This report begins with three tributes, the first to those
Americans who have been imprisoned in any war. Each person who has
worn the uniform and fought the battle understands the nature of
sacrifice. And there is a sense in which anyone caught in a
firefight, flying through flak, patrolling the jungle while sensing
ambush or working desperately to perform triage in a make-shift
hospital, is a prisoner of war. But we owe a special debt of
respect and gratitude to those who were captured and yet still kept
faith, even while deprived of their freedom, victimized by brutal
tortures, and forced to battle not only their captors, but the
temptation to yield to self-pity and despair.
In the words of former POW, Admiral James Stockdale:
Young Americans in Hanoi learned fast. They made no
deals. (In the end) the prisoner learns he can't be hurt
and he can't be had as long as he tells the truth and
clings to that forgiving hand of the brothers who are
becoming his country, his family...
What does it all come down to? It does not come down to
coping or supplication or hatred or strength beyond the
grasp of any normal person. It comes down to comradeship,
and it comes down to pride, dignity, an enduring sense of
self-worth and to that enigmatic mixture of conscience
and egoism called personal honor.
To The Families
America's POWs and servicemen have met the test of personal honor,
and so have the families of those still missing from past American
wars. For these families, the wounds of conflict have been
especially slow to heal. For them, there have been no joyous
reunions, nor even the solace of certainty ratified by a flag-
draped casket and the solemn sound of taps. There has been no grave
to visit and often no peace from gnawing doubt. For them, there has
been only the search for answers through years when they did not
have active and visible support from their own government to the
present day when our ability to get real answers has finally been
enhanced. Their search for answers is truly understandable because
to them, POW/MIA is not merely an issue or a symbolic figure on a
black and white flag, it is a brother, a husband, a father or a
son. These families, too, deserve our nation's gratitude and to
them, as to their loved ones, we pay tribute.
To Those Who Remembered
We salute, as well, the veterans and responsible activist groups
who have never stopped pushing for answers. These are the people
who fought against the forgetting; who persisted in their
questioning; and whose concerns led directly to the creation of the
Select Committee. The Committee's investigation has validated their
efforts, for they had good reason to argue that the full story was
not being told, to suggest that there was more to learn and to
insist that a renewed focus on the issue would produce greater
pressure and yield new results.
It is to these Americans, therefore, to the POWs who returned and
to all those who did not, to the families and veterans who kept the
memory alive, that we pay tribute, and to whom we have dedicated
the work of this Committee, including this final report.
The Committee's Purpose
The most basic principle of personal honor in America's armed
forces is never willingly to leave a fellow serviceman behind.
The black granite wall on the Mall in Washington is filled with the
names of those who died in the effort to save their comrades in
arms. That bond of loyalty and obligation which spurred so many
soldiers to sacrifice themselves is mirrored by the obligation owed
to every soldier by our nation, in whose name those sacrifices were
made.
Amidst the uncertainties of war, every soldier is entitled to one
certainty--that he will not be forgotten. As former POW Eugene
"Red" McDaniel put it, as an American asked to serve:
I was prepared to fight, to be wounded, to be captured,
and even prepared to die, but I was not prepared to be
abandoned.
The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs was created to
ensure that our nation meets its obligation to the missing and to
the families of those still listed as unaccounted for from the war
in Southeast Asia or prior conflicts. As past years have shown,
that obligation cannot fully be paid with sympathy, monuments,
medals, benefits or flags. It is an obligation--a solemn duty--that
can be met only with the best and most complete answers that are
within our power to provide.
Tragically, and for reasons found both at home and abroad, those
answers have been slow in coming. Our nation has been haunted by
the possibility that some of the missing may have survived and
that, somewhere in Southeast Asia, brave men remain in captivity.
Although we know that the circumstances of war make it impossible
for us to learn what happened to all the missing, we have been
haunted, as well, by our knowledge that there are some answers from
Southeast Asia we could have had long ago, but have been denied.
Because our wartime adversaries in Vietnam and Laos have been so
slow to provide the answers, the American people turned to the U.S.
Government for help, but events over the past 20 years have
undermined the public's trust. The Indochina war, itself, was
partly a secret war and records were falsified at the time to
maintain that secrecy. The Paris Peace Accords promised answers to
POW/MIA families, but the war between North and South Vietnam did
not stop, and for the families of many, the answers did not come.
Ever-changing Defense Department policies confused families and
others about the official status of the missing and obscured even
the number of men who might possibly have remained alive. The
official penchant for secrecy left many families, activists and
even Members of Congress unable to share fully in their own
government's knowledge about the fate of fellow citizens and loved
ones and this, more than anything, contributed to the atmosphere of
suspicion and doubt.
Underpinning all this, the POW/MIA issue is alive today because of
a fundamental conflict between the laws of probability and the
dictates of human nature. On a subject as personal and emotional as
the survival of a family member, there is nothing more difficult
than to be asked to accept the probability of death when the
possibility of life remains. Since Operation Homecoming, the U.S.
Government has sought to avoid raising the hopes of POW/MIA
families; it has talked about the need to maintain perspective and
about the lack of convincing evidence that Americans remain alive.
But U.S. officials cannot produce evidence that all of the missing
are dead; and because they have been so careful not to raise false
hopes, they have left themselves open to the charge that they have
given up hope. This, too, has contributed to public and family
mistrust.
Many of the factors that led to controversy surrounding the fates
of Vietnam-era POW/MIAs are present, as well, with respect to the
missing from World War II, Korea and the Cold War. Here, too, there
have been barriers to gaining information from foreign governments;
excessive secrecy on the part of our own government; and
provocative reports--official and unofficial--about what might have
happened to those left behind.
The Select Committee was created because of the need to re-
establish trust between our government and our people on this most
painful and emotional of issues. It was created to investigate and
tell publicly the complete story about what our government knows
and has known, and what it is doing and has done on behalf of our
POW/MIAs. It was created to examine the possibility that
unaccounted for Americans might have survived in captivity after
POW repatriations at Odessa in World War II, after Operation Big
Switch in Korea in 1953, after Cold War incidents, and particularly
after Operation Homecoming in Vietnam in 1973. It was created to
ensure that accounting for missing Americans will be a matter of
highest national priority, not only in word but in practice. It was
created to encourage real cooperation from foreign governments. It
was created, in short, to pursue the truth, at home and overseas.
Whether the Committee has succeeded in its assigned tasks will be
a matter for the public and for history to judge. Clearly, we
cannot claim, nor could we have hoped, to have learned everything.
We had neither the authority nor the resources to make case by case
determinations with respect to the status of the missing. The job
of negotiating, conducting interviews, visiting prisons, excavating
crash sites, investigating live-sighting reports and evaluating
archival materials can only be completed by the Executive branch.
This job, long frustrated by the intransigence of foreign
governments, will take time to complete notwithstanding the recent
improvements in cooperation, especially from Vietnam. The Committee
takes considerable pride, however, in its contribution, through
oversight, to improvements in the accountability process, and in
the record of information and accomplishment it leaves behind.
That record includes the most rapid and extensive declassification
of public files and documents on a single issue in American
history. It includes a set of hearings and Committee files in which
virtually every part of the POW/MIA controversy has been examined.
It includes disclosure after disclosure about aspects of U.S.
policy and actions that have never before been made public. It
includes a rigorous, public examination of relevant U.S.
intelligence information. It includes an exposure of the activities
of some private groups who have sought inexcusably to exploit the
anguish of POW/MIA families for their own gain. It includes a
contribution to changed policies that is reflected on the ground in
Vietnam in the form of unprecedented access to prisons, military
bases, government buildings, documents, photographs, archives and
material objects that bear on the fate of our missing servicemen.
And it includes encouraging the Executive branch to establish a
process of live-sighting response, investigation and evaluation
that is more extensive and professional than ever before.
How then, one might ask, does this issue get brought to a close?
There is no simple answer to that question. Clearly, the desire for
closure cannot override the obligation to pursue promising leads.
Just as clearly, our future expectations must be confined within
the borders of what the chaotic circumstances of war, the passage
of time, the evidence of survival and the logic of human motivation
allow.
We want to make clear that this report is not intended to close the
door on this issue. It is meant to open it. We knew at the outset
that we could never answer all the questions that exist. In fact,
some questions may never be answered or are more properly answered
by other branches of government.
What we set out to accomplish, however, was to guarantee that the
doors and windows of government were opened so that Americans would
know where to go for information, so that the information would, to
the greatest degree possible, be available, so that an unparalleled
record would exist on which to base judgments, and so that a
process of accountability would be in place to provide answers over
time. We have accomplished our goal.
The Committee believes that a process is now in place that, over
time, will provide additional answers. Americans can have
confidence that our current efforts can ultimately resolve this
painful issue. As this Committee's investigation of World War II
and Korea shows, new information can come unexpectedly, years after
the fact. That is why our goal must not be to put the issue to
rest, but to press the search for answers and, in this case, to go
to the source for those answers in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
We must build on recent progress to guarantee that we reach the
limits of what is knowable through an accounting process that is
professional, open, genuine and unrestricted. We must constantly
measure whether the promises and commitments of foreign governments
are being fulfilled. We must maintain the momentum that has built
at the highest levels within our own country to continue the search
for new information. And we must ensure that as long as there is
good reason to hope for more answers, our national obligation to
pursue those answers continues, as a matter of honor, and as a duty
to all those who have or who someday will put their lives at risk
in service to our country.
The Committee's Methods and Approach
The POW/MIA issue has proven almost as emotional and controversial
as the Vietnam War itself. As mentioned above, vigorous
disagreements have caused some to be accused of conspiracy and
betrayal; and others to be accused of allowing their hopes to
obscure their reason. The Committee has sought to transform this
troubled atmosphere by encouraging all participants in the debate
to join forces in an objective search for the truth.
Because the overriding hope and objective of the Committee was to
identify information that would lead to the rescue or release of
one or more live U.S. POWS, the Committee gave first priority to
investigation of issues related to our most recent war, the
conflict in Vietnam. Nevertheless, substantial resources were
devoted to seeking and reviewing information concerning Americans
missing from World War II, the Korean War and the Cold War.
To ensure credibility, the Committee has operated on a nonpartisan
basis, with a nonpartisan staff, directed by Members equally
divided between the two parties.
To ensure perspective, the Committee sought the guidance of family
members, activists, veterans' organizations and many others about
how to conduct the investigation, where to focus, whom to consult
and what issues to address. Every single individual or group that
has claimed to have information on the issue has been invited--and
in a few cases repeatedly invited--to provide it. Former U.S. POWs
from the Indochina War were contacted and asked to share their
knowledge and all previous inquiries and investigations on the
subject were reviewed.
To ensure thoroughness, the Committee requested, and received,
access to the records of a wide range of U.S. Government agencies,
including intelligence agencies and the White House. Unlike
previous investigators, we refused to accept "national security" as
grounds for denying information and obtained assurances from the
highest levels of government that no relevant information would be
withheld. We traveled overseas to Moscow, Pyongyang, and several
times to Southeast Asia for face to face talks with foreign
officials and gained access to long-secret archives and facilities
in Russia, Vietnam and North Korea. And we solicited the sworn
testimonies of virtually every living U.S. military and civilian
official or former official who has played a major role in POW/MIA
affairs over the past 20 years.
To ensure openness, the Committee's hearings were held almost
entirely in public session. Among these were first-ever public
hearings on POW-related signal and photographic intelligence and
thorough discussions of live-sighting reports. Also, the Committee
has worked with the Executive branch to declassify and make public
more than one million pages of Committee, Defense Department, State
Department, intelligence community and White House documents,
including Committee depositions, related to POW/MIA matters. The
Committee believes that this process must--and will--continue until
all relevant documents are declassified.
We believe that the Select Committee's hearing and investigatory
process provide grounds for pride on the part of every American.
The Committee's very existence was a testament to the effectiveness
of public action. And although offensive to a few and painful to
some, the rigorous examination of current and former high
government officials and some private citizens on a matter of
public interest is what democratic accountability is all about.
Members of the Committee asked difficult and probing questions in
order to ensure the fullest possible exploration of the issue. And,
indeed, the Committee's own work has been subject to rigorous
public questioning and that, too, has been healthy and appropriate.
Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Americans "Last Known Alive" in Southeast Asia
Information available to our negotiators and government officials
responsible for the repatriation of prisoners indicated that a
group of approximately 100 American civilians and servicemen
expected to return at Operation Homecoming did not. Some of these
men were known to have been taken captive; some were known only to
have survived their incidents; others were thought likely to have
survived. The White House expected that these individuals would be
accounted for by our adversaries, either as alive or dead, when the
war came to an end. Because they were not accounted for then,
despite our protests, nor in the period immediately following when
the trail was freshest and the evidence strongest, twenty years of
agony over this issue began. This was the moment when the POW/MIA
controversy was born.
The failure of our Vietnam war adversaries to account for these
"last known alive" Americans meant that families who had had good
reason to expect the return of their loved ones instead had cause
for renewed grief. Amidst their sorrow, the nation hailed the war's
end; the President said that all our POWs are "on the way home";
and the Defense Department, following standard procedures, began
declaring missing men dead. Still, the governments in Southeast
Asia did not cooperate, and the answers that these families
deserved did not come. In 1976, the Montgomery Committee concluded
that because there was no evidence that missing Americans had
survived, they must be dead. In 1977, a Defense Department
official said that the distinction between Americans still listed
as "POW" and those listed as "missing" had become "academic".
Nixon, Ford and Carter Administration officials all dismissed the
possibility that American POWs had survived in Southeast Asia after
Operation Homecoming.
This Committee has uncovered evidence that precludes it from taking
the same view. We acknowledge that there is no proof that U.S. POWs
survived, but neither is there proof that all of those who did not
return had died. There is evidence, moreover, that indicates the
possibility of survival, at least for a small number, after
Operation Homecoming:
First, there are the Americans known or thought possibly to
have been alive in captivity who did not come back; we cannot
dismiss the chance that some of these known prisoners remained
captive past Operation Homecoming.
Second, leaders of the Pathet Lao claimed throughout the war
that they were holding American prisoners in Laos. Those
claims were believed--and, up to a point, validated--at the
time; they cannot be dismissed summarily today.
Third, U.S. defense and intelligence officials hoped that
forty or forty-one prisoners captured in Laos would be
released at Operation Homecoming, instead of the twelve who
were actually repatriated. These reports were taken seriously
enough at the time to prompt recommendations by some officials
for military action aimed at gaining the release of the
additional prisoners thought to be held.
Fourth, information collected by U.S. intelligence agencies
during the last 19 years, in the form of live-sighting,
hearsay, and other intelligence reports, raises questions
about the possibility that a small number of unidentified U.S.
POWs who did not return may have survived in captivity.
Finally, even after Operation Homecoming and returnee de-
briefs, more than 70 Americans were officially listed as POWs
based on information gathered prior to the signing of the
peace agreement; while the remains of many of these Americans
have been repatriated, the fates of some continue unknown to
this day.
Given the Committee's findings, the question arises as to whether
it is fair to say that American POWs were knowingly abandoned in
Southeast Asia after the war. The answer to that question is
clearly no. American officials did not have certain knowledge that
any specific prisoner or prisoners were being left behind. But
there remains the troubling question of whether the Americans who
were expected to return but did not were, as a group, shunted aside
and discounted by government and population alike. The answer to
that question is essentially yes.
Inevitably the question will be asked: who is responsible for that?
The answer goes beyond any one agency, Administration or faction.
By the time the peace agreement was signed, a decade of division,
demonstrations and debate had left our entire nation weary of
killing and tired of involvement in an inconclusive and morally
complex war. The psychology of the times, from rural kitchens to
the Halls of Congress to the Oval Office, was to move on; to put
the war out of mind; and to focus again on other things. The
President said, and our nation wanted to believe, that all of our
American POWs were on the way home. Watergate loomed; other
crises seized our attention. Amidst it all, the question of POW/MIA
accountability faded. In a sense, it, too, became a casualty of
war.
The record does indicate that efforts to gain accountability were
made. Dr. Henry Kissinger personally raised the issue and lodged
protests with Le Duc Tho and leaders of the Pathet Lao. Defense and
State Department spokesmen told Congress of their continuing
dissatisfaction with the accounting process; stressed their view
that the POW/MIA lists received were not complete, and referred to
the cases of Americans last known alive as the "most agonizing and
frustrating of all."
However, compared to the high-level, high-visibility protests about
prisoners made public during the war, post-Homecoming
Administration efforts and efforts to inform the American public
were primarily low-level and low-key.
Before the peace agreement was signed, those "last known alive,"
were referred to as "POWs;" afterward, they were publicly, although
not technically, lumped together with all of the others called
"missing."
Before the agreement, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and other
Administration officials had berated the North Vietnamese for their
failure to disclose the status of these "last known alive" cases,
while citing their dramatic case histories and distributing
photographs to the press. After Homecoming, Administration
criticisms were less vociferous and names and case histories cited
only rarely and, even then, not publicly by cabinet officials, but
by their assistants and their assistants' assistants.
When the war shut down, so, too, did much of the POW/MIA related
intelligence operations. Bureaucratic priorities shifted rapidly
and, before long, the POW/MIA accounting operation had become more
of a bureaucratic backwater than an operations center for matters
of life and death.
From the fall of Saigon in 1975 through the early 1980's, efforts
to gain answers from the Government of Vietnam and the other
communist governments of Southeast Asia bore little fruit. In
1982, President Reagan wisely raised the issue of accounting for
our missing to a "matter of highest national priority." In 1987, a
Special Presidential Emissary to Vietnam was named and serious
discussions resumed. More recently, the disintegration of the
Soviet empire has opened new doors and created compelling new
incentives for foreign cooperation -- almost 20 years after the
last American soldier was withdrawn. Today, the U.S. spends at
least $100 million each year on POW/MIA efforts.
Still, the families wait for answers and, still, the question
haunts, is there anyone left alive? The search for a definitive
answer to that question prompted the creation of this Committee.
As much as we would hope that no American has had to endure twenty
years of captivity, if one or more were in fact doing so, there is
nothing the Members of the Committee would have liked more than to
be able to prove this fact. We would have recommended the use of
all available resources to respond to such evidence if it had been
found, for nothing would have been more rewarding than to have been
able to re-unite a long-captive American with family and country.
Unfortunately, our hopes have not been realized. This
disappointment does not reflect a failure of the investigation, but
rather a confrontation with reality. While the Committee has some
evidence suggesting the possibility a POW may have survived to the
present, and while some information remains yet to be investigated,
there is, at this time, no compelling evidence that proves that any
American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.
The Committee cannot prove a negative, nor have we entirely given
up hope that one or more U.S. POWs may have survived. As mentioned
above, some reports remain to be investigated and new information
could be forthcoming. But neither live-sighting reports nor other
sources of intelligence have provided grounds for
encouragement, particularly over the past decade. The live-
sighting reports that have been resolved have not checked out;
alleged pictures of POWs have proven false; purported leads have
come up empty; and photographic intelligence has been inconclusive,
at best.
In addition to the lack of compelling evidence proving that
Americans are alive, the majority of Committee Members believes
there is also the question of motive. These Members assert that it
is one thing to believe that the Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese
might have seen reason to hold back American prisoners in 1973 or
for a short period thereafter; it is quite another to discern a
motive for holding prisoners alive in captivity for another 19
years. The Vietnamese and Lao have been given a multitude of
opportunities to demand money in exchange for the prisoners some
allege they hold but our investigation has uncovered no credible
evidence that they have ever done so.
Yes, it is possible even as these countries become more and more
open that a prisoner or prisoners could be held deep within a
jungle or behind some locked door under conditions of the greatest
security. That possibility argues for a live-sighting followup
capability that is alert, aggressive and predicated on the
assumption that a U.S. prisoner or prisoners continue to be held.
But, sadly, the Committee cannot provide compelling evidence to
support that possibility today.
Finally, there is the question of numbers. Part of the pain caused
by this issue has resulted from rumors about hundreds or thousands
of Americans languishing in camps or bamboo cages. The
circumstances surrounding the losses of missing Americans render
these reports arithmetically impossible. In order for Americans to
judge for themselves, we will append to this report a summary of
the facts surrounding each known discrepancy case. An analysis
of these incidents will show that:
only in a few cases did the U.S. Government know for certain
that someone was captured;
in many of the cases, there is only an indication of the
potential of capture; and
in a large number of the cases, there is a strong indication
that the individual was killed.
The Committee emphasizes that simply because someone was listed as
missing in action does not mean that there was any evidence, such
as a radio contact, an open parachute or a sighting on the ground,
of survival. We may make a presumption that an individual could
have survived, and that is the right basis upon which to operate.
But a presumption is very different from knowledge or fact, and
cannot lead us--in the absence of evidence--to conclude that
someone is alive. Even some of the cases about which we know the
most and which show the strongest indication that someone was a
prisoner of war leave us with certain doubts as to what the
circumstances were. The bottom line is that there remain only a few
cases where we know an unreturned POW was alive in captivity and we
do not have evidence that the individual also died while in
captivity.
There is at least one aspect of the POW/MIA controversy that should
be laid to rest conclusively with this investigation and that is
the issue of conspiracy. Allegations have been made in the past
that our government has had a "mindset to debunk" reports that
American prisoners have been sighted in Southeast Asia. Our
Committee found reason to take those allegations seriously. But we
also found in some quarters a "mindset to accuse" that has given
birth to vast and implausible theories of conspiracy and conscious
betrayal. Those theories are without foundation.
Yes, there have been failures of policy, priority and process. Over
the years, until this investigation, the Executive branch's
penchant for secrecy and classification contributed greatly to
perceptions of conspiracy. In retrospect, a more open policy would
have been better. But America's government too closely reflects
America's people to have permitted the knowing and willful
abandonment of U.S. POWs and a subsequent coverup spanning almost
20 years and involving literally thousands of people.
The POW/MIA issue is too important and too personal for us to allow
it to be driven by theory; it must be driven by fact. Witness after
witness was asked by our Committee if they believed in, or had
evidence of, a conspiracy either to leave POWs behind or to conceal
knowledge of their fates--and no evidence was produced. The
isolated bits of information out of which some have constructed
whole labyrinths of intrigue and deception have not withstood the
tests of objective investigation; and the vast archives of secret
U.S. documents that some felt contained incriminating evidence have
been thoroughly examined by the Committee only to find that the
conspiracy cupboard is bare.
The quest for the fullest possible accounting of our Vietnam-era
POW/MIAs must continue, but if our efforts are to be effective and
fair to families, they must go forward within the context of
reality, not fiction.
Investigation of Issues Related to Paris Peace Accords
Most of the questions and controversies that still surround the
POW/MIA issue can be traced back to the Paris Peace Accords and
their immediate aftermath. If that agreement had been implemented
in good faith by North Vietnam and with necessary cooperation from
Cambodia and Laos, the fullest possible accounting of missing
Americans would have been achieved long ago.
During negotiations, the American team, headed by Dr. Henry
Kissinger, had sought an agreement that would provide explicitly
for the release of American prisoners and an accounting for missing
American servicemen throughout Indochina. The U.S. negotiators
said, when the agreement was signed, that they had "unconditional
guarantees" that these goals would be achieved.
The great accomplishment of the peace agreement was that it
resulted in the release of 591 American POWs, of whom 566 were
military and 25 civilian. It also established a framework for
cooperation in resolving POW/MIA related questions that remains of
value today. Unfortunately, efforts to implement the agreement
failed, for a number of reasons, to resolve the POW/MIA issue.
Obstacles Faced by U.S. Negotiators
During its investigation, the Committee identified several factors
that handicapped U.S. officials during the negotiation of the peace
agreement, and during the critical first months of implementation.
The first and most obvious obstacle to a fully effective agreement
was the approach taken to the POW/MIA issue by North Vietnam (DRV)
and its allies. During the war, the DRV violated its obligations
under the Geneva Convention by refusing to provide complete lists
of prisoners, and by prohibiting or severely restricting the right
of prisoners to exchange mail or receive visits from international
humanitarian agencies.
During negotiations, the DRV insisted that the release of prisoners
could not be completed prior to the withdrawal of all U.S. forces,
and consistently linked cooperation on the POW/MIA issue to other
issues, including a demand for reconstruction aid from the United
States. Once the agreement was signed, the DRV was slow to provide
a list of prisoners captured in Laos. Following Operation
Homecoming, the North Vietnamese refused to cooperate in providing
an accounting for missing Americans, including some who were known
to have been held captive at one time within the DRV prison system.
Perhaps most important of all, the DRV's continued pursuit of a
military conquest of South Vietnam dissipated prospects for
cooperation on POW/MIA issues.
A second factor inhibiting the achievement of U.S. objectives was
the limited leverage enjoyed by U.S. negotiators. It was U.S.
policy, fully known to the North Vietnamese, that the U.S. sought
to disengage from the war. President Nixon was elected on a
platform calling for an end to U.S. involvement; support was
building rapidly within the Congress for measures that would have
mandated a withdrawal conditioned on the return of prisoners; and
the American public had become increasingly divided and war-weary
as the conflict continued. These same factors, along with the
debilitating effects of the Watergate scandal on the Nixon
Presidency, weakened the U.S. hand in responding to DRV violations
after the peace agreement was signed.
A third factor limiting the success of the agreement was the
absence of Lao and Cambodian representatives from the peace table.
Although the U.S. negotiators pressed the DRV for commitments
concerning the release of prisoners and an accounting for the
missing throughout Indochina, the peace accords technically apply
only to Vietnam. Although the DRV, in a side understanding, assured
Dr. Kissinger that it would cooperate in obtaining the release of
U.S. prisoners in Laos, the fact is that the prisoners captured in
Laos who were actually released had long since been transferred to
Hanoi. No Americans held captive in Laos for a significant period
of time have ever been returned. Neither the peace agreement, nor
the assurances provided by North Vietnam to Dr. Kissinger,
established procedures to account for missing Americans in Cambodia
or Laos.
American Protests
The Paris Peace Accords provided for the exchange of prisoner lists
on the day the agreement was signed and for the return of all
prisoners of war within 60 days. It also required the parties to
assist each other in obtaining information about those missing in
action and to determine the location of graves for the purpose of
recovering and repatriating remains.
U.S. officials, especially in the Department of Defense, were
disappointed that more live American prisoners were not included on
the lists exchanged when the peace agreement was signed or--with
respect to prisoners captured in Laos--four days after the
agreement was signed. The record uncovered by the Committee's
investigation indicates that high level Defense Department and
Defense Intelligence Agency officials were especially concerned
about the incompleteness of the list of prisoners captured in Laos.
This concern was based on intelligence that some Americans had been
held captive by the Pathet Lao, on repeated Pathet Lao claims that
prisoners were being held, and on the large number of American
pilots who were listed as missing in action in Laos compared to the
number being proposed for return. Top military and intelligence
officials expressed the hope, at the time the peace agreement was
signed, that as many as 41 servicemen lost in Laos would be
returned. However, only ten men (7 U.S. military, 2 U.S. civilian
and a Canadian) were on the list of prisoners captured in Laos that
was turned over by the DRV.
During the first 60 days, while the American troop withdrawal was
underway, the Nixon Administration contacted North Vietnamese
officials repeatedly to express concern about the incomplete nature
of the prisoner lists that had been received. In early February,
President Nixon sent a message to the DRV Prime Minister saying,
with respect to the list of only ten POWs from Laos, that:
U.S. records show there are 317 American military men
unaccounted for in Laos and it is inconceivable that only
ten of these men would be held prisoner in Laos.
Soon thereafter, Dr. Kissinger presented DRV officials with 19 case
folders of Americans who should have been accounted for, but who
were not. The U.S. protests continued and in mid-March, the
U.S. threatened briefly to halt the withdrawal of American troops
if information about the nine American prisoners on the DRV/Laos
list and about prisoners actually held by the Pathet Lao were not
provided. By the end of the month, top Defense Department
officials were recommending a series of diplomatic and military
options aimed at achieving an accounting for U.S. prisoners thought
to be held in Laos.
Ultimately, the Nixon Administration proceeded with the withdrawal
of troops in return for the release of prisoners on the lists
provided by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.
