The public statements made by President Nixon and by high Defense
Department officials following the end of Operation Homecoming did
not fully reflect the Administration's prior concern that live U.S.
prisoners may have been kept behind. Administration officials did,
however, continue to stress publicly the need for Vietnam to meet
its obligations under the peace agreement, and U.S. diplomats
pressed both the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao for
information concerning missing Americans. Unfortunately, due to the
intransigence of our adversaries, those efforts were largely
unavailing.
During the Committee's hearings, it was contended by Dr. Kissinger
and some Members of the Committee that Congressional attitudes
would have precluded any Administration effort to respond
forcefully to the DRV's failure to provide an accounting for
missing American servicemen. These Members of the Committee contend
that their view is supported by the Senate's rejection on May 31,
1973 of an amendment offered by U.S. Sen. Robert Dole that would
have permitted the continued bombing of Laos and Cambodia if the
President certified that North Vietnam "is not making an
accounting, to the best of its ability, of all missing in action
personnel in Southeast Asia."
Conclusions
The Committee believes that its investigation contributed
significantly to the public record of the negotiating history of
the POW/MIA provisions of the Paris Peace Accords, and of the
complications that arose during efforts to implement those
provisions both before and after the completion of Operation
Homecoming. That record indicates that there existed a higher
degree of concern within the Administration about the possibility
that prisoners were being left behind in Laos than had been known
previously, and that various options for responding to that concern
were discussed at the highest levels of government.
The Committee notes that some Administration statements at the time
the agreement was signed expressed greater certainty about the
completeness of the POW return than they should have and that other
statements may have understated the problems that would arise
during implementation and that--taken together, these statements
may have raised public and family expectations too high. The
Committee further notes that statements made after the agreement
was signed may have understated U.S. concerns about the possibility
that live prisoners remained, thereby contributing in subsequent
years to public suspicion and distrust. However, the Committee
concludes that the phrasing of these statements was designed to
avoid raising what were believed to be false hopes among POW/MIA
families, rather than to mislead the American people.
Investigation of the Accounting Process
The Committee investigation included a comprehensive review of the
procedures used by the U.S. Government to account for American
prisoners and missing from the beginning of the war in Southeast
Asia until the present day. The purposes were:
to determine accurately the number of Americans who served in
Southeast Asia during the war who did not return, either alive
or dead;
to evaluate the accuracy of the U.S. Government's own past and
current process for determining the likely status and fate of
missing Americans;
to learn what the casualty data and intelligence information
have to tell us about the number of Americans whose fates are
truly "unaccounted for" from the war in Vietnam; and
to consider whether efforts to obtain the fullest possible
accounting of our POW/MIAs was treated, as claimed, as a
matter of "highest national priority" by the Executive branch;
to assess the extent to which Defense Department and DIA
accounting policies and practices contributed to the
confusion, suspicion and distrust that has characterized the
POW/MIA issue for the past 20 years; and
to determine what changes need to be made to policies and
procedures in order to instill public confidence in the
government's POW/MIA accounting process with respect to past
and future conflicts.
Although 2,264 Americans currently are listed as "unaccounted for"
from the war in Indochina, the number of Americans whose fate is
truly unknown is far smaller. Even during the war, the U.S.
Government knew and the families involved knew that, in many of
these cases, there was certainty that the soldier or airman was
killed at the time of the incident. These are generally cases
involving individuals who were killed when their airplanes crashed
into the sea and no parachutes were sighted, or where others
witnessed the death of a serviceman in combat but were unable to
recover the body.
Of the 2,264 Americans now listed as unaccounted for, 1,095 fall
into this category. These individuals were listed as "killed in
action/body not recovered" (KIA/BNR) and were not included on the
lists of POW/MIAs that were released publicly by the Defense and
State Departments during the war or for several years thereafter.
It was not until the late 1970's that KIA/BNRs were added to the
official lists of "missing" Americans.
The next largest group of Americans now on the list of 2,264
originally was listed by the military services or by DIA as
"missing in action." These are individuals who became missing
either in combat or in non-combat circumstances, but who were not
known for certain either to have been killed or to have been taken
into captivity. In most, but not all, of these cases, the
circumstances of disappearance coupled with the lack of evidence of
survival make it highly probable that the individual died at the
time the incident occurred.
Approximately 1,172 of the still unaccounted for Americans were
originally listed either as MIA or as POW. Of these, 333 were lost
in Laos, 348 in North Vietnam, 450 in South Vietnam, 37 in Cambodia
and 4 in China. Since before the war ended, the POW/MIA accounting
effort has focused, for good reason, on a relatively small number
of these 1,172 Americans, that is, those who were either known to
have been taken captive, or who were lost in circumstances under
which survival was deemed likely or at least reasonably possible.
These cases, in addition to others in which intelligence indicates
a Southeast Asian Government may have known the fate of the missing
man, are currently referred to as "discrepancy cases."
In 1987, Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr. (USA-Ret.) was appointed
Presidential Emissary to Vietnam on POW/MIA matters. Gen. Vessey
subsequently persuaded Vietnam to allow in-country investigations
by the U.S. Government of high-priority discrepancy cases. The DIA
and DOD's Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA) have identified
a total of 305 discrepancy cases, of which 196 are in Vietnam, 90
are in Laos, and 19 are in Cambodia.
In 61 of the cases in Vietnam, the fate of the individual has been
determined through investigation, and the Committee finds that Gen.
Vessey correctly states that the evidence JTF-FA has gathered in
each of these cases indicates that the individuals had died prior
to Operation Homecoming. The first round of investigation of the
135 remaining cases in Vietnam is expected to be completed by
January 18, 1993. A second round of investigation, which will
proceed geographically on a district by district basis, will
commence in February, 1993.
None of the discrepancy cases in Laos and Cambodia has been
resolved. Because many of the Americans lost in those countries
disappeared in areas that were under the control of North
Vietnamese forces at the time, resolution of the majority of
Laos/Cambodia cases will depend on a process of tripartite
cooperation that has barely begun. The Committee further finds
that, in addition to the past reluctance of the Vietnamese and Lao
to agree to a series of tripartite talks with the United States,
both the Department of State and the Department of Defense have
been slow to push such a process forward.
As mentioned above, the Committee will append a case by case
description of the circumstances of loss of each unresolved
discrepancy case to this report. Those descriptions demonstrate
that the U.S. Government has knowledge in only a small number of
cases that the individuals involved were held captive and strong
indications in only a small number more.
However, that is not to say that the Governments of Vietnam and
Laos do not have knowledge pertaining to these or other MIA cases
which may indicate survival. Answers to these troublesome questions
will best be obtained through an accounting process that enjoys
full cooperation from those governments.
The findings of this phase of the Committee's investigation
include:
By far the greatest obstacle to a successful accounting effort
over the past twenty years has been the refusal of the foreign
governments involved, until recently, to allow the U.S. access
to key files or to carry out in-country, on-site
investigations.
The U.S. Government's process for accounting for Americans
missing in Southeast Asia has been flawed by a lack of
resources, organizational clarity, coordination and
consistency. These problems had their roots during the war and
worsened after the war as frustration about the ability to
gain access and answers from Southeast Asian Governments
increased. Through the mid-1980's, accounting for our POW/MIAs
was viewed officially more as a bureaucratic exercise than as
a matter of "highest national priority."
The accounting process has improved dramatically in recent
years as a result of the high priority attached to it by
Presidents Reagan and Bush; because of the success of Gen.
Vessey and the JTF-FA in gaining permission for the U.S. to
conduct investigations on the ground in Southeast Asia;
because of an increase in resources; and because of the
Committee's own efforts, in association with the Executive
branch, to gain greater cooperation from the Governments of
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
After an exhaustive review of official and unofficial lists of
captive and missing Americans from wartime years to the
present, the Committee uncovered numerous errors in data entry
and numerous discrepancies between DIA records and those of
other military offices. The errors that have been identified,
however, have since been corrected. As a result, the Committee
finds no grounds to question the accuracy of the current,
official list of those unaccounted for from the war in
Southeast Asia. This list includes 2,222 missing servicemen
except deserters and 42 missing civilians who were lost while
performing services for the United States Government. The
Committee has found no evidence to support the existence of
rumored "secret lists" of additional missing Americans.
The decision by the U.S. Government to falsify "location of
loss" data for American casualties in Cambodia and Laos during
much of the war contributed significantly both to public
distrust and to the difficulties experienced by the DIA and
others in trying to establish what happened to the individuals
involved.
The failure of the Executive branch to establish and maintain
a consistent, sustainable set of categories and criteria
governing the status of missing Americans during and after the
war in Southeast Asia contributed substantially to public
confusion and mistrust. During the war, a number of
individuals listed as "prisoner" by DIA were listed as
"missing in action" by the military services. After the war,
the legal process for settling status determinations was
plagued by interference from the Secretary of Defense,
undermined by financial and other considerations affecting
some POW/MIA families and challenged in court. Later, the
question of how many Americans remain truly "unaccounted for"
was muddied by the Defense Department's decision to include
"KIA/BNR's"--those known to have been killed, but with bodies
not recovered--in their listings. This created the anomalous
situation of having more Americans considered unaccounted for
today than we had immediately after the war.
The Committee's recommendations for this phase of its investigation
include:
Accounting for missing Americans from the war in Southeast
Asia should continue to be treated as a "matter of highest
national priority" by our diplomats, by those participating in
the accounting process, by all elements of our intelligence
community and by the nation, as a whole.
Continued, best efforts should be made to investigate the
remaining, unresolved discrepancy cases in Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia.
The United States should make a continuing effort, at a high
level, to arrange regular tri-partite meetings with the
Governments of Laos and Vietnam to seek information on the
possible control and movement of unaccounted for U.S.
personnel by Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces in Laos
during the Southeast Asia war.
The President and Secretary of Defense should order regular,
independent reviews of the efficiency and professionalism of
the DOD's POW/MIA accounting process for Americans still
listed as missing from the war in Southeast Asia.
A clear hierarchy of responsibility for handling POW/MIA
related issues that may regretably arise as a result of future
conflicts must be established. This requires full and rapid
coordination between and among the intelligence agencies
involved and the military services. It requires the
integration of missing civilians and suspected deserters into
the overall accounting process. It requires a clear liaison
between those responsible for the accounting (and related
intelligence) and those responsible for negotiating with our
adversaries about the terms for peace. It requires procedures
for the full, honest and prompt disclosure of information to
next of kin, at the time of incident and as other information
becomes available. And it requires, above all, the designation
within the Executive branch of an individual who is clearly
responsible and fully accountable for making certain that the
process works as it should.
In the future, clear categories should be established and
consistently maintained in accounting for Americans missing
during time of war. At one end of the listings should be
Americans known with certainty to have been taken prisoner; at
the other should be Americans known dead with bodies not
recovered. The categories should be carefully separated in
official summaries and discussions of the accounting process
and should be applied consistently and uniformly.
Present law needs to be reviewed to minimize distortions in
the status determination process that may result from the
financial considerations of the families involved.
Wartime search and rescue (SAR) missions have an urgent
operational value, but they are also crucial for the purposes
of accounting for POW/MIAs. The records concerning many
Vietnam era SAR missions have been lost or destroyed. In the
future, all information obtained during any unsuccessful or
partially successful military search and rescue mission should
be shared with the agency responsible for accounting for
POW/MIAs from that conflict and should be retained by that
agency.
Investigation of POW/MIA-related Intelligence Activities
The Committee undertook an investigation of U.S. intelligence
agency activities in relation to POW/MIA issues. This included a
review of the DIA's primary role in investigating and evaluating
reports that Americans missing from the Vietnam war were or are
being held against their will since the end of the war in Southeast
Asia. The investigation also included a review of signals
intelligence (SIGINT) obtained by the National Security Agency
(NSA), a review of imagery intelligence (IMINT) obtained by aerial
photography and a review of covert U.S. Government activities
associated with POW/MIA concerns.
In the area of intelligence, more than any other, the Committee and
the Executive branch had to balance concerns about the public's
right to know with a legitimate national need to maintain secrecy
about intelligence sources and methods. The Committee insisted,
however, that the fullest possible accounting of government
activities in the intelligence field be made public and that no
substantive information bearing directly on the question of whether
there are live American POWs in Southeast Asia be withheld.
As a result of Executive branch cooperation, especially from CIA
Director Robert Gates and National Security Adviser Brent
Scowcroft, the Committee gained unprecedented access to closely-
held government documents, including access to relevant operational
files, the President's Daily briefs, the Executive Registry and the
debriefs of returning POWs. Unfortunately, the limited number of
individuals affiliated with the Committee who were given access to
these materials prevented as thorough a review as the Committee
would have preferred.
At the Committee's insistence, and despite the reservations of the
Executive branch, public hearings were held for the first time on
the products of satellite imagery related to the POW/MIA issue. Two
former employees of the National Security Agency testified in
public about information they gathered while working as specialists
in the field of signal intelligence. And two days of hearings
culminated an exhaustive Committee investigation of reports that
American captives had been seen in Southeast Asia during the post-
war period. In addition, thousands of pages of live-sighting
reports have been declassified and made available to the public.
The Committee understands that the process of analyzing
intelligence information is complicated and subjective. In most
instances, the quality and source of information is such that it
can be interpreted in more than one way and isolated bits of
information may easily be misinterpreted. As a result, the
Committee believes in the importance of taking all sources of
information and intelligence into account when judging the validity
of a report or category of data.
Overall Intelligence Community Support
During the Committee's investigation, all DIA directors since the
late 1970's testified that the POW effort lacked national-level
Intelligence Community support in terms of establishing a high
priority for collection, in funding, in the allocation of personnel
and in high-level attention. None of the former directors recalled
attending national-level management meetings to discuss the POW/MIA
issue prior to the mid-1980's, and only one national intelligence
estimate was produced on this issue during the first 17 years after
the end of the war.
Senior CIA officials told the Committee that there was no written
collection requirement on POWs, but that everyone understood that
POW information was important when obtained. CIA officials also
asserted that this issue was the near exclusive preserve of the
Department of Defense and that the CIA played only a supporting
role.
Former NSA Director, Admiral Bobby Inman, testified that the NSA
signals intelligence collection efforts in Southeast Asia were
dismantled after the war and was not resumed until at least 1978.
Over the past decade, the Reagan and Bush Administrations have
raised the priority of POW/MIA intelligence collection, have
increased resources and improved policy level management. The basic
structure of responsibilities, however, has not changed.
The Role of the Defense Intelligence Agency
The DIA has had a central, two-pronged, role in U.S. efforts to
account for our POW/MIAs. First, the DIA is responsible for
investigating and analyzing reports of live-sightings or other
evidence that American prisoners may still be held. Second, the
Department of Defense relies heavily on DIA's analysis to reach
conclusions about the fate of missing servicemen.
In addition to these responsibilities, the DIA's prominent role in
the POW/MIA issue over the years has caused it to become a focal
point for family, Congressional, press and public questions on the
subject.
Criticisms of DIA Operations. The Committee identified and arranged
for the declassification of a series of internal reviews of the
DIA's POW/MIA operations that were conducted during the mid-1980's.
A principal concern raised by these reviews were the agency's
procedures for evaluating and responding to reports that U.S. POWs
had been seen alive after the conclusion of the war.
The Committee agrees that the DIA's POW/MIA Office has historically
been
plagued by a lack of resources;
guilty of over-classification;
defensive toward criticism;
handicapped by poor coordination with other elements of the
intelligence community;
slow to follow-up on live-sighting and other reports; and
frequently distracted from its basic mission by the need to
respond to outside pressures and requests.
In addition, several of those who reviewed the workings of DIA
during this period also faulted DIA's analytical process and
referred to a "mindset to debunk" live-sighting reports.
Several Committee Members express concern and disappointment that,
on occasion, individuals within DIA have been evasive, unresponsive
and disturbingly incorrect and cavalier. Several Members of the
Committee also note that other individuals within DIA have
performed their work with great professionalism and under
extraordinarily difficult circumstances both at home and abroad.
The Committee recommends that the Secretary of Defense ensure the
regular review and evaluation of the DIA's POW/MIA office to ensure
that intelligence information is acted upon quickly and that
information is shared with families promptly.
The Committee also believes that a central coordinating mechanism
for pooling and acting upon POW/MIA-related intelligence
information should be created as one of the Intelligence
Community's Interagency Coordination Centers.
The Committee notes that the focus of the POW/MIA accounting
process is in Southeast Asia. As a result, DIA analysts are
spending more and more of their time traveling back and forth
between Washington and the region or to Hawaii. The Committee
believes that this would be an opportune time to move the DIA's
POW/MIA office to Hawaii where it could be closer to JTF-FA and
CINCPAC, which it supports. A number of tasks now sometimes
performed by the office involving public and family relations can
be handled, and handled more capably and appropriately, by the
office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA
Affairs.
Live-sighting Reports. For the past 20 years, there has been
nothing more tantalizing for POW/MIA families than reports that
Americans have been seen alive in Southeast Asia and nothing more
frustrating than the failure of these reports to become manifest in
the form of a returning American--with the single exception of
Marine Private Robert Garwood in 1979.
A live-sighting report is just that--a report that an American has
been seen alive in Southeast Asia in circumstances which are not
readily explained. The report could come from a refugee, boat
person, traveler or anyone else in a position to make such an
observation. The information could be first-hand or hearsay; it
could involve one American or many; it could be detailed or vague;
it could be recent or as far back as the end of the war.
The sheer number of first-hand live sighting reports, almost 1600
since the end of the war, has convinced many Americans that U.S.
POWs must have been kept behind and may still be alive. Other
Americans have concluded sadly that our failure, after repeated
efforts, to locate any of these alleged POWs means the reports are
probably not true. It is the Committee's view that every live-
sighting report is important as a potential source of information
about the fate of our POW/MIAs.
Accordingly, the review and analysis of live-sighting reports
consumed more time and staff resources than any other single issue.
The Committee investigation used a method of analysis that was
based on the content of a carefully screened set of reports that
dealt only with men allegedly seen in captivity after Operation
Homecoming. The Committee took into account past criticisms and
assessed current procedures while examining and testing DIA's
methodology for evaluating live-sighting reports. In so doing,
Committee investigators examined more than 2000 hearsay and first-
hand live-sighting files while compiling a list of 928 reports for
"content" analysis. These reports were plotted on a map and grouped
into geographic "clusters". During briefings and public hearings,
the Committee reviewed the most significant "clusters" for the
purpose of determining whether they would, taken together,
constitute evidence of the presence of U.S. POWs in certain
locations after Operation Homecoming.
DIA Assessment. It is DIA's position that the live-sighting reports
evaluated to date do not constitute evidence that currently
unaccounted for U.S. POWs remained behind in Southeast Asia after
the end of the war. Of the 1638 first-hand reports received since
1975, DIA considers 1,553 to be resolved.
Committee View. The Committee notes that 40 first-hand live-
sighting reports remain under active investigation and that the
nature of the analytical process precludes certainty that all past
DIA evaluations are correct. Accordingly, the Committee recommends
a strong emphasis on the rapid and thorough follow-up and
evaluation of current unresolved and future live-sighting reports.
The DIA is urged to make a continued and conscious effort to
maintain an attitude among analysts that presumes the possible
survival of U.S. POWs. The Executive branch is also urged to
continue working with the governments of Southeast Asia to expand
our ability to conduct on the ground, on-site investigation and
inspections throughout the region.
The Role of the National Security Agency (Signals Intelligence)
The responsibility for monitoring and collecting signals (including
communications) intelligence rests with the National Security
Agency (NSA). During the Vietnam War, the NSA monitored all
available sources of signals intelligence bearing on the loss,
capture or condition of American personnel. Such information would
sometimes provide a basis for concluding whether or not a missing
American had survived his incident and, if so, possibly been taken
prisoner.
During its investigation, the Committee was disturbed to learn that
the NSA and its Vietnam branch were never asked to provide an
overall assessment of the status of POW/MIA personnel prior to
Operation Homecoming. The Committee believes that this information
would have been useful both for the U.S. negotiating team and for
those preparing for the repatriation of American POWs. The
Committee also found that neither DIA nor any other agency within
the Intelligence Community placed a formal requirement for
collection with NSA concerning POW/MIA related information. In
fact, the Committee found that NSA end product reports were not
used regularly to evaluate the POW/MIA situation until 1977. It was
not until 1984 that the collection of information on POW/MIAs was
formally established as a matter of highest priority for SIGINT.
After the fall of Saigon, the National Security Agency and the
military service components that support it largely dismantled
their collection efforts in Southeast Asia. The elaborate
collection capabilities that supported the war essentially ceased
or were relocated to other trouble spots around the world. The
analytical organizations that monitored signals intelligence in
the region were also disbanded or sharply reduced as personnel were
transferred to other assignments.
U.S. collection capabilities were further diminished during this
period as Vietnam and Laos developed secure landline communications
to replace the radio networks used during time of war. If officials
in either country were communicating about live U.S. POWs, the
likelihood that these communications would be detected by the U.S.
had become remote. However, during this period, the NSA did receive
third party intercepts concerning the reported presence of American
POWs in Laos.
In conducting its review of NSA files, the Committee examined more
than 3,000 postwar reports and 90 boxes of wartime files. The
Committee discovered that previous surveys of NSA files for POW/MIA
related information had been limited to the agency's automated data
base. Hundreds of thousands of hard copy documents, memoranda, raw
reports, operational messages and possibly tapes from both the
wartime and post-war periods remain unreviewed in various archives
and storage facilities. Most troubling, NSA failed to locate for
investigators any wartime analyst files related specifically to
tracking POWs, despite the fact that tracking POWs was a known
priority at the time. This failure made it impossible for the
Committee to confirm some information on downed pilots that was
provided by NSA employee Jerry Mooney.
At the Committee's request, the NSA and DIA are conducting a review
of past SIGINT reports that appear relevant to the POW/MIA issue
for the purpose of adding to the all-source database used in the
accounting process. Thousands of such reports have been identified.
Although it is not clear that the reports will succeed in resolving
questions about missing American servicemen, they have raised
questions about an individual's status in several cases and will,
at a minimum, add to the context in which other POW/MIA information
is considered.
The Committee benefitted from the insights of a retired NSA SIGINT
analyst, Senior Master Sergeant Jerry Mooney (USAF-retired). During
the war, SMSgt. Mooney maintained detailed personal files
concerning losses of aircraft and downed airmen. Unfortunately,
those personal files did not become part of the archived files
maintained by the NSA and have been lost. Although SmSgt. Mooney
has sought to reconstruct some of that information from personal
memory, the loss of the files makes it impossible to check those
recollections against the contemporaneous information.
The Committee found no evidence to substantiate claims that signals
intelligence gathered during the war constitute evidence that U.S.
POWs were transferred to the Soviet Union from Vietnam.
Pilot Distress Symbols
The Committee's investigation of pilot distress symbols as a
possible source of evidence of live POWs after 1973 was the first
such investigation conducted by any body of Congress.
During the war, the military services gave many pilots who flew
combat missions individual authenticator numbers to identify
themselves by radio or other means in the event their airplanes
were shot down or crashed. During their pre-flight training, pilots
were also given Escape and Evasion (E&E) signals to employ either
as an evader or POW to facilitate their eventual recovery. Most
pilots received training in methods of constructing these E&E
symbols in survival courses, prior to assignment to Vietnam. Both
E&E symbols and authenticator numbers were classified.
It was expected that these symbols would be used to attract
rescuers and would be deployed in ways which would avoid ground
detection and yet be visible to overhead collecting sources.
Consequently, intelligence analysts have been encumbered with the
difficult task of searching for signals which could be extremely
faint, or a clever blend of natural and man-made features.
The Committee became interested in this area while looking into
intelligence concerning the reported presence of POWs at a camp
near Nhom Marrott, Laos, in 1980. This intelligence included the
discovery of what appeared to be a "52", possibly followed by a "K"
in the prison garden. It was learned that "K" was a pilot distress
signal used during the war.
The Committee discovered that the intelligence community had other
overhead photographs, taken by both airborne and satellite
collection platforms, showing what appeared to be symbols or
unexplained markings.
The earliest example was a four digit set of numbers followed by
what appeared to be the letters "TH" found on a May, 1973
photograph of an area in central Laos. According to the Joint
Service SERE Agency (JSSA), the four digit number could be an
authenticator number followed by the primary and back-up distress
symbols of a downed pilot. Another example was a 1975 photograph of
a prison facility in Vietnam, in which the CIA noted unusual
markings on the roof of one of the buildings. Although the CIA
analysts assessed as remote the possibility that this represented
a signal from a POW, they noted that the markings might be
transposed to the letter "K" in Morse code. The Committee also
learned of a 1988 photograph of a valley near Sam Neua, Laos,
showing what clearly was a "USA" dug into a rice paddy. Beneath the
"USA", DIA also noted a possible "K" created by "ground scarring."
During its investigation, the Committee was surprised by statements
from DIA and CIA imagery analysts directly involved in POW/MIA work
that they were not very knowledgeable about the military's E&E
signals or, in some cases, even aware of the program. These
analysts were not even tasked to look for such information prior to
April, 1992. The Committee concluded that there had not been a
purposeful effort to search for distress signals, or a written
formal requirement for symbols, after the end of the war. The
Committee is confident, however, that if a symbol appeared clearly
on imagery, it would be identified by imagery analysts, as was the
case with the 1988 "USA" symbol.
The Committee recommends that the search for possible POW distress
symbols in Southeast Asia be a written intelligence requirement and
that imagery analysts be educated fully about JSSA training. This
is because a prisoner under detention is not likely to have the
opportunity to construct distress signals that are blatant or
elaborate; they are, in fact, trained to use discreet methods to
avoid detection. The more familiar imagery analysts are with JSSA
training, the more likely it is that they will be able to detect
such a discreet signal. Also, given the possibility that past
signals could have been missed, the Committee recommends that past
photography of suspect detention sites be reviewed to the extent
that resources permit.
The Committee notes that JSSA officials had not been consulted
previously with respect to the suspected symbols, except for the
1973 "TH" photograph, which was shown to them in the mid-1980's.
Accordingly, the Committee asked JSSA to evaluate a number of
possible symbols and markings to see if they were consistent with
JSSA training methods and distress symbols used during the war.
JSSA concluded that the "USA, possible K", the "52 possible K", the
"TH" , the roof top markings and one other symbol were consistent
with the methods taught to pilots downed in Laos. JSSA analysis
of the "USA possible K" concluded that this should be considered a
valid distress symbol until proven otherwise. It should be
emphasized, however, that JSSA officials are not trained in photo
analysis, and are not qualified to determine whether, in fact,
symbols that may seem to appear in imagery actually exist.
The Committee notes that imagery anomalies are caused by regularly
occurring natural phenomena and that JSSA originally identified 150
such numbers during its review of photography, of which 19 appeared
to match the four-digit authenticator numbers of U.S. airmen. It
was later demonstrated to the satisfaction of all parties that none
of these numbers were man-made, and all were naturally occurring
phenomena such as shadows, ridges, or trees, with the exception of
one additional symbol identified by one consultant in an altogether
different location.
The DIA does not dispute that two of the possible symbols, the
"USA" in 1988, and the 1973 "TH" are intentionally-constructed man-
made symbols. In a message to the Committee received in January,
1993, however, the agency stated that the "'USA' symbol was not a
distress symbol and had nothing to do with missing Americans." This
finding was based on a December, 1992 on-site investigation which
"determined that the symbol was made by Hmong tribe members." In
the same message, the DIA raised the possibility that the 1973 "TH"
symbol may have been made by a Hmong tribesman whose name started
with the English letters "TH" and who was a passenger on an
aircraft piloted by the American Emmet Kay which went down in May,
1973, "a few kilometers" away from where the symbol appeared.
DIA now contends that the "52", possible "K" seen at Nhom Marrott
is the result of shadowing and in no way represents a pilot
distress symbol. The Committee notes, however, that DIA had earlier
discounted the possibility that the symbol was caused by shadowing
because of the constant shape of the figures over a period of days
and at different times of the day. In fact, the intelligence
community had concluded in 1980 that this symbol had been dug into
the ground intentionally.
Due to the complexity of interpreting symbols obtained through
imagery, the Committee decided to hire two independent imagery
consultants. Each consultant was given access to the necessary
equipment and each submitted independently a report to the
Committee. The consultants' reports, which differed on only the one
symbol referred to earlier, were subsequently provided to the
intelligence community for its comments and evaluation.
A joint task group of DIA, CIA and NPIC imagery analysts found that
an unresolved symbol found by one consultant was "probably not man-
made." This consultant had detected, with "100 percent confidence"
a faint "GX 2527" in a photograph of a prison facility in Vietnam
taken in June, 1992. This number correlates to the primary and
back-up distress symbols and authenticator number of a pilot lost
in Laos in 1969. The joint agency team agreed that there were
visible markings that could be interpreted as letters and numbers,
but concluded that the marking "appeared" too "haphazard and ill-
defined" to be man-made distress symbols.
Disagreement arose within the Committee about the interpretation of
some of the possible symbols, including the question of whether
there is reason to believe that the "GX 2527" symbol is man-made,
rather than the result of natural phenomena. However, the Committee
agrees that the benefit of the doubt should go to the individual in
this case, because the apparent number corresponds to a particular
authenticator number and because it was identified by one analyst
with 100 percent confidence. Accordingly, the Committee urges the
appropriate officials in the Executive branch to request
information about the serviceman involved from the Government of
Vietnam.
Although the Committee cannot rule out the possibility that U.S.
POWs have attempted to signal their status to aerial observers, the
Committee cannot conclude, based on its own investigation and the
guidance of imagery experts, that this has definitely happened.
Although there is now an adequate collection process in place, the
Committee investigators found unacceptable lapses in time between
the point of collection and evaluation; and between evaluation and
follow-up. The Committee recommends better integration among the
various intelligence agencies, including improved training and a
better system for collecting and acting on information gathered
through imagery.
