners of war in captivity or living freely in Vietnam.
The senators repeatedly emphasized the importance of immediate access to areas of live-sighting reports, access to war-time archives and officials, better logistical support for joint investigative teams, and a resolution of the issue of warehousing remains.
Senators also met with Interior Minister Bui Thien Ngo whose Ministry controls the Vietnamese prison system. Ngo promised cooperation in providing U.S. investigators access to prisons where Americans were alleged to be held after the Operation Homecoming.
Other meetings with VNOSMP officials focused on the procedural and administrative difficulties U.S. investigators encountered in attempting to conduct thorough live-sighting and crash-site investigations. The delegation also visited the Army war museum in Hanoi where flight gear of downed American pilots is displayed.
General Secretary Do Muoi's "Breakthrough" Guarantees. Of great significance was the delegation's meeting with Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Do Muoi and Interior Vice Minister Le Minh Huong, held on the morning of April 22. The senators received from the General Secretary direct guarantees that the delegation and JTF-FA personnel would have whatever access to places, persons and records they determined essential to resolving the POW/MIA issue in 1992. In fact, Do Muoi asked the delegation on three separate occasions to tell him exactly what the Select Committee expected from Vietnam to resolve the issue.
Do Muoi also agreed to grant U.S. investigative teams access to border sites in Laos through Vietnam if Lao officials agreed. And he steadfastly maintained that no American prisoners were kept after Operation Homecoming, and denied that Vietnam had ever warehoused American remains.
The use of U.S. helicopters in POW/MIA investigations was one concession which Do Muoi and other Vietnamese leaders were unwilling to make, citing the probable negative reaction of the Vietnamese people to the sight and sound of U.S. choppers as a reason for their refusal.
Inspection of Thanh Liet Prison
On April 21, the Senate delegation informed Vietnamese representatives that the senators wished to go to Thanh Liet prison located about 20 kilometers south of Hanoi in the Thanh Liet district. Thanh Liet had been the detention site for about 10 American POWs between 1968 and 1972, and had served as the location of three first-hand live-sighting reports of alleged American POWs since 1984. U.S. investigators had been denied permission to inspect Thanh Liet several weeks earlier.
On April 22, when the senators arrived at Thanh Liet Prison, their access initially was restricted by the camp commander to those areas where Americans were held during the war. Calls to the Foreign and Interior ministries by Vietnamese personnel accompanying the delegation won the delegation unrestricted access to all prison quarters.
Although the delegation found no evidence of Americans being held at Thanh Liet in recent years, their inspection of the prison established a precedent for the conduct of similar short-notice inspections by JTF-FA personnel.
Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, and Mekong Delta Visits. On the morning of April 23, Senators Kerry and Smith flew to the Mekong Delta; Senator Brown flew to Da Nang; and Senator Grassley met with Vietnamese officials in Ho Chi Minh City.
Senator Grassley and Select Committee staff talked extensively to Bui Dac Cam, a Vietnamese official involved since 1975 in the search for American MIA remains. Cam acknowledged that it is a crime in Vietnam to file a false live-sighting report and attributed many of those reports to the rumors of a two-million dollar reward for a live American. The need for communication on live-sighting reports between Vietnamese and American live-sighting investigators was emphasized.
Grassley later met with former Vietnamese "re-education camp" inmates, most of whom had been interned in North Vietnam for many years after the fall of Saigon. Several of the men said they had seen Marine Private Robert Garwood working in a re-education camp in North Vietnam. None reported seeing or hearing of any other Americans in detention camps after the war.
During his visit to Da Nang, Brown met with the KGB station chief at the Russian Consulate in Da Nang. He had been in Vietnam since 1972, and despite hearsay reports he had received, he was convinced that there were no Americans presently held prisoner in Vietnam.
Senators Kerry and Smith flew by helicopter to three sensitive military areas in southern Vietnam to further test Vietnamese commitment to short-notice live-sighting investigations. The Senators touched down on Phu Quoc Island, an active naval base; Dong Tam, former headquarters of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division, and Can Tho, a former U.S. Cobra helicopter base.
At each site there was initial local resistance to the visit which in most cases was eventually overcome. The stops highlighted several of the procedural and administrative obstacles to be dealt with if U.S. investigations of live-sighting reports are to be effective and credible.
The Senate delegation's activities in Vietnam were successful in a number of respects. First, while Vietnamese leaders steadfastly denied holding any Americans after the war, they gave specific assurances that Lt. Col. John Donovan, Chief of JTF-FA for Vietnam, and his investigators would be given access to all the places, persons and records necessary to achieve the fullest possible accounting. The delegation identified particular individuals which the Vietnamese should make available, records they should produce and places they must provide access to for the Select Committee to report favorably on Vietnamese cooperation.
Second, Senators had put Vietnam's assurances to a vigorous test, particularly the short-notice, live-sighting investigations -- more than previous delegations had attempted.
Third, the delegation identified some of the logistical problems which Vietnam must resolve to enable U.S. investigators to investigate live-sighting reports, examine crash sites and otherwise freely pursue evidence about the fate of our POW/MIAs.
Recent Developments
In April, following the Senate delegation's return the Bush Administration took the next reciprocal steps on the Road Map by allowing the commercial sale of certain products required to meet basic human needs, by easing restrictions on American non- governmental and non-profit groups working in Vietnam, and by agreeing to the establishment of telecommunications links between the U.S. and Vietnam. These steps were followed shortly by permission for Vietnamese-Americans to make direct money transfers to relatives in Vietnam.
In July, the Select Committee's staff director, Frances Zwenig, traveled to Southeast Asia to meet with Vietnamese and Lao officials. The purposes of Zwenig's trip to Vietnam were to impress upon Vietnamese officials the urgency of completing all current live-sighting investigations and to explore the possibility of holding an informal U.S./Vietnam hearing to discuss the status of unresolved discrepancy cases. Her visit to Vietnam coincided with JTF-FA Commander Maj. Gen. Thomas Needham's trip to the area.
Zwenig's discussions with Vice Foreign Minister Le Mai yielded Vietnam's agreement to an expedited schedule for investigations of prisons and military facilities on a priority list at DIA's detachment in Bangkok (Stony Beach). Further, Vietnam agreed to add a second investigator to its live-sighting team.
During this period, the U.S. was beginning to receive significant amounts of information from Vietnamese archives through the work of an American, Mr. Ted Schweitzer, who had been granted access to these records by the Government of Vietnam. Accordingly, on October 8, Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney met with Vietnam's Foreign Minister Nguyen Man Cam, and the Director of the Americas Department, Le Bang, to discuss the information which the U.S. had been receiving and to work out an agreement to formalize U.S. access to this type of information.
Vietnam responded by inviting Vessey to Hanoi. Vessey departed for Hanoi on October 15; included in his delegation, at the request of President Bush, was Select Committee member Senator McCain.
McCain carried with him to Vietnam a letter from Chairman Kerry, encouraging and authorizing McCain's participation in the Vessey delegation.
The delegation arrived in Hanoi on October 17. In the first formal meeting on the following day, Vice Foreign Minister Le Mai led Vietnam's negotiators. Shortly before the meeting began, Vessey and McCain had an informal discussion with Mai, during which Mai indicated that the U.S. would receive the agreements we sought.
Progress in achieving U.S. objectives in the meeting proceeded so rapidly that the negotiations adjourned in considerably less time than anticipated by the delegation. Mai explained that the Government of Vietnam was currently collecting widely dispersed documentary evidence showing the fates of American POW/MIAs into Vietnam's military archives, where it would all be made available to U.S. investigators, and that Vietnam would sign an agreement to that effect before the delegation departed for the U.S.
Vessey then suggested that the delegations divide into teams to draft the formal agreement for access to this information and a memorandum of understanding detailing the mechanisms for that access.Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ken Quinn led the team drafting the formal agreement, and Needham led the team to draft the memorandum of understanding. All U.S. personnel involved in the initial negotiations, and in the subsequent drafting sessions remarked on the relative ease with which the agreements were concluded.
The delegation departed Vietnam on October 19. Upon their return to the United States, Vessey and McCain characterized the agreements as a "breakthrough" that had established finally the mechanism through which the United States could receive the fullest possible accounting for our POW/MIAs. In a Rose Garden ceremony a few days later, President Bush also hailed the agreements as a "breakthrough."
A Senate delegation returned to Vietnam in November 1992 to follow up on Vessey's accomplishments of the month before and to push for further cooperation. The delegation's primary objectives were:
. To accelerate the pace of joint American-Vietnamese investigations of live sighting reports;
. To press for specific answers to questions raised by the most troubling of the remaining discrepancy cases;
. To expand research capabilities within the archives of Vietnam's military museums;
. To obtain access to Vietnamese veterans of the war, for the purpose of taking oral histories; and
. To push for the repatriation of remains held by private individuals throughout Vietnam.
Senators Kerry, Daschle and Brown held three days of meetings in Hanoi with President Le Duc Anh, Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam and other officials of the Defense and Foreign Ministries, including working-level officials of the VNOSMP. Kerry delivered a letter from President Bush to President Anh encouraging Vietnam to continue to increase its level of cooperation on the POW/MIA issue.
The delegation made great progress in the area of live- sighting investigations. As discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4, the members of the delegation personally conducted investigations of six high-priority live-sighting reports and won assurances that American officials stationed in Vietnam would be permitted to conduct investigations of all of the remaining priority live- sighting reports by Dec. 10, 1992.
The members of the delegation also asked the Vietnamese hard questions about specific discrepancy cases in which it appeared most likely that the Vietnamese could provide information. In two meetings with officials of VNOSMP, the Senators discussed the factual details of several discrepancy cases and learned of archival, anecdotal and other information known by the Vietnamese about the fate of unaccounted-for Americans. Similar meetings at the working level are to continue.
The delegation stressed the great importance that the United States places upon access to Vietnam's war archives. Photographs, documents, artifacts and other materials already have provided answers to questions which have lingered for more than 20 years in a small number of discrepancy cases, and the Committee expects that more answers will be forthcoming as U.S. officials gain access to the wealth of information that exists within Vietnam's archives. In response to delegation requests, the Vietnamese promised to open new archival research offices in Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, in addition to the office already open in Hanoi.
The delegation also sought and obtained a promise from the Vietnamese Government to make Vietnamese veterans of the war available to American investigators for the taking of oral histories. Both sides recognized that Vietnamese soldiers have an enormous amount of information about individual battles and other incidents which will complement archival information as it is uncovered. The Committee expects that oral histories obtained from Vietnamese veterans will answer many outstanding questions about what happened to unaccounted-for servicemen.
Finally, the delegation pressed the Vietnamese on the subject of remains. The Vietnamese assured the Senators that the Government was not holding any American remains and promised to take actions to encourage private citizens who might be holding remains to turn them in for repatriation to the U.S.
Committee Hearings
During its final public hearing, on Dec. 4, 1992, the Select Committee reviewed the status of progress in securing cooperation from Vietnam. Vessey testified that:
That long-sought agreement to get at the Vietnamese war- time archival material puts in place what I believe to be the last piece of procedural machinery that we needed to get to the fullest possible accounting. . .
I believe we now have in place the necessary agreements with the Vietnamese Government. We have correctly organized within our own Government. We have competent people working on the matter. But again I say there is a lot of work ahead. And a lot of cooperation will be required on both sides if we're to get the answers we seek.
Needham, head of the JTF-FA, told the Committee that:
In the last year, the cooperation in Vietnam has been steadily improving. . .
Recently, with the visits of General Vessey and Senator McCain, and your Committee, there's been some dramatic improvements.
I think the Vietnamese could still do more, but right now we see cooperation getting better and better every day at the central level. In the field level, cooperation is mixed. In some provinces, its better than others. In some areas, it depends on the central government team leader or the local officials as to whether it's up or down. We are still, across the board, seeing better improvement. . .
A long-standing issue in U.S.-Vietnamese relations concerns the possibility that the Government of Vietnam has stockpiled the remains of American servicemen to be doled out at politically convenient times and, if so, whether that stockpile has by now been depleted. On this point, Vessey testified:
. . . the number of remains that some people expect to be in storage is too high. It doesn't stand the sensibility check. . . we don't know whether they hold remains or not.
Needham testified:
I just don't know the answer on remains. I do know that there are many remains being held by private citizens and I've addressed that with the Vietnamese, because it's against their law. They tell me that they are trying to find a way to solve that problem. . .
I also believe that there are some remains being held by the local district and village officials, all of this in hopes that there will be some monetary reward at some point.
Mr. Garnett Bell, JTF-FA's negotiations assistance officer, testified:
There certainly was a warehouse in the Hanoi area at one time. The "mortician," I think, after he defected in 1979, he testified here in Congress that he processed some 452 remains. The Vietnamese were confronted with that information. They denied it. They indicated that they thought the mortician was fabricating.
He (the mortician) actually provided about seven different items of information. I think six of those have been verified. . .
The Vietnamese, I believe, came to the conclusion that we were confident that the man was telling the truth. Since the mortician gave his testimony, they have returned to us approximately 450 remains.
Approximately 260-269 remains have now been identified, and that indicates to me (that). . . they're telling us that we have given you those remains back and the warehouse here in Hanoi is empty.
An important perspective on the issue of cooperation and accountability was presented to the Committee by Schweitzer, an individual who is now employed by the DoD and who played a major role in gaining U.S. access to Vietnam's military archives, where he had been working for more than a year first as a private researcher, compiling information for a book and then as a DoD consultant. Schweitzer said that a great deal of evidence and information concerning lost Americans is in the hands of private Vietnamese citizens, but that those citizens have lacked a strong incentive to come forward. In Schweitzer's opinion, Vietnamese citizens will be more likely to respond to appeals for information from the central government in Hanoi and from the U.S. if they see the U.S. beginning to act more favorably towards Vietnam.
Schweitzer also questioned the degree to which the central Government of Vietnam knows more than it has told the U.S. about the fate of missing Americans:
There were orders from Hanoi throughout the war that any American who was captured or any American who was killed, there was to be a complete report made and sent to Hanoi. But in the heat of battle in the war. . . a lot of times these reports just didn't get made. Sometimes they did get made and they didn't arrive in Hanoi. . . one specific case I was told about a report was made and then before the group taking the report back to Hanoi could get there, they were all killed in a bombing attack. So that report never made it. Another case, a Navy flyer who was shot down, his airplane crashed in the sea. The Vietnamese went out with a boat and they actually pulled up the airplane, got it, got the pilot and buried him on the beach. The very next day, a bomb struck right on top of that pilot's grave where they buried him and absolutely nothing is left. Even though they had remains and pictures the remains are now completely unrecoverable. . .
Schweitzer also had some provocative observations about the slowness in getting answers from Vietnam about some of our missing servicemen:
The methods employed by the U.S. side in searching for MIAs were basically unsound. The U.S. would provide the Vietnamese leadership with a list of names of missing Americans and expect the Vietnamese to come up with information on them. The Vietnamese leadership had no idea how to approach this problem. . .
The Vietnamese archive system, such as it is, is not arranged by name, but rather by date and location of incident. Thus, if the U.S. side had requested a search of the Vietnamese archives by date and location of shootdown, many pilots would have been found, whereas a search by name would yield nothing. . .
Another factor delaying the process is the U.S. side's failure to show any interest whatsoever in Vietnam's own 300,000 MIAs. . .
Further, there is almost a religious resistance among the official and unofficial POW/MIA community and the U.S. against any serious scholarly research on dead MIAs. . .
I personally spent tens of thousands of dollars, and nearly three years of my life, trying to get someone, anyone, to believe me that there was a mountain of information on dead Americans in Hanoi. . .
December 1992: Kerry-Smith Trip
Senators Kerry and Smith returned to Hanoi on Dec. 17-18, 1992 for a final series of meetings with Vietnamese officials. The visit followed closely an announcement by President Bush that authorized American companies to open offices in Vietnam and to sign conditional contracts there; contracts could become effective upon the lifting of the economic embargo.
The delegation met in Hanoi with President Le Duc Anh, General Secretary Do Muoi, Foreign Minister Cam and several high-ranking officials of the general Political directorate of the Ministry of Defense. The purpose of the delegation's visit was to press the Vietnamese officials one final time to cooperate fully with U.S. efforts to resolve the POW/MIA issue by providing access to every source of POW/MIA-related information in Vietnam. The Vietnamese officials responded with promises of full cooperation and openness.
In a written memorandum presented to Senators Kerry and Smith at the conclusion of the visit, the Vietnamese officials described six new or expanded areas of cooperation, promising to:
. Make available to U.S. investigators all POW/MIA-related documents, files and other information, including documents in the custody of the General Political Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, the successor to the Enemy Proselytizing Division and reputed to be Vietnam's most hard-line Communist bastion: its war-time archives include debriefing records of U.S. POWs and other documents which the Select Committee expects will shed light on the fates of many unaccounted-for servicemen. The Vietnamese also promised to U.S. investigators all POW/MIA-related information received from the possession of private citizens.
. Search their files for information relating to the capture or loss of U.S. personnel along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and elsewhere in Laos and to coordinate this research with their Lao counterparts.
. Strengthen the operations of the VNOSMP by adding senior personnel from other ministries of the government.
. Grant amnesty for private citizens who turn in remains of U.S. servicemen. It is illegal in Vietnam for private citizens to hold remains, and Vietnamese officials believe that many private citizens who are holding remains have been reluctant to turn them in for fear of prosecution. The amnesty program is expected to result in the repatriation of many sets of remains.
. Permit American "MIA families" and veterans to visit Vietnam to participate in the process of obtaining the fullest possible accounting.
The Vietnamese also reaffirmed their on-going efforts to assist U.S. investigators in following up on all remaining unresolved live-sighting reports. By the end of December 1992, Vietnamese officials will have assisted in 65 live-sighting investigations in Vietnam.
Kerry and Smith both expressed satisfaction with the progress made on this final trip. All of these promises will require the cooperation of numerous officials at all levels of the Vietnamese Government, and many initiatives will take time to complete. If Vietnam's Government follows through on its assurances and provides access to all of the information and materials it has promised, there will be little more Vietnam could be asked to do to assist in accounting for missing Americans.
Laos
U.S. efforts to obtain information from Lao authorities have been complicated by the facts that Laos was not a party to the Paris Peace Accords and the United States was not a party to the 1973 Laos cease-fire agreement that pledged all sides to return captive personnel. In addition, the DoD estimates that at least 75 percent of the Americans missing in Laos were lost in areas controlled at the time by North Vietnamese armed forces, generally in eastern Laos along the border with Vietnam and near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Although the quality of information and record-keeping in Laos is low, there is reason to believe that North Vietnamese military were instructed to recover and record all they could about downed U.S. aircraft. Thus, efforts to account for these Americans require a tri-lateral effort, involving not only the U.S. and Laos, but Vietnam, as well.
The current leaders of Laos, who are successors to the Pathet Lao guerrillas who contended for power during the war, may have some information concerning missing Americans that they have not yet shared. In general, Lao leaders have been far more reluctant than the Vietnamese to grant U.S. access to their territory to conduct live-sighting investigations and inspect crash sights. The atmosphere has improved in recent months, however, and negotiations are on-going for the establishment of a permanent POW/MIA investigation office in Vientiane, the capital.
During the Senate delegation's trip to Southeast Asia in November 1992, Senators Kerry and Daschle flew to Vientiane for meetings with Foreign Minister Phoun Sipaseuth and Vice Foreign Minister Soubanh Srithirath. The Senators reported to the Lao officials on the agreements that had been made in Vietnam and pressed the Lao officials to show a similar level of cooperation. Specifically, they asked Laos:
. To permit the U.S. to have a full-time, live-sighting investigator stationed in Laos,
. To permit U.S. crash and grave-site investigation teams to use Lao-Americans as translators during their investigations,
. To open the Laos Government's archives to U.S. investigators,
. To loosen restrictions imposed on U.S. investigative teams operating in Laos.
During the Committee's public hearing Dec. 4, 1992, Vessey testified:
Personally, I think more answers are deserved from the present Laotian Government than we are getting. I think that they need to be continually pressured for more answers.
Secondly, there's another good reason that the accounting will not be as good from Laos as it was or as it is likely to be from Vietnam. You've flown over the area. It's very rugged terrain, but the other thing is it is very sparsely populated. Compared to Vietnam, which is quite heavily populated, Laos is very sparsely populated. The second thing is that Laos is not as homogeneous a nation as is Vietnam. It's tribal ethnic groups that are split up in various places, the communication during war-time was miserable, and I doubt that it's much better today.
All that contributes to it, but I think more answers are deserved.
Later, Bill Gadoury, a casualty officer working at Stony Beach, testified:
. . . starting in 1985, I personally have seen a dramatic change in the level of cooperation that we get in the field. . . certainly it's not anywhere near where we'd like to have it in terms of being able to field multiple teams and things of that nature, but just recalling back to my first field operations in Laos, just to show the contrast of where we were then and where we are now. . .
In February of 1986, we went on our first excavation in Savannakhet Province. And our team went into Savannakhet. . . and we had to spend the night because the landing site wasn't prepared. We were put up in a hotel. They put armed guards outside the door and they advised us not to go walking around.
More recently, on the operation I came back from a few weeks ago, we were given pretty much unlimited access in the area. . . to address the cases that we had agreed upon before going out to the field. The Lao were very cooperative. . .
The Committee believes that, in general, cooperation from Laos has been disappointing over the years. Moreover, the Committee notes that the Laos Government has permitted only a handful of live- sighting investigations in the field and to date, U.S. investigators have not visited any detention camps in Laos. The Committee concurs with Gen. Vessey that more answers are deserved.
Cambodia
Cambodia was not a party to the Paris Peace Accords and no separate agreement on repatriation was reached in the aftermath of the war. The recovery of American POWs or remains in Cambodia was made virtually impossible after 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized power and embarked on a bloody reign of terror directed at Cambodians and foreigners alike that left a million people -- out of a total population of seven million -- dead. Throughout much of the past 20 years, the U.S. has had either difficult or non-existent diplomatic contacts with the Cambodian Government. The years of struggle and chaos leave little hope that documents or records have survived that would reveal additional information about U.S. personnel.
As in Laos, however, most of the Americans unaccounted for in Cambodia were lost near the border with Vietnam in areas where North Vietnamese forces dominated. Thus, the best potential sources of documentary information concerning those lost in Cambodia may be in Hanoi, not in Phnom Penh.
The present government of war-ravaged Cambodia cannot be expected to possess documentary information relevant to the fate of missing American servicemen. Although the government has expressed its willingness to cooperate fully with the U.S. in efforts to resolve discrepancy cases, and has taken nearly every step requested by U.S. investigators -- including granting permission to fly U.S. helicopters around the country -- the Government is unable to guarantee security in areas controlled by Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
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