The story is 100% true. Had friends in military intell who specifically told me that COng held 1200 POW and the deal was to turn over half now, and half after Congress paid reparations. The Dem Congress welched on its end of the deal.
Obviously, Nixon had no leverage by 1974, but he did not have to go along with it in 1973. The 1992 group that said we had no POWs in 1992 ignored the rescue signals that were visible in 1992 from multiple POWs in Laos who heard that the US was again looking for them.
There were four people on the group to find the POWs in 1992: Sen. John Kerry (did you know he served in Vietnam?), Sen. John McCain (I’ve heard he broke early, but I’d do far worse), Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld.
It ain’t an easy message, but was why I worked my ass off to take down Kerry in 2004 (thank you Swift Boat vets) and why I always ranked McCain dead last, after Ron Paul et. al. as a Presidential candidate. McCain *knew* we had guys left behind, because in his seven years in captivity, he met some of them. Not many; the prisoners in Laos stayed in Laos. I don’t know whether the 420 prisoners in Laos were counted as part of the 600 missing POWs, but my guess is that they were in addition to those 600. So that would leave about a 1000 POWS left.
Plus, a handful of prisoners escaped Indochina over the years. Dead prisoners don’t escape.
Vote JD in the primary. Vote your conscience in November.
American POWs have been coming out of Vietnam?
Your numbers are almost exactly what the deal was and where the POW’s were.