Accounting -
Left Behind Admiral
Stockdale
12/03/92 Chairman Kerry: Based on that
concept of morality that you have
been driven by and the entire process
that you felt drove all of you that
you would come back together speaking
to us today, to a matter of moral
certainty in your heart and under
oath, do you believe that you left
anybody behind or that anybody was
alive?
Stockdale: No. No. I would not
have come back... Accounting -
Left Behind Admiral
Stockdale
12/03/92 It was the Son Tay Raid of November
1970 that prompted the North
Vietnamese to bring them all -- all
of these chickens out in the
satellite camps back, all back to
Hoala Prison, where in January 1971
every American prisoner -- with two
exceptions which I'll cover in a
minute -- where every American
prisoner who had ever been sighted,
whispered to, tapped to by any other
American over the last 6-1/2 years
were all locked up in a ring of
contiguous large cell blocks around
the largest west courtyard of Hoala
Prison, and it's half the prison. Accounting -
Left Behind Admiral
Stockdale
12/03/92 Found in those dungeons -- all of
this activity found in those
dungeons, a meaning of life centered
on being your brother's keeper
emerged, keeping a memorialized
chronology of contacts and
acquaintances that could some day,
God willing, when papers and pencils
were available, allow you to present
to the world a history, in the worst
case, of who was last known to be
where. Accounting Admiral
Stockdale
12/03/92 And then there's a kind of an
unreal -- as we've come along in this
20th century, we've become
litigious... where we believe that
somebody owes us an explanation and
an apology and a payback if something
is not quite right. And when you
start talking about warriors last
seen alive, never being -- that the
Government owes you a blow-by-blow
description of what happened to them
to bring about either their demise or
their missingness, there's never been
a war in history that any government
could do that.
To say that the Government owes us an
explanation for what happened to a
guy who was last seen alive out on
the battlefield. Can anybody see
that as a possible reality? At night
or in storms, people get buried under
avalanches. There's any number of
things that have happened over
history.
That's just an unrealistic goal
somebody has cooked up, and now it's
a demand. Accounting Andry
11/06/91 Mr. Chairman, let me say we don't
expect this committee to take on
mission impossible by trying to
account for every single POW or MIA.
But we do believe that every effort
should be made to determine why the
Government has been unable to do a
better job of accounting for these
soldiers. Furthermore, every effort
should be made to determine what
plans our Government has made to
prevent this intolerable situation
from happening again. Accounting Bell
12/04/92 ...we're not talking about one man
being the only one privy to this
information, we're talking about
hundreds of thousands of analysts at
the time of intercept having access
to the same information that Mr.
Mooney saw and that Mr. Minarsin saw.
And they have all reached the same
conclusion, that just never happened,
that there is no indication that
people were singled out based on
their air crew status, based on their
technical capability or their
technical knowledge, as Moscow-bound,
and our review -- and this is, as I
said, the third time that it's been
reviewed to look for that
information -- supports that. Accounting -
Left Behind Bell
11/06/91 We had information of Americans being
held at that time [after Operation
Homecoming], sir, but it was not
correlated to any specific
individual. Accounting -
KIA/BNR Brooks
12/01/92 I, too, have wondered why some cases
were left MIA when all good, in my
estimation, evidence suggested that
the person never survived the plane
crash, bailing out of the aircraft,
whatever the situation happened to
be. Accounting Chambers
08/04/92 As I have explained, our analysis
sets an upper limit on the number of
MIAs who could possibly be POWs. It
does not suggest that there are POWs,
or that any POWs were in fact held
past the time of Operation
Homecoming. What we are talking
about here are those MIAs who
potentially could have survived. We
do not know if they survived. I
cannot overemphasize this
distinction. Accounting -
KIA-BNR Chambers
08/04/92 The Defense Intelligence Agency, as
we were just discussing, reviewed all
2,266 cases to identify those people
who had the best chance for
survival...However, our investigation
of the loss incidents revealed that
not all of the 1,171 were likely
candidates for survival... We also
have cases where information on an
individual's fate is mixed, or
evidence of their fate is lacking...
These are the most difficult cases,
because it is almost impossible to
know where to begin an investigation
unless more information becomes
available.
In some of the 1,171 cases, we know
the individual didn't survive, even
though he wasn't declared killed in
action by his commander, and I think
Mr. Sheetz mentioned that there are
cases where all identifiable traces
of an individual were eliminated by
the sheer force of an explosion...
Finally, there are those who are
known to have died in captivity... Accounting -
KIA/BNR Chambers
08/04/92 This leaves us with 100 to 125...
Sir, the 269 total are the
individuals who were likely
candidates for survival and possible
captivity, but within that sub-
category there are several groups.. Accounting -
KIA/BNR Chambers
08/04/92 The difficult task of identifying who
might have survived, and remained a
prisoner after the war, began even
before prisoners were released during
Operation Homecoming in 1973 and
continues today...the total 2,266
unaccounted for Americans, 1,095 were
killed in action, leaving 1,171
Americans missing in action. Accounting -
KIA/BNR Chambers
08/04/92 As shown here, the 269 individuals
for priority investigation are drawn
from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and
have been the focus of our field
investigations that began in Vietnam
in September of 1988... However, not
all 269 individuals are likely
candidates for survival and possible
captivity...Based on our field
activities in Vietnam, 61 of these
people are known to have died. An
additional 78 cannot be considered as
possible POW candidates for one of
the following reasons:
They are known to have died but
happen to have been lost in the same
incident with a last-known-alive
person.
They are known to have died in
captivity, but are incorporated as
priority cases because at one time
they were carried by their respective
services as a POW or they do not meet
the criteria for a last known alive
designation but are included as
discrepancy cases because we believe
the Indochinese Governments are
withholding information concerning
their fate.
And finally, there are remains still
under analysis at the Central
Identification Laboratory in Hawaii
that we expect will lower this number
further once they are identified.
There are also several cases where we
have information that points strongly
but not conclusively to death at the
time of loss. loss. Accounting Cheney
11/05/91 I feel we are closer than we have
ever been to a full accounting on
those who are still missing. Accounting -
KIA/BNR Clapper
08/04/92 ...I need to make clear as well that
the determination of status as to
whether someone is or is not KIA is
not totally an intelligence call.
There are others that play in this,
and obviously not all the families or
next-of-kin would necessarily accept
that categorization of 1,095 were
killed in action, body not recovered.
Chairman Kerry: Well, I'm troubled,
you know, folks, if there isn't
sufficient evidence to put them on a
KIA list, they don't belong on it. I
mean, this is part of what lends so
much controversy to this issue. Accounting -
Left Behind Clements
09/24/92 Chairman Kerry: Let me ask this
question, Governor, in that second
paragraph that you were just reading,
this is a July document, correct?
Governor Clements: July the 17th.
Chairman Kerry: And you said in that
document of this number, 67 are
officially listed as prisoner of war.
Governor Clements: They are
officially listed as prisoner of war
based on information that they
reached the ground safely and were
captured.
Chairman Kerry: Correct. That is
exactly the point I want to make. . .
You have 67 people in July that you
have recorded as on the ground and
captured.
Governor Clements: That's right.
Chairman Kerry: Last known alive
captured, correct?
Governor Clements: That is correct.
Chairman Kerry: Seems to me that is
an indication you have people alive
in Southeast Asia. Accounting -
Status Changes Clements
09/24/92 Chairman Kerry: May I ask you what
the rationale was, and there may well
be a very good one, but what was the
rationale for taking this long-time
standing position of the Secretaries
of the Service and changing it. Why
did you suddenly have to make these
reviews?
Governor Clements: This was most,
most delicate situation. There were
some very legitimate reasons and
cases for changing of status. . . .
Chairman Kerry: So if there was a
legitimate reason for somebody to be
made POW, why did you have to step in
and be the arbiter of that?
Governor Clements: What I am trying
to explain, and I think it is a very
understandable situation, there were
all kinds of nuances to this
particular question. Accounting -
Status Changes Clements
09/24/92 Chairman Kerry: ...Approximately how
many cases, individual cases, do you
remember being brought to your
attention after Homecoming, that is
for reclassification?
Clements: Well, quite a few. And
for me to put a number on it would be
very difficult.
Chairman Kerry: Was it more of the
magnitude of five or 100? Can you
give us some idea of how many cases
would have brought to your attention?
Not with any accuracy, was your
answer. Question: I'll understand
that it's just an approximation.
Answer: Over a four-year period
there could easily have been 50 or 75
cases that were investigated in-depth
that would have been brought to my
attention.
So, the range was 5 to 100, you
picked 50 to 75. Now that is a lot
of cases that potentially the service
secretary sent to you saying we want
to reclassify this person as a POW.
If it had been left to them, that
person would have been. It was not
left to them. You had taken over
that authority. The result was none
were. Accounting -
Shields
Statement Clements
09/24/92 ...There was never any discussion or
argument between us that statement in
all likelihood probably was true.
Chairman Kerry: That they were all
dead.
Governor Clements: That they
probably and in all likelihood were
dead.
Chairman Kerry: Was that the
prevailing attitude at DoD?
Governor Clements: Absolutely... Accounting -
Status Changes Clements
09/24/92 Governor Clements: I want to correct
one thing there. I did not take over
that authority, and my actions in
this regard were strictly on a review
basis...
Chairman Kerry: You used the word
review, but when the Deputy Secretary
of Defense, and Acting Secretary at
some periods of time, says, I want a
memo sent to all departments that any
reclassification from MIA to POW must
first be cleared by me, that is a
clearance. MIA to KIA is OK within
each service. So it was OK to take
MIA and put them into KIA, kill them
off. But do not make them prisoners.
I have got to see it. And nothing
happened. Nobody was made a
prisoner. Accounting -
Shields
Statement Clements
09/24/92 "I don't think there's any question
at all that I said -- not in those
exact words, but I said that in all
likelihood those people over there
are probably dead..." Accounting -
Status Changes Clements
09/24/92 Vice Chairman Smith: ...Why did you,
Governor Clements, make a decision to
not allow your service secretaries,
which as far as I know has never
happened before and has not happened
since -- to not allow your service
secretaries to upgrade an individual
from an MIA category to a POW
category? Why did you make that
decision?
Governor Clements: I don't think
that I made such a decision. Accounting -
Status Changes Clements
09/24/92 Vice Chairman Smith: Governor, I
have got it in your own
handwriting... 'I want a memo sent to
all departments, services, ASD, DIA,
JCS, that any reclassification from
MIA to POW must first be cleared by
me -- me.' That is what you said. Accounting -
Status Changes Clements
09/24/92 Governor Clements: I have no
recollection of making a decision of
that kind. Let me tell you
something, Senator, it is very, very
clear that only classification can be
changed within the services. And
let's don't get that confused.
Vice Chairman Smith: 'I request that
all actions which recommend
reclassification of military
personnel from missing in action to
captured status be submitted to me
for approval. Proposed
reclassification action should be
first routed through the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for a
preliminary review before referral to
me.' That was June 8th, 1973. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Daschle
09/21/92 From my perspective, and listening to
the data and reading the documents,
there was a sea change attitude
immediately following the President's
assertion that everybody has now come
home.
Even somebody with your credibility
and dedication and determination, for
whatever reason, even though you were
in the White House and obviously
assigned to a different
responsibility, chose not to raise
the issue, in spite of the fact that
you did feel strongly about it and
took the actions that you have so
capably described this morning. But
you did not raise the issue. No one
raised the issue, apparently, inside
the Government after the President
made his assertion in March of 1973.
And I guess I would just like you, if
you could, to describe what it was,
with all of those who felt as
strongly as you did, that this was no
longer a time within which to raise
the issue, and we are going to put it
behind us.
All I am asking -- and I do not mean
it to be in any way an accusatory
question. I just would like you to
describe the atmosphere that
apparently permeated the White House
and the administration in June when
you arrived, re-arrived, about this
issue? Why was it such that no one
chose to challenge the President's
statement and recharacterize it in a
way that would be less positive, as
you described it?
Laird: I cannot explain that,
Senator. I believe that that's
something you should pursue. Accounting Daschle
06/24/92 ...you might as well have been in two
different countries trying to look
into this thing, for as little
cooperation and coordination that
there was. Accounting -
Left Behind Dole
09/24/92 Though without suggesting that it is
the intent of the committee, there is
certainly a fact of life that the
media is reporting your work as a
kind of who shot John exercise. The
headlines are all full of finger-
pointing about, quote, who abandoned,
unquote, our POW/MIAs; about who is
to blame for the situation where too
little was done for too long; and
trying to find out the truth about
the fate of our POWs and MIAs. Accounting Duker
12/02/92 ...I don't know that I'll ever be
totally satisfied that the resolution
is there personally. I do believe a
beginning would be, though, to -- at
least for every American that was
last known alive or last known alive
in captivity, if we could resolve
every one of those cases that would
at least be a beginning towards
coming to some kind of an accounting. Accounting -
Left Behind Ford
11/15/91 I have not seen anything that would
convince me that there are not some
Americans still alive... how many,
I'm not sure, but I think that the
reports suggest that there was one
for sure, that the Vietnamese didn't
tell us about until much later. That
was one, but there are also some
reports suggesting that people might
have been alive we didn't know about.
We didn't know where they were -- and
they probably died afterwards.
..As we accumulate evidence and as
we go through that process, we are
able to begin to piece together a
little bit better what happened back
in 1972, or 1973, or 1975, and the
evidence, as we accumulate it, more
and more suggests that there are
probably some left alive in 1973. Accounting Godley
09/24/92 This is an important distinction.
The MIAs were men in aircraft,
principally, shot down. They were
carried as MIAs until they were
either reported as POWs or their
graves were located, or a large
number of their wing men or other
aircraft in the air at that time
reported shot or downed in flames. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Grassley
06/25/92 Without this statement, that the
President made and of course those
attendant follow-on policy decisions,
there is absolutely no electrifying
conflict. People are incensed. I
don't suppose people are incensed
with bureaucratic incompetence, they
have learned to handle that, but they
are incensed because of the deception
around this issue, deception by our
own government. Accounting Grassley
10/15/92 ...the Paris Peace Accords hearings
gave the live-sighting reports a
context, a plausibility quotient. In
my view, we must revisit this issue
before our work is complete, and we
must certainly get a response on the
discrepancies. Accounting -
Comptroller's
Records Grassley
09/24/92 Presently, there are 1,278 military
personnel who are unaccounted for as
a result of the hostilities in
Southeast Asia. Of this number, 67
are officially listed as prisoner of
war based on information that they
reached the ground safely and were
captured. Now, that is from Clements
to President Nixon. And that is on,
I believe, the 17th of July, 1973.
Now, the point that I want to raise
and that I would like to have you
respond to is, as I see it, the
bottom line is that we may not have
known with 100 percent certitude that
these men were prisoners. But it
seems to me that we sure as heck
believed that to be the case, to the
point that we would list them as
current captured. We believed it to
the point that we had a list entitled
``Current captured.'' And, at the
least, it seems to me, this
information conflicted with both the
Nixon statement on March the 29th and
the Shields statement on April the
14th. Accounting -
Comptroller's
Records Grassley
09/24/92 I have got in front of me documents
that are entitled number of
casualties incurred by U.S. military
personnel in connection with the
conflict in Vietnam. And the bottom
line has a figure that is current
captured. And I do not know whether
they are daily or weekly reports, but
probably weekly reports. On March
the 31st, 1973, there are 81 listed;
7 April, 73, 80; 14 April, 73, and
that is the date that Shields made
his statement that there are not any
alive. We had 75. April 28th, 72. Accounting -
Status Changes Kerrey
09/22/92 My own belief is that a full
accounting of our people will not
occur until the Vietnamese Government
itself is accountable to its own
people. This is a Government that
has lied to its people ever since
they seized illegitimate power in
1975. They have continued to lie and
misrepresent facts to their own
people. Accounting Kerrey
09/24/92 It is very important for us to try to
figure out what we are going to do
today, not [just] what we should have
done 20 years ago. Accounting -
Left Behind Kerry
06/25/92 So there is certainly that measure of
information that we have received.
There are other acknowledgments that
I think are not insignificant;
acknowledgements that we are not
really dealing with a universe of
2,266, [that] it is smaller.
In fact the committee, through its
exhaustive review, suggest that
somewhere in the vicinity, in 1973,
of 244 is a reasonable number, minus
those immediately determined to have
died in captivity, which leaves you
somewhere in the vicinity of 133,
which is close, as Vessey said, to
the numbers he has come up with. Accounting -
Shields
Statement Kerry
09/22/92 Before Operation Homecoming, our
officials in the military, and you in
the executive, expressed the
conviction that POWs were about to be
left behind because the Laos list was
incomplete. But after Operation
Homecoming, the statements seemed to
have shifted and been calibrated more
towards putting people at ease, and
urging an acceptance or encouraging
the belief that the goal had been
achieved. Accounting Kerry
09/21/92 Chairman Kerry: President Nixon won
in 1968 on a peace platform and
indeed, no sooner was he elected than
he began withdrawing troops. Our
withdrawal was forestalled in 1968.
For four more years the war went on.
More prisoners were created and
finally, we negotiated with the
recognition that the country was fed
up and South Vietnam was to either
stand alone or fall alone with
enormous military support, I might
add, from us...
We are here 20 years later trying to
understand in the dynamics of where
we got to, whether or not we got our
prisoners out or not...It was not us
who stated that we do not have all
our prisoners back, that was in memos
that your colleagues in Government
created.
The families, however, knew this and
for 20 years they have sought an
honest accounting from us, so we are
here today to do that and I am sure
you are sympathetic to that. Accounting -
Shields
Statement Kerry
06/25/92 Dr. Shields, do you not think that it
is a little disingenuous to stand up
before the Nation and have a policy
announced that says we have no
indication that there are any
Americans alive when you know people
are carried as POW and have nothing
to suggest they are dead?
Why did you not say, "You know, we
have got 244 questions. We have got
people we list as POW, and we do not
know," instead of saying, "There are
no indications that anybody is
alive." Because the last thing you
knew was that they were alive. Accounting -
Left Behind Kerry
09/24/92 Evidence was available to American
policy makers in 1973 that some POWs
might have been alive. Clearly,
there were people listed as POW who
did not return. That does not mean
that they were alive. It also does
not mean the converse; that they were
dead. Accounting Kerry
06/25/92 What we did say unequivocally is that
there were a body, a group of people
listed as POW for whom there was a
reason they were listed as POW, about
whom we knew enough to call them POW.
And we did not get an accounting at
that time. And we had reason to
believe that many of them were alive. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/24/92 Well, I would say, Admiral [Moorer],
I think your effort to explain it
that way is understandable and noble,
but the fact is I read this morning a
series of statements made by the
President which did not refer to we
are getting back the people on the
list, it said all our prisoners are
home.
..Secondly, on May 24th, in a speech
to the POWs once they were all back,
he said 1973 saw the return of all
our prisoners of war. He did not say
to them, we are still concerned about
some of your friends; we are going to
pursue it. He said you are all back.
And in a speech on June 15th, he said
that for the first time in eight
years all of our prisoners are back,
all our prisoners are home here in
America. So I must say to you that
the evidence is overwhelming to the
committee that there is a gap between
the stated public policy and between
reality at that point in time. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/24/92 If there were a clearer way for the
Commander in Chief to send a message
to Hanoi, or to the Pathet Lao, or to
the American public and to our
defense and intelligence officials
that the active search for a live
American prisoner was at an end, I do
not know what that might have been.
Now, no question, there is reference
after reference in these documents to
our continued desire for a full
accounting for those listed as
missing. But nowhere is there a
reference to a belief in the
likelihood that live Americans might
still be held. Accounting -
Shields
Statement Kerry
06/25/92 (Tape) Question: Do you think there
still are POWs alive and well
somewhere in either Laos or Cambodia?
Answer: We have no indications at
this time that there are any
Americans alive in Indochina. (End
tape)
Chairman Kerry: That was your
statement at a press conference on
the 12th of April, 1973. We have no
indications at this time that there
are any Americans alive.
Now it is a fact, is it not, that as
of February of 1973 you personally
had information about an EC or an EQ-
47 shot down in Laos, and you
believed that four member s of that
crew survived, did you not? Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/24/92 So I frame that we have not got a
full accounting in the context of
having heard there is no evidence
that anybody is still alive, and my
immediate next thought is, OK, that
must mean we have got to find out who
is dead or how they died.
There is a huge difference. I mean I
am in politics. I understand what it
means to give a message. I remember
those days too. I was riveted to the
television set the night the
President said all the prisoners are
coming home...I thought they were all
coming home too.
I must tell you, and I thought I was
pretty aware back then, I never knew
what I am learning today. I never
knew you guys had a list of people
that you thought were still
prisoners. I never heard of it. Accounting Kerry
11/15/91
I am a little disappointed that you
folks do not have at your fingertips
those numbers and the ability to tell
me, Senator, here is how many went
down. Here is exactly how many were
unaccounted for. Accounting Kerry
06/25/92 If you have evidence to show that
somebody ought to be on a list, now
is the time to come forward. But it
is not sufficient for anybody to
simply say gee, it ought to be
bigger.
We are dealing with reality. And we
have taken and put together lists
from every possible list we have been
able to find, subpoena, summon,
locate, uncover in the archives, and
there just are not any other lists.
Moreover, there is a finite universe
of people who went to Vietnam and
either came back or did not. We know
their names and we know the locations
and the dates and times and we have
records. And we are going to deal
with records. We are not going to
deal with hypothesis, theory,
supposition, fantasy, and ultimately
even hope, no matter how deep that
hope may be. We have to base this on
reality. We all have hope, but we
are trying to figure out what is real
here.
Now, I want to emphasize again that
the committee does not assert that
every one of the names of the 133
were alive. We do not do that. We
cannot do that. No one could do
that. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/24/92 Chairman Kerry: Well, does that
raise a question in your mind today
as to whether they were, in fact, all
home on the March --
Admiral Murphy: Well, yeah, if I'm
looking at a piece of paper that says
there are 67 of them left. Accounting -
Shields
Statement Kerry
09/24/92 ...while there is truth to the
statement that I could not say where
so-and-so was specifically on this
day, we did have evidence that
individuals had been captured and
that individuals were not returning.
And I think that is the centerpiece
of the quandary we find ourselves in
20 years later. That those families
know that, and now the country knows
that. Those families knew that for
20 years. We also have evidence that
there were people within the
military, and in the State Department
and elsewhere, who believed that. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/21/92 The President mentioned the MIA issue
in conjunction with a number of
issues that were not meeting with
full compliance...he did not
personalize and raise the issue of
noncompliance on POWs with the notion
that we believe there were people
that could be accounted for who were
not being accounted for. There was
just sort of this general sense of,
well, MIAs are not being accounted
for, which is distinct from the
notion that you believe you have
prisoners that were held and they
have not returned. I think the
Americans would have reacted,
obviously, very differently to the
latter than the former.
Secondly, his broader comment was
not, we have gotten back all the
prisoners that they have given us a
list of. It was that all the
prisoners have come home. So, there
was a real distinction between what
we knew or thought we knew about
prisoners versus MIA generically.
And that is, I think, something that
lingered. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/24/92 Chairman Kerry: You would agree with
me, Mr. Secretary, there is a
distinction between someone listed as
POW and someone listed as MIA.
Richardson: Definitely.
Chairman Kerry: And you would agree
with me, then, that the people
listed as MIA, some of them did not
come home, correct -- excuse me,
people listed as POW, some did not
come home, correct?
Richardson: Yes.
Chairman Kerry: Therefore, a
statement that all POWs are home is
also incorrect, is it not?
Richardson: Yes. This is a
colloquy... He could have
rationalized it, I suppose, on the
basis that all the ones we know of
have been accounted for. Accounting -
Comptroller's
Records Kerry
09/24/92 Chairman Kerry: You, in July, are
still left with 67, by your own
account. Now, you have already taken
into account the people who came back
and who died. Those briefings are
several months prior. You are
reporting to the President,
memorandum of the United States of
America on 17 July, you folks
yourselves are saying 67 are
officially listed as prisoner of war,
based on information that they
reached the ground safely and were
captured... I do not want this to be
contentious, but do you not see the
problem here? If you have 67 people
that the Secretary of Defense is
telling the President are prisoners
because they reached the ground and
they were captured? Do you not
understand why people say hey, wait a
minute, there is a prisoner of war
over there that we have not gotten
back? Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/24/92 And they are on the list that Senator
Grassley has provided of the 67 still
listed as captured, and you say by
March we had decided there were none
there, and yet people were still
listed as prisoners. So what was it
that allowed this decision to be made
that just sort of -- wiped it away?
What strikes me is that there was
this group that we believed were POWs
that somehow slid off into a category
other than POW in people's minds,
into a sort of MIA category without
really having been accounted for,
quote, as POWs. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kerry
09/22/92 ...we have found statements where the
President said we are still worried
about the full accounting, but it was
for MIAs. The problem is there was
this distinction drawn between MIAs
and those that we believed were POWs. Accounting -
Status Changes Kerry
09/24/92 Chairman Kerry [to Clements]: Now, I
want to come to the next critical
point. Governor, this was your
memorandum of 17 July, and you talk
about Public Law 37 U.S.C. 551558,
where the Service Secretaries are
specifically charged with the
responsibility for status changes.
You say at that time this system has
been used effectively to make status
changes for missing in action, and
you send over to the President, for
some reason, a fact sheet discussing
the provisions of the law, which
raises in our minds the question of
why the President might have been
interested in the status changes, and
if he was, why then, at a prior time,
had you made a decision personally,
in your own handwriting, to require
the Service Secretaries for the first
time to go through you in order to
change somebody? Now, I understand
there were 50 -- according to your
own deposition -- there were some 50
to 75 requests by the secretaries to
list somebody as POW, not as MIA, and
you did not approve any one of those,
correct? Accounting -
Left Behind Kingston
06/25/92 On 19 November 1975, I testified
before the House Select Committee
Missing Persons in Southeast Asia
[Montgomery Commission]. I was also
asked, how many cases did you have of
men that were seen alive in captivity
but not heard from subsequent to that
time? I replied, I do not know
accurately. I was then asked, can
you estimate how many there were? I
replied, around 100. Accounting -
Left Behind Kingston
06/25/92 Sen. McCain: When you were head of
the JCRC, did you ever see any hard
evidence that Americans were alive?
Kingston: Not to my recall. Accounting Kingston
06/25/92 I interpreted that my mission was to
search for, recover and identify dead
and missing U.S. personnel. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kissinger
09/22/92 On March 29th, President Nixon
announced that all of our American
POWs are on their way home. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 If servicemen were kept by our
enemies, there is one villain and one
villain only; the cold-hearted rulers
in Hanoi. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Kissinger
09/22/92 Either people were known as
prisoners, or they were missing in
action, and therefore what President
Nixon conveyed was that those we knew
were prisoners were on their way
home, and he also said those who were
missing in action we were not
satisfied with, and that was the
state of our classification at the
time. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 Nor did any Administration know that
there were live Americans kept in
Indochina. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 Fundamentally, I would have to say I
can find no rational reason for them
to hold prisoners. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 Personally, I have no proof whether
Americans were kept behind by Hanoi.
My present gut feeling is that
probably no prisoners were left
behind in Vietnam. Possibly some
prisoners were left behind, were kept
behind in Laos, which has been my
feeling more or less since the middle
Seventies, but I'm not dogmatic about
this... But I want to make clear,
they were left -- if so, they were
kept in violation of the agreement,
in total ignorance of the American
Government. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 Secretary Schlesinger was not exactly
shy in expressing his disagreements
with the views of the Administration.
I do not believe you can find one
memorandum, one phone conversation,
one meeting, or one anything in which
he expressed at the time the views he
expressed yesterday. And I can
assure you, if we had known, if we
had heard this, we would have acted
on it, because nobody was more
dissatisfied with the performance of
the Vietnamese than I. Nobody was
more eager to enforce the agreement. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 Some prisoners may - I repeat may -
have been kept behind by our
adversaries in violation of solemn
commitments. No prisoners were left
behind by the deliberate act or
negligent omission of American
officials. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 The committee also owes to the
American people a statement of this
simple truth. Some prisoners may --
I repeat, may -- have been kept
behind by our adversaries in
violation of solemn commitments. No
prisoners were left behind by the
deliberate act or negligent omission
of American officials. Anyone
suggesting otherwise is playing a
heartless game with the families of
the MIAs. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 I think it is possible that they were
held, and it would have been in total
violation of the agreement. We did
not have any information at the time
that I was in Government that was
considered reliable. Accounting Kissinger
09/22/92 The return of POWs and accounting of
the MIAs was an integral part of
every American proposal and was
always declared as non-negotiable by
us. Accounting Kissinger
09/22/92 ...until October 8, 1972, the
Vietnamese had never agreed to give
any accounting of anything. So the
issue that you're addressing did not
arise until we were down to 25,000
[troops]. Accounting -
Left Behind Kissinger
09/22/92 Healing those wounds preoccupied me
then, it has preoccupied me since,
and it is one reason I find this
inquiry so painful. Mr. Chairman,
you have stated that this inquiry was
designed to heal the wounds of
Vietnam. I agree, but it cannot be
done by blaming American officials
for Vietnamese transgressions, nor by
innuendos, distortions and outright
falsehoods being leaked out of this
inquiry, nor did any --
So let us stop torturing ourselves.
The United States kept faith with
those who served their country. No
administration knew that there were
live Americans kept in Indochina.
American prisoners may have been kept
in Vietnam by a treacherous enemy in
violation of agreements and human
decency, but no one was left there by
the deliberate act or negligent
omission of any American official. Accounting -
Left Behind Laird
09/21/92 Now, it was a 50-50 chance on that
situation that prisoners of war would
not be there, but I submit to you as
members of this committee that every
prisoner of war in North Vietnam and
also in the South knew about that
raid, and it gave them hope that we
cared about them and it was a
successful raid, and the idea from my
standpoint that it did show that we
in the United States cared about our
POWs, and we did recognize them. Accounting Laird
09/21/92 When I first became Secretary of
Defense, the total number of letters
that we had received since January
1st of 1960 to February of 1969, the
total number of letters we'd received
were 620. After we went public in
January of '72 the number of letters
had gone up to almost 5,000. 1,000
of those particular letter did come
through various peace activists. Accounting -
Left Behind Lord
09/21/92 Chairman Kerry: There is no question
in your mind, is there, that those
represented legitimate questions of
people who were held as a prisoner?
Lord: Absolutely.
Chairman Kerry: So, in effect, when
we got out in January and the
prisoners started coming home and the
President said all the prisoners are
on their way home, you knew that
could not be accurate based on the
information you had seen. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Lord
09/21/92 Chairman Kerry: ...it is very hard
for the committee to understand that
if the United States Government is
publicly saying we do not have any
indication of anybody alive, it would
kind of be meaningless to sit with
[the North Vietnamese] and make real
your notion that you are worried
about discrepancies or that they have
to worry about it... Accounting Maguire
12/04/92 What Mr. Mooney seems to have done
is, in every case where it either
mentions a shoot down, a parachute
being seen, a search being conducted
for an individual, he put that person
in a POW status, and that just --
that's a jump in logic that's not
supported by the other evidence.
The problem is that Mr. Mooney was
really restricted to a small body of
intelligence with which to make his
assessment, and that body of
intelligence was the known U.S.
losses at the time of the report.
What we have information on is the
search and rescue efforts that
happened after the loss incident.
We've had subsequent intelligence
reports from other sources, and when
you put that all together, you can't
support 300 or more people ever even
being captured through signals
reports.
So if he saw a report that said on
the 22nd May the 283rd AAA Battalion
shot down an F-4, he would go to a
list of F-4 losses on that day, and
any F-4 that happened to have a
person unaccounted for, he would put
that person into a POW status,
totally disregarding any other losses
where we may have rescued an
individual, and in many cases he
totally disregarded the losses of
anything other than U.S. aircraft. Accounting -
Left Behind McCain
09/22/92 ...if both former Secretaries of
Defense knew or believed at the time
that there was Americans left in
Southeast Asia, then I think they
have a great deal of answering to do
as to why they did not do more,
especially before the Woodcock and
Montgomery Commissions, to bring
these concerns or their beliefs to
light. Accounting -
Left Behind McCain
09/24/92 [to Moorer] Your message on March
22nd says, the JCS message says, "Do
not commence withdrawal of the fourth
increment until the following two
conditions are met: the U.S. has
been provided with a complete list of
all U.S. POWs, including those held
by the Pathet Lao, as well as the
time and place of release; and the
first group of POWs have been
physically transferred to U.S.
custody." That was the criteria on
March 22nd.
Then, on March 23rd, a message was
sent, and I know, Mr. Chairman, this
is part of the record, both of these
messages, it said:
"Seek private meeting with North
Vietnamese representative. Our basic
concern is the release of the
prisoners, as we do not object to the
PLF playing the central role as long
as the men are returned to us. We
need precise information and
understanding on the times and place
of release of the prisoners on the
list provided by 1 February. Of
course we intend to pursue the
questioning of other U.S. personnel
captured or missing in Laos following
the release of the men on the 1
February list." Accounting -
Nixon Statement McCain
09/22/92 I would like to, again, refer to the
full statement made by President
Nixon on March 29th, 1973. The
chairman and others continue to refer
to a statement where he says all of
our American POWs are on their way
home. I think it is important to add
that he one sentence later said:
"There are still some problem areas:
the provisions of the agreement
requiring an accounting for all
missing in action in Indochina, the
provisions with regard to Laos and
Cambodia, the provisions prohibiting
[et cetera] have not been complied
with."
So the President of the United States
did not just say all Americans are on
their way home. He caveated it, and
very strongly. . . . So both Dr.
Shields and the President of the
United States in 1973 stated
unequivocally that there were still
serious problems with the full
accounting of the MIA/POWs. Accounting -
Left Behind McCain
09/24/92 One reading this would reach the
conclusion that the Joint Chiefs of
Staff dictated a certain policy:
suspend everything on one day, and
then the following day said go ahead
and move forward with the
proceedings. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Mooney
01/22/92 Chairman Kerry: What did you do in
1973, when you saw Operation
Homecoming? At that time you knew
that there was a discrepancy between
those coming home and those who most
readily, in your memory, were on the
list.
Mr. Mooney: Yes sir. I was not really
concerned, because we still had the
highest requirements on the book, and
we did not expect many of these
people to come home. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Mooney
01/22/92 When President Nixon made his
statement that all the men are back,
that wasn't even taken seriously. . .
[because] when Nixon made his
statement. . . the highest tasking on
every reporter's desk in the field
was to continue to search for,
identify, isolate, locate American
POWs, particularly in Laos. And that
requirement stayed on the books. Accounting -
Nixon Statement Moorer
09/24/92 Yes, could I make a comment please,
sir? I believe that you will find
that when the President made that
statement he was in Key Biscayne. He
made it through Ziegler, the public
affairs officer, and I'm confident he
was referring to simply the package
that we had ready to come out. And
all of those, 150 or so that were
ready to come out except one that was
found a little later down in South
Vietnam, but they were on the way
back. And I think that is probably
what he meant when he said all. He
meant all of the ones that we had
scheduled.
There is another sentence in that
public announcement, I think, that
goes on to say but there are probably
others we've got to search for.
Sen. Grassley: It is unfortunate,
but I believe the public then and now
has not read that statement any other
way, and I do not think there has
been any effort on the part of Nixon
to clarify it.
