An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia

By Bill Hendon and Elizabeth A. Stewart

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An Enormous Crime is nothing less than shocking. Based on thousands of pages of public and previously classified documents, it makes an utterly convincing case that when the American government withdrew its forces from Vietnam, it knowingly abandoned hundreds of POWs to their fate.

The product of twenty-five years of research by former Congressman Bill Hendon and attorney Elizabeth A. Stewart, this book brilliantly reveals the reasons why these American soldiers and airmen were held back by the North Vietnamese at Operation Homecoming in 1973, what these brave men have endured, and how administration after administration of their own government has turned its back on them.

This authoritative exposé is based on open-source documents and reports, and thousands of declassified intelligence reports and satellite imagery, as well as author interviews and personal experience. An Enormous Crime is a singular work, telling a story unlike any other in our history: ugly, harrowing, and true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Oct 14, 2008
• ISBN: 9781429922906

Bill Hendon

Former U.S. Rep. BILL HENDON (R-NC) served two terms on the U.S. House POW/MIA Task Force (1981-1982 and 1985-1986); as consultant on POW/MIA Affairs with an office in the Pentagon (1983); and as a full-time intelligence investigator assigned to the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs (1991-1992). He has traveled to South and Southeast Asia thirty-three times on behalf of America’s POWs and MIAs. Hendon is considered the nation’s foremost authority on intelligence relating to American POWs held after Operation Homecoming and an expert on the Vietnamese and Laotian prison systems. He lives in Washington, D.C.

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MR. HENDON’S PERSONAL DEDICATIONS

I dedicate this book and the good I pray will come from its publication:

To my remarkable parents: my dad, Big Bill (1914–1973), friend to everyone he met, World War II veteran, successful businessman, civic leader, accomplished outdoorsman, dedicated husband, wonderful father and mentor to his two boys—in a phrase, the best guy you would ever want to know, who died way, way too young—and my dear late mother, Meme, who went from world’s best stay-at-home mom during my childhood and adolescence, to close friend and confidante in the years following Big Bill’s death, to self-appointed reality checker and gentle critic after I got elected to Congress and, as she put it, began to think quite highly of myself, and finally to unwavering supporter of my oftentimes controversial efforts on behalf of the Indochina POWs after I left Congress. As long as they lived, Big Bill and Meme were always there for me. Always. For all they did for me, and meant to me, and mean to me still, I dedicate this book first and foremost to them. In the same breath I dedicate it also to my former wife and my two daughters, who contributed mightily to this effort, and to my brother and the other members of my immediate family as well.

To the wonderful people of Western North Carolina, who extended to me the greatest honor of my life when they hired me back in the early 1980s to represent them and watch out for their interests in the United States House of Representatives.

To two very special men I came to know and admire early on in my congressional career: Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), (1902–2003), who campaigned hard for me during my successful 1980 campaign (and equally hard for me in later campaigns as well), and Lt. Gen. Gene Tighe Jr., USAF (1921–1994), director of the Defense Intelligence Agency when I first arrived in Washington. Each man, I soon found, was devoted to the cause of the Indochina POWs, and each took me under his powerful wings and provided valuable direction to my efforts and much-needed personal assurances that the decisions I was making and the actions I was taking on behalf of the POWs were correct and proper. I will never be able to convey how much these two men meant to me. Nor will I ever be able to adequately describe how proud I was to walk, if for only a brief time, in the long shadow each cast.

To my buddies the bomb throwers—the two dozen or so damn the torpedoes backbench Republicans and our gutsy, like-minded comrade-in-arms across the aisle, Rep. Frank McCloskey (D-IN), (1939–2003)—who waged all-out war for the POWs in the House during the early and mid-1980s.

To my colleague, chairman, and dear friend Rep. G. V. Sonny Montgomery (D-MS), (1920–2006), Southern gentleman, patriot, statesman, honorable not just in title but in everything he did. Sonny headed a House investigation into the POW issue during 1975–1976 and served on a presidential commission that had conducted a similar investigation in 1977. Both had ruled that no POWs remained alive. But then had come the boat people in the late 1970s and with them a floodtide of intelligence saying otherwise—and then, in early 1981, our demands from the backbench that a new national effort be undertaken to get the POWs home. A lesser man would have circled the wagons and used his power to thwart our efforts and protect himself from possible embarrassment; Sonny, however, responded by pledging his full support and urging us on. I greatly admired him for that—and for later making good on his pledge—and for countless other reasons as well, and am honored to dedicate this book and the good that can come from it to him. He was, as everyone who knew him will tell you, a very special guy.

To my fellow intelligence investigators at the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs: John McCreary, JD, Col. Bill LeGro, John Holstein, Ph.D., and Col. Nick Nicklas; to Deputy Staff Director Dino Carluccio and to the Select Committee’s vice chairman, my former House colleague and longtime friend Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH). Honorable men all; outgunned from 1991 to 1993; but never outclassed.

—BILL HENDON

Washington, DC

MS. STEWART’S PERSONAL DEDICATIONS

I dedicate this book to my parents, Pete and Marnie Stewart. To Mom, who has always been unwavering in her support of this effort, who raised six children with great courage, wonderful humor and grace, and continues to be a pillar of strength to her family each and every day. To Dad, Col. Peter J. Stewart, USAF—MIA March 15, 1966—a decorated combat veteran of World War II and Vietnam and a devoted father and husband, for having the courage of his convictions, and whose place on the Wall gives me both sorrow and strength. We miss you more than can be put into words. My love for you both is never ending.

—ELIZABETH A. STEWART

Winter Haven, Florida

Table of Contents

Title Page

PREFACE

PART I

INTRODUCTION

WASHINGTON, DC

A SECOND CHANCE

CHAPTER 1 - THE POW HOSTAGE PLAN AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

THE HOSTAGE PLAN

HANOI’S PLAN TO CAPTURE AMERICANS ALIVE IN THE SOUTH

THE QUALITY OF THE INTELLIGENCE • THE QUALITY OF THE PAVN AS INTELLIGENCE SOURCES

VIETCONG POLICY RELATING TO THE CAPTURE AND TREATMENT OF AMERICAN SERVICEMEN

CHAPTER 2 - HANOI BOUND

THE MOVE NORTH

SOME AMERICAN POWs REMAIN IN CAMPS IN THE SOUTH

CHAPTER 3 - AMERICAN POWs CAPTURED BY THE PATHET LAO

THE PRISONERS IN SAM NEUA

CHAPTER 4 - AMERICAN POWs IN NORTH VIETNAM

THE IMPRISONMENT AND EXPLOITATION OF AMERICAN POWs IN NORTH VIETNAM

THE AMERICANS AT HANOI’S HOA LO PRISON AND AT THE HOA LO CENTER

THE HUMAN SHIELDS

CHAPTER 5 - 1972 THE WAR DRAWS TO A CLOSE

THE NORTH VIETNAMESE DECIDE TO SETTLE • LE DUC THO AND HENRY KISSINGER AGREE ON A PEACE TREATY

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

WE BELIEVE THAT PEACE IS AT HAND

THE PARIS NEGOTIATIONS

NIXON DECIDES TO SETTLE

THE PARIS NEGOTIATIONS

OPERATION LINEBACKER II • THE B-52s POUND HANOI, HAIPHONG, AND THE NORTH VIETNAMESE HEARTLAND

PART II

CHAPTER 6 - JANUARY 1973 PEACE AT A VERY HIGH PRICE

PARIS

NORTH VIETNAM’S DEMANDS FOR WAR DAMAGES

WHAT AND HOW MUCH? THE LONG AND TORTURED DEBATE OVER THE FORM AND AMOUNT OF WAR DAMAGES TO BE PAID TO THE NORTH VIETNAMESE

NORTH VIETNAM’S FINAL BILL

HOW MANY? THE LONG AND TORTURED DEBATE OVER THE NUMBER OF AMERICANS HELD PRISONER BY THE COMMUNISTS

THE PARIS ACCORDS ARE SIGNED • THE NORTH VIETNAMESE TURN OVER THE FIRST LIST OF POWs

THE NIXON LETTER IS DELIVERED • THE NORTH VIETNAMESE TURN OVER THE SECOND LIST OF POWs

STUNNED, SHOCKED, INCONCEIVABLE, MY GOD, LOOK AT THE DISPARITY

CHAPTER 7 - FEBRUARY 1973 A HISTORIC JOURNEY TO HANOI

THE KISSINGER/PHAM VAN DONG MEETINGS IN HANOI

CHAPTER 8 - FEBRUARY—MARCH 1973 THE MOST TORTURED ISSUE, THE TOUGHEST SALE

THE MOST TORTURED ISSUE, THE TOUGHEST SALE

NORTH VIETNAM CONVENES SPECIAL SESSION OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO RATIFY PARIS ACCORDS, U.S. PLAN TO REBUILD NORTH

NIXON, KISSINGER, ROGERS, DEFENSE OFFICIALS PUSH FOR CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL OF RECONSTRUCTION AID TO NORTH VIETNAM

THE U.S.-DRV JOINT ECONOMIC COMMISSION CONVENES IN PARIS • THE DRV PRESENTS ITS FIVE-YEAR PLAN

CHAPTER 9 - MID- TO LATE MARCH 1973 THE RETURNEE DEBRIEFS TELL OF HUNDREDS OF AMERICAN POWs HELD BACK

THE MID- AND LATE MARCH INTELLIGENCE AND OTHER INFORMATION FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA ABOUT UNLISTED POWs

WHAT THE RETURNEES HAD TOLD ABOUT UNLISTED AMERICAN PRISONERS

THE RETURNEES’ PERSONAL HISTORIES

THE COMPARISONS PROVE DEVASTATING

CHAPTER 10 - SPRING 1973 A ‘CANCER’ ON THE PRESIDENCY

THE WATERGATE BURGLARS ARE SENTENCED

McCORD FINGERS DEAN • NIXON NOW EXPOSED

A MATTER OF SCHEDULING?

GETTING VIETNAM OUT OF THE WAY

POWs REPORTED ALIVE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

IT IS BETTER … TO BE CERTAIN … THAN IT IS TO BE UNCERTAIN

THERE WAS NO CHOICE BUT TO FOLLOW HIS DIRECTIVE

CHAPTER 11 - SPRING, SUMMER, AND FALL 1973 THE COLLAPSE OF THE JEC TALKS • THE COLLAPSE OF THE PARIS PEACE ACCORDS

BREAKING THE BAD NEWS TO THE NORTH VIETNAMESE

ENTER COMRADE FIDEL

THE NORTH VIETNAMESE MOVE TO TAKE THE SOUTH BY FORCE

A REMARKABLE CASE OF POOR TIMING

A DRAMATIC, LAST-MINUTE AMERICAN EFFORT TO SAVE THE SOUTH AND THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POWs AS WELL

CHAPTER 12 - 1974 THE END OF THE LINE FOR RICHARD NIXON

CHAPTER 13 - JANUARY–APRIL 1975 THE END OF THE LINE FOR SOUTH VIETNAM

THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS CAMPAIGN BEGINS

THE CAMPAIGN TO TAKE SAIGON BEGINS

PART III

CHAPTER 14 - MAY–DECEMBER 1975 CUBA SUGGESTED TO US TO KEEP THEM BACK • CONGRESS INVESTIGATES THE FATE OF THE POWs AND MIAS

THE NORTH VIETNAMESE EFFORT TO RANSOM THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POWS CUBAN STYLE FOR THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF RECONSTRUCTION AID PROMISED THEM AT PARIS

U.S. HOUSE CREATES SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE FATE OF POWs/MIAs

MONTGOMERY GOES TO WORK

HANOI

A ROUGH CHRISTMAS FOR FOUR OTHER AMERICANS

CHAPTER 15 - 1976 MONTGOMERY CONTINUES HIS INVESTIGATION • AMERICAN POWs SEEN IN CAPTIVITY IN BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH VIETNAM

THE DEVASTATING TESTIMONY OF THE EXPERT WITNESSES

SOUTHERN VIETNAM

THE MASS TRANSFER OF REEDUCATION CAMP INMATES TO NORTHERN VIETNAM FOR LONG-TERM IMPRISONMENT

THE SOUTHERNERS BEGIN SEEING AMERICAN POWS NEAR THE REEDUCATION CAMPS OF NORTH VIETNAM

NORTHERNERS ALSO SEE AMERICAN POWs

WASHINGTON

MONTGOMERY COMMITTEE WRAPS UP ITS INVESTIGATION, DECLARES ALL POWS/MIAs DEAD

CHAPTER 16 - 1977 A NEW PRESIDENT ADDRESSES THE MATTER OF THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POWs

WASHINGTON

THE WHOLE POINT … WAS TO DECLARE … THE MIAs … DEAD

THE CIA INTELLIGENCE OF MARCH 8

HANOI

THE CIA INTELLIGENCE OF MARCH 16

WOODCOCK REPORTS HIS FINDINGS

PARIS

WE STAND FOR AN OVER-ALL, PACKAGE DEAL SOLUTION

GETTING OUT

VIETNAM

CHAPTER 17 - 1978 THE SIGHTINGS OF THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POWs CONTINUE • THE REFUGEE EXODUS BEGINS

THE SIGHTINGS OF THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POW CONTINUE

MORE SIGHTINGS IN THE SOUTH

STILL MORE SIGHTINGS IN THE NORTH

THE REFUGEE EXODUS BEGINS

THE PERSECUTION OF THE ETHNIC CHINESE

FIRST COME THE HOA, THEN THE SOUTHERN VIETNAMESE

THE REPORTS OF IMPRISONED AMERICANS BEGIN MAKING THEIR WAY TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

THE VIETNAMESE INVASION OF CAMBODIA

CHAPTER 18 - 1979 A PRISON SYSTEM IN CHAOS • CONVINCING EVIDENCE FINALLY REACHES WASHINGTON

THE CHINESE INVADE … AND THEN QUICKLY WITHDRAW

THE RELOCATION OF THE DISPLACED AMERICAN POWS

OTHER AMERICAN POWS REMAIN CAPTIVE IN THE NORTH

U.S. OFFICIALS BECOME CONVINCED POWs ARE ALIVE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

REPORT 1: THE ETHNIC CHINESE MORTICIAN

REPORT 2: THE FORMER ARVN COLONEL

REPORT 3: THE PRIZED DEFECTOR

THE RADIO INTERCEPT TELLING OF THE TRANSFER OF AMERICAN AND THAI POWs WITHIN LAOS ON NOVEMBER 15, 1979

CHAPTER 19 - 1980 RESCUE PLANS

THE AMERICAN POWS AT CAMP K-55, TAY NINH PROVINCE, VIETNAM

THE AMERICAN PRISONERS AT GNOMMORATH, LAOS

FRESH SIGINT TELLING OF AMERICAN POWs ALIVE IN LAOS

PART IV

CHAPTER 20 - 1981 GASOLINE

DELTA FORCE/JOINT SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND • OPERATION POCKET CHANGE

THE CIA GROUND RECONNAISSANCE MISSION TO FORT APACHE

WE DIDN’T WANT TO PUT GASOLINE ON THE ISSUE

MORE PUBLICITY ABOUT THE POWs AND A NEW EFFORT TO FREE THEM

A FINAL INTELLIGENCE UPDATE BEFORE DEPARTURE

IMPLEMENTING THE PLAN

CHAPTER 21 - 1982 THE PRINCIPLE OF RECIPROCITY

GETTING THE WORD TO THE PRESIDENT

BIGGER THAN THE RED SEA

SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THE TIGERS ATE ALL YOUR MEN …

THE ADMINISTRATION CHANGES OFFICIAL POLICY ON LIVING POWs

REHABILITATION OF PEOPLE’S LIVELIHOOD

A PROPOSAL FROM THE LAO

WASHINGTON

CHAPTER 22 - 1983 A DRAMATIC CHANGE OF COURSE

THE WAR HERO, CLINT EASTWOOD, WILLIAM SHATNER, AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

THE END OF THE LAO INITIATIVE

THREE LAST ATTEMPTS TO RESTART THE LAO INITIATIVE

THE ADMINISTRATION’S NEW PLAN FOR DEALING WITH THE POWs

THE SHIFT TO REMAINS

CENTRAL AMERICA

CHAPTER 23 - 1984 TRAGEDY AT ARLINGTON • A MISSED OPPORTUNITY IN THE OVAL OFFICE

THE FRAUDLENT SELECTION OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

THE SELECTION OF LT. MICHAEL BLASSIE

THE CEREMONIES

MOVING ON

THE REEMERGENCE OF ROBERT GARWOOD

I WANT TO CLEAR MY CONSCIENCE AND HELP THESE MEN

A CALIFORNIA CONGRESSMAN CONFRONTS HIS PRESIDENT

THE POW SPECIAL OFFICE

ONE LAST TRY

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

CHAPTER 24 - 1985 PROGRESS IN THE SEARCH FOR REMAINS • FRESHMEN, STONEWALLED ON POWs, TURN TO PEROT • McFARLANE DROPS HIS GUARD

SHOWING PROGRESS ON REMAINS

EXCAVATION OF THE CRASH SITE BEGINS

PURCHASING BONES FOR CASH FROM THE NORTH VIETNAMESE

THE DIA INTERNAL REVIEW

STONEWALLING THE CONGRESSMEN

SPECTRE 17, THE VERDICT

A RENEWED EFFORT TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE DIA FILES

McFARLANE DROPS HIS GUARD

A BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH MAJ. GEN. POWELL

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SPECTRE 17 IDS

THE PUBLIC DEBATE OVER LIVE POWs CONTINUES

CHAPTER 25 - 1986 TRENCH WARFARE

RESPECTFULLY, MR. PRESIDENT, IS IT TRUE?

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

THE DIRECTOR’S PW/MIA TASK FORCE REVIEW OF THE PW/MIA DIVISION

THE TIGHE VERDICT

THE WHITE HOUSE MOVES TO CHANGE THE TIGHE REPORT

PERROOTS AND HIS MEN HEAD SOUTH, NEVER TO RETURN

DAMAGE CONTROL

THE DCI’S CANDID ASSESSMENT

ROSS PEROT, LONGTIME FRIEND OF THE INDOCHINA POWs

THE VOTE ON THE PEROT BILL

ANOTHER HOSTAGE RELEASED IN LEBANON • A CLOSE ELECTION • IRAN-CONTRA EXPLODES IN THE PRESS

IN THE MIDST OF THE MAELSTROM, THE INDOCHINA POWs ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

PEROT CONCLUDES HIS STUDY AND PREPARES HIS RECOMMENDATIONS

CHAPTER 26 - 1987 PEROT TO HANOI • A BOMBSHELL FROM GENERAL VESSEY • NO EVIDENCE?

THACH AND PEROT

DALLAS

MEANWHILE, THREE NEW INITIATIVES AIMED AT GETTING THE POWs HOME

WASHINGTON • AMBUSH IN THE OVAL OFFICE

THE ADMINISTRATION REACTS TO THE NEW INITIATIVES

SHULTZ REJECTS A TWO WAY STREET • VESSEY DEPARTS FOR HANOI

HANOI

VESSEY DROPS LIVE MIA BOMBSHELL

A BIG DOSE OF COLD WATER FROM LANGLEY: • NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE OF LIVE POWs, CIA RESPONDS, NO PLAUSIBLE MOTIVE FOR HANOI TO KEEP THEM

THE NGOs TAKE CENTER STAGE

CHAPTER 27 - 1988 JUST TWO BAR OF SILVERS FOR EACH MAN

HEARINGS HELD ON SMITH’S BILL TO DECLASSIFY THE POW INTELLIGENCE

REAGAN TO FAMILIES: WE WILL NOT PAY FOR LIVE PRISONERS, BUT WE WILL ACCELERATE THE SEARCH FOR BONES

NORTHEAST THAILAND

WASHINGTON

THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION’S FINAL REPORT ON THE POW/MIA ISSUE

CHAPTER 28 - 1989 … THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS HAS BEEN REACHED

RATCHETING UP THE REWARD

MORE CONSTERNATION

THE MT. BIA OUTRAGE IS ECLIPSED

WHAT TO DO?

A PERSONAL PLEA TO THE PRESIDENT

THE WHITE HOUSE RESPONDS

CHAPTER 29 - 1990 SABOTAGING THE HELMS/GRASSLEY INVESTIGATIONS • THE BUSH FINAL REPORT ON POWs • THACH’S HISTORIC VISIT TO WASHINGTON

CLEARING THE DECKS

DIA SOURCE 0995

A QUICK TRIP TO THE HILL TO BUY TIME

GARWOOD’S FIVE SIGHTINGS SIGHTINGS #4979, 4980, 4981, 4982, AND 4983

THE REMAINING EYEWITNESS SIGHTINGS FROM HA NAM NINH BA SAO/ROCKPILE • DIA SOURCES #8666 AND #10721

MEANWHILE, STUNNING NEW INTELLIGENCE ON AN UNDERGROUND PRISON NORTHWEST OF HANOI

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION FINAL REPORT

SHOVING, SHOUTING MATCH BREAKS OUT AT LEAGUE CONVENTION • COURTS-MARTIAL EFFORT BEGINS

NGUYEN CO THACH MAKES UNPRECEDENTED VISIT TO WASHINGTON, DECLARES AGAIN THAT AMERICANS MAY BE ALIVE IN WILD AREAS OF HIS COUNTRY • HELMS ISSUES EXPLOSIVE INTERIM REPORT

CIRCLING THE WAGONS

PART V

CHAPTER 30 - 1991 ONE LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POWS

A NEW INITIATIVE IN THE U.S. SENATE

A MESSAGE ON THE OFFICE DOOR

THE HELMS FINAL REPORT

A DOD INFORMANT’S DUBIOUS PHOTOGRAPH TURNS THE TIDE

ONE LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POWs

CHAPTER 31 - 1992 THE FRAGGING

THE JANUARY PERSONNEL CHANGES

THE TOURISON REVELATIONS AND THE CHAIRMAN’S ROAD MAP

THE INVESTIGATION OF THE INTELLIGENCE BEGINS AT LAST • THE HOWS, WHYS, AND WHEREFORES

THE APRIL 9, 1992, INTELLIGENCE FINDING

U.S. CAPITOL

WHO’S GOING TO KNOW? IS SOMEBODY GOING TO LEAK IT?

THE CHAIRMAN’S STRANGE, NEWFOUND INTEREST IN THE CLUSTER BRIEFING

SENATOR KERRY DRIVING THE PROCESS

HANOI

HANOI

WASHINGTON

MEMORIAL DAY

THE INVESTIGATORS RESPOND WITH THREE NEW INITIATIVES: CONDUCTING ON-SITE PRISON INVESTIGATIONS THEMSELVES, BRIEFING THE McCAIN CLUSTER, AND OFFICIALLY ESTIMATING THE NUMBER OF POWs STILL ALIVE IN VIETNAM AND LAOS

CHAOS

JOHN KERRY, DRIVING DOWN THE NUMBERS

THE INTELLIGENCE HEARINGS BEGIN

THE HO CHI MINH MAUSOLEUM, THE UNDERGROUND PRISON, AND THE MND CITADEL

ONE HELL OF A CLUSTER

THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR

THE DEFENSE NUCLEAR AGENCY

EXPLOSIVE NEW HUMINT ON THE UNDERGROUND PRISON AND THE MAN WHO REPORTEDLY SUPERVISED ITS CONSTRUCTION

THE CODED MESSAGE FROM LIEUTENANT COLONEL SEREX

THE JOINT BUSH ADMINISTRATION/SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ASSAULT ON THE POSTWAR IMAGERY

A DISCUSSION OF THE SAM NEUA USA/WALKING K E&E CODE ON DATELINE NBC

THE OCTOBER 15 IMAGERY HEARINGS

ELECTION DAY

THE ENDGAME

THE LINGERING MATTER OF THE SECRET SERVICE AGENT

THE FINAL HEARINGS

A TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO HANOI

WASHINGTON

CHAPTER 32 - 1993–1995 THE VIETNAMESE KNOW HOW TO COUNT

JANUARY 25, UNITED STATES SENATE

THE UNLISTED, UNRETURNED POWs DO NOT GO QUIETLY

THE FURIOUS THREE-DAY DEBATE OVER THE RUSSIAN DOCUMENT

CLINTON’S HISTORIC DIRECTIVE TO VESSEY

VESSEY CARRIES OUT HIS ORDERS

THE ROAD TO NORMALIZATION

CHAPTER 33 - 1995–2005 WAR LEGACIES

EPILOGUE - A PROPOSAL FOR PRESIDENT BUSH

• A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHORS

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

Copyright Page

PREFACE

On Monday, December 8, 1941, the day after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. Navy rescue parties combing the harbor for survivors began hearing tapping coming from deep within the hull of the shattered battleship USS West Virginia, which lay smoldering on the bottom near the center of battleship row. According to eyewitnesses, the tapping continued throughout the day and into the night. I was on guard duty that Monday night, Richard Dick Fiske, a Marine Corps bugler on West Virginia recalled in 1995. I could clearly hear tapping coming from inside our ship. It was devastating. We knew they were in there but we couldn’t do anything because we were under total blackout in anticipation of another Japanese attack.

Fiske remembered how spirits soared on Tuesday morning when divers with hard hats and air lines arrived to attempt a rescue of the sailors trapped inside his boat and their counterparts who were heard tapping from inside USS Oklahoma, which lay nearby. After the divers and a team of welders with cutting torches rescued thirty-two sailors from within Oklahoma, operations were begun on board West Virginia. "They made five dives on West Virginia that afternoon, Fiske recalled, but they couldn’t get to the trapped men because of the extensive damage in the forward part of the ship. Fiske said the divers came back Wednesday and tried again but still couldn’t get through to the trapped sailors. Finally, after fourteen dives, they had to give up."

The tapping continued from deep within West Virginia for fourteen more days, until Christmas Eve, Fiske said. That was the last day I heard them tapping, Christmas Eve. I still dream about it, the noise, the tap, tap, tap. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

West Virginia lay on the bottom of Pearl for several months before being moved into dry dock for repairs. It wasn’t until June 1942, Fiske said, when we opened the forward pump room, that we knew for sure who they were. We found them by the forward generator—Olds, Endicott, and Costin—all firemen first class who took care of the boilers. It looked like they had been tapping with a dog wrench, a special wrench used to ensure tight seals around bulkhead doors. We also found a calendar. The last entry was on December twenty-third. I’m sure, though, that they tapped until the twenty-fourth, because I remember very clearly, it was on Christmas Eve when the tapping finally stopped.¹

THE VIETNAM WAR, OR THE AMERICAN WAR, AS THE NORTH VIETNAMESE CALL IT, OFFICIALLY lasted from early August 1964 to late January 1973. More than 58,000 Americans were killed in action or died from wounds or in accidents. More than 315,000 were wounded and survived. Hundreds were captured, imprisoned, and released at war’s end during Operation Homecoming. Hundreds more were similarly captured and imprisoned but were held back by the Communists at Homecoming to ensure payment of billions of dollars in postwar reconstruction aid promised them by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Watergate intervened, the aid was not paid, and these prisoners have never been released.

This is the story of the American prisoners in both groups, those released at Homecoming and those held back. It is told not by the American POWs released at Homecoming, but first by the peoples of Vietnam and Laos who saw or were told about American POWs in captivity and later reported to U.S. officials what they had seen or heard. Scores of these now-declassified reports—each, if you will, a tap on the bulkhead from deep within the wreckage of postwar Indochina—are presented in the chapters ahead. Collectively, they paint a very clear picture of hundreds—hundreds—of American POWs held after the war by the Vietnamese and Lao governments.

And, second, the story is told by some of these still-unreleased POWs themselves, a number of whom, following established U.S. escape and evasion (E & E) practices, laid secret codes and/or messages out on the ground that were later picked up by either unmanned reconnaissance drones or U.S. spy satellites passing overhead. The first of these now-declassified coded messages was imaged by an unmanned reconnaissance drone flying over northern Laos in the spring of 1973, just weeks after America’s combat role ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords; the last was acquired on June 5, 1992, when a U.S. spy satellite passing over a prison in northern Vietnam imaged the name of a still-missing USAF flight officer and his secret escape and evasion code in a field near the prison, and a secret four-digit authenticator matching the identity of another still-missing USAF flight officer along with a valid escape and evasion code in an adjacent portion of the same field. The 1973 message from northern Laos and the 1992 messages from the two missing fliers in northern Vietnam—along with a number of similar, explosive coded messages sent by other captive Americans between the years 1973 and 1992—are also presented in detail in the chapters ahead. Again, each a tap on the bulkhead, each a plea for deliverance, each a clear and unmistakable message from a U.S. serviceman in dire straits saying, I’m still alive. Get me the hell out of here!

But not one of these POWs has ever been released. Why not, you ask? And not one has ever been rescued. Again, why not? And though perhaps a dozen or so are reported to have escaped from various prisons during the postwar years and fled into the countryside, not one has ever made it to freedom. Again, why not? And, hundreds of POWs? Perhaps the Communists kept a few, but hundreds? And even if the Vietnamese and Lao governments did hold back a large number of POWs in 1973, why would they continue to hold them until today? And what of this absurd charge that a thirty-year, bipartisan cover-up spanning seven presidential administrations has kept the truth about these prisoners secret? Does anyone really believe such a cover-up could succeed in Washington, DC, where it is well known that one cannot keep something secret for thirty minutes, much less thirty years?

Read on and you will find the answers to these and many other questions about some very brave—and very abandoned—American servicemen.

Their story begins in earnest in, of all places, Cuba, in the spring of 1961.

PART I

INTRODUCTION

After months of training at secret bases in Guatemala, twelve hundred Cuban freedom fighters departed in ships from Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, in mid-April 1961 bound for the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba. Their primary mission: Land, establish a beachhead, and hold it long enough to allow a provisional government to be put ashore—a government that would then receive recognition and overt aid from the United States and from anticommunist nations throughout Latin America, and whose forces, if all went as planned, would quickly drive Fidel Castro from power. The U.S. government had trained and equipped the brigade, planned, approved, and financed the invasion, and assured the freedom fighters that U.S. air strikes would destroy the handful of planes comprising Castro’s air force on the ground before the invasion was launched. Secure in this assurance that the skies above the beachhead would be theirs, the men of Brigade 2506 went ashore at 2:30 A.M. on Monday, April 17, with high hopes that the overthrow of Fidel Castro was at hand.

These hopes were dashed when the promised preinvasion bombing raids were first cut back and then canceled altogether on orders from Washington. With Castro’s air force still intact, the invaders were doomed. By Tuesday, the trapped rebels were pleading by radio for U.S. air cover, telling of government tanks sending merciless crossfire into their ranks and of MiGs diving again and again to strafe men armed only with rifles, machine guns, and bazookas. No assistance was dispatched, however, and the rebels were overwhelmed.

At 5:30 Wednesday afternoon, all organized resistance ceased when the final rebel position at Playa Girón fell. Within hours, the Cuban government announced that its troops had destroyed in less than seventy-two hours the Army which was organized during many months by the imperialist government of the United States. All the mercenaries, Havana radio declared, … are either dead or prisoners awaiting action by revolutionary tribunals.

The surviving prisoners were taken to Havana that Friday and paraded before the nation’s television cameras. Premier Castro then took to the airwaves and delivered a four-and-a-half-hour report to the nation on the invasion. Clearly elated by the rout at Bahía de Cochinos, the victorious Castro charged that President Kennedy was personally to blame for the invasion and ridiculed the American president as an international bully who should be likened to Adolf Hitler. Noting that the American government was already calling for clemency for the prisoners, Castro mocked the U.S. gesture, declaring, They should have asked clemency for the children who were killed by their bombs. All prisoners captured during the invasion, the Cuban leader declared, were considered counterrevolutionaries who must be shot.

Operation Pluto, the U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba, had ended in total disaster.

Mid-May 1961

WASHINGTON, DC

John Kennedy knew that Brigade 2506 was no band of cutthroats. Many of the freedom fighters, in fact, were not unlike the president himself—charismatic, brave, patriotic, from wealthy Catholic families. Among them were Cuba’s finest, grandsons of the old Spanish aristocracy and scions of assorted fortunes. As one observer noted, in capturing them it was as if Castro had captured the entire Havana Yacht Club. But now here they were—herded around on television like cattle, charged with treason and facing possible execution—and, in the minds of many, all because the American president, acting as mediator between quarreling advisors rather than as a forceful commander in chief, had personally ordered the rebels’ air cover withdrawn in the critical early hours of the invasion. The fact that all this weighed heavily on the young president may explain why he moved so quickly when he heard of Castro’s offer.

The Cuban premier had been addressing a farmers’ rally in Havana on May 17 when he told his audience that a good way to increase agricultural output might be for Cuba to trade the approximately twelve hundred prisoners captured during the invasion to the United States in return for five hundred bulldozers or farm tractors. Within hours of being advised of Castro’s remarks, Kennedy was on the phone to Eleanor Roosevelt, asking the former first lady to chair a committee to raise funds to purchase five hundred tractors for Cuba if Castro would free the twelve hundred imprisoned rebels. Mrs. Roosevelt agreed to serve, as did Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers Union, and Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, president of Johns Hopkins University and brother of the former president. On May 19, only two days after Castro made his offer, committee members wired the Cuban leader to advise him of the formation of the Tractors for Freedom Committee and of their intention to undertake a nationwide drive in the United States to raise the funds necessary to purchase the tractors. We do this, they told Castro, as proof that free men will not desert those who risked all for what they thought was right. The three signers concluded by inviting the Cuban leader to immediately send representatives to the United States to work out details for the proposed swap.

Within hours of receiving the committee’s offer, Castro paroled ten of the Bay of Pigs prisoners and dispatched them to Washington with his demand: five hundred Caterpillar Tractor Company Super D-8 bulldozers, two hundred equipped with disks for plowing and three hundred with bulldozer blades. Castro estimated that the five hundred bulldozers would cost approximately $28 million. He further informed the committee that the swap was neither an exchange nor a ransom; rather, he said, the bulldozers were to be considered as indemnification for war damage caused during the invasion.

Although the committee would have preferred giving Castro only light farm tractors, and found the matter of indemnity to be a flagrant effort to direct world attention to America’s losing role in the invasion, members chose not to quibble over specifications or semantics. Instead, following their session with the paroled prisoner-representatives, the committee announced it was prepared to meet Castro’s demands. Walter Reuther, committee cochair, told a news conference that the committee had given a firm commitment to the prisoner delegation that the specified equipment would be sent to Cuba. He also said a similar pledge had been sent to Castro. The committee estimated the cost to be as high as $20 million depending on whether or not the Cuban president continued to insist on the top-of-the-line Super D-8 Caterpillars.

As the Cuban prisoner-negotiators departed for Cuba with the deal, President Kennedy issued a direct personal appeal to all Americans to contribute toward the purchase of the tractors. Calling the prisoners our brothers, the president expressed confidence that every American would want to help. He stated that all contributions to the Tractors for Freedom Committee would be tax deductible, and he let it be known that he, as a private citizen, would likely make a contribution to the tractor fund himself. He further declared that the State Department would move quickly to issue previously outlawed export licenses for the tractor shipments and stated emphatically that the Logan Act, a law prohibiting private individuals from negotiating with foreign governments, would not be invoked against the Tractors for Freedom Committee.

The American people responded to the president’s appeal by sending thousands upon thousands of contributions to the Tractor Committee’s Post Office Box Freedom near UAW headquarters in Detroit. Volunteers in cities all across the country moved quickly to form local subsidiary committees to raise funds for the effort. Similar committees also sprang up in a dozen countries throughout Central and South America. In Rio de Janeiro, the president of the Roman Catholic Youth Association opened a drive to buy five tractors to be sent to Cuba in exchange for the prisoners, while in nearby São Paulo, students dressed in prison garb paraded through the streets collecting funds.

The reaction was markedly different, however, on Capitol Hill, where, according to Time magazine, a large part of hell broke loose over the president’s remarks on the tractor swap. Members of both houses of Congress, already angry over Castro’s repeated insistence that the tractors be considered reparations for damages caused during the invasion, took to the floor threatening to strip the Tractor Committee of its tax-exempt status and make committee members subject to all provisions of the Logan Act. Still others demanded the State Department halt its issuance of export licenses for the tractors. The attacks were broad-based and bipartisan, with the most serious concern being voiced over the precedent the payments would set. Eloquently addressing the matter of precedent, Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut warned, Our national concern for the plight of the Cubans … should have been evidenced by effective help on the beachhead to enable their just revolution to succeed. By paying Castro’s price for a thousand good men, we give him the means to strengthen his enslavement of 6,000,000 others. The American people will, for the first time to my knowledge, be making use of ransom and tribute as an instrument of policy. If we start to pay tribute now for 1,000 of the one billion communist hostages, where will it stop?

Former Vice President Richard Nixon, speaking at the Oklahoma State Republican Convention in Oklahoma City, declared the Kennedy plan morally wrong and urged his former rival to withdraw his support of the transaction. Nixon declared that America had decided 100 years ago that human lives are not something to be considered as material or to be bartered on the slave block. To continue with the trade, the former vice president said, would encourage every tinhorn dictator around the world to try to take advantage of America.

As the political controversy mushroomed, opponents of the plan seized upon the possibility that Castro might use the bulldozers for purposes other than those envisioned by the committee. They began asking, Why such big bulldozers? Did Castro plan to build military installations and missile sites, instead of using them to help his people grow more food? Critics and editorial writers began to liken the proposal to the infamous 1944 offer by Nazi Adolf Eichmann to trade Hungarian Jews for winterized military trucks, one hundred Jews for every truck.

On June 19, unable to defuse the explosive question of possible military use of the bulldozers, the embarrassed committee withdrew its pledge to supply the five hundred Super D-8s. In a telegram to Castro, the members bluntly informed the Cuban premier, We are prepared to ship [five hundred] agricultural tractors and no other type. The committee then gave the Cuban leader seventy-two hours to accept their offer. Castro replied that he would be willing to forgo the bulldozers and accept the smaller tractors, but because his government considered the U.S. contribution to be indemnity for war damages, the total value of the tractors must approximate the value of the bulldozers, i.e., $28 million. Committee members rejected Castro’s proposal out of hand, and when the seventy-two-hour deadline passed at noon on Friday, June 23, announced that the committee was ceasing all operations and returning all contributions received.

For the second time in as many months, John Kennedy had retreated in his high-stakes dealings with Fidel Castro.

Spring 1962

A SECOND CHANCE

Fidel Castro put the Bay of Pigs prisoners on trial for treason in the spring of 1962. The mass trial, held in early May in the courtyard of Havana’s Principe Prison, lasted only four days and resulted in guilty verdicts for all 1,179 defendants. Their punishment: thirty years’ imprisonment or payment of fines ranging from $25,000 to $500,000 each, the higher amount for each of the three invasion leaders. Casting an eye toward Washington, the military tribunal ruled that payment of the fine would release the individual prisoner from having to serve his thirty-year sentence. Total fines levied: $62 million.

Within hours of the reading of the verdicts in Havana, John Kennedy jumped at this unexpected second chance to free the Bay of Pigs captives. This time he turned to his brother Robert, the attorney general, to raise the money and get the prisoners home.

Using a Cuban refugee organization as a front, Robert Kennedy immediately dispatched the organization’s counsel, famed New York attorney James Donovan, to Havana to negotiate a deal with Castro. Following several months of talks, Donovan, who had negotiated the release of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers from the Soviets, struck a deal with the Cuban leader: $53 million payable in medicines, powdered milk, and baby food in return for all the prisoners.

Before the deal could be consummated, the Cuban missile crisis intervened and contact between the two sides was suspended. But when the missile crisis subsided in November, Castro sent word that he was still interested and contact was reestablished. With that, Robert Kennedy and a group of trusted advisors went to work raising the money, with the goal of getting the prisoners home by Christmas. Operating out of offices in the Justice Department, the group made hundreds of calls to executives of pharmaceutical, medical, surgical supply, and food products companies seeking donations for the prisoner deal. On dozens of occasions, Robert Kennedy met personally at the Justice Department with company executives to seek their assistance. At one such meeting, the attorney general reportedly told pharmaceutical executives my brother made a mistake at the Bay of Pigs and implied that the prisoner exchange would help rectify that. He followed his remarks with a strong appeal for donations of medicines. Similar appeals for assistance were made to executives of the nation’s airline, railroad, and steamship companies. Sometimes the persuasion was less than gentle. The Minneapolis Tribune reported that a spokesman for one large corporation facing a government lawsuit said his company received a call from the Department of Justice directing it to supply specific items, plus a specific amount of cash. We knew we were being blackjacked, the spokesman said, but there was nothing we could do about it.

Though some of his tactics may have been open to question, the results of Robert Kennedy’s efforts were nothing short of astounding. As described in U.S. News & World Report at the time:

The first shipment of the Castro ransom, 32,000 pounds of medicines, was flown from New York to Miami during the night of December 17 … . After that first shipment, the floodgates were down. By air, truck, and railroad, hundreds of thousands of pounds of baby food, canned goods, medicine [and] medical supplies poured into Florida from every corner of the U.S … . Eight domestic airlines began flying 600,000 pounds of supplies to Florida; 19 railroads soon had 80 boxcars on this special run; eight trucking firms were moving 420,000 pounds of supplies from distant points, and 15 shipping companies had put up a ship and the money to move its cargo to Havana … . It was a logistical operation almost without parallel except in wartime.

Castro released the prisoners just in time for Christmas. The first four planeloads of freedom fighters arrived to a tumultuous welcome at Homestead Air Force Base outside Miami on the evening of December 23, and by late Christmas Eve all surviving prisoners from Brigade 2506 were back in America. Two days after Christmas, the president and Jacqueline Kennedy met privately with the leadership of the brigade at the winter White House in Palm Beach. Then, on December 28, the Kennedys joined the entire brigade and forty thousand wildly cheering Cuban exiles at a welcome home rally at Miami’s Orange Bowl. Thunderous cheers rocked the stadium as first the president and then his wife praised the men for their bravery and commitment to freedom. The crowd repeatedly interrupted the president with shouts of Viva Kennedy and "Libertad por Cuba, especially when he pledged to see the rebels return to liberate their homeland. Mrs. Kennedy’s remarks, delivered in Spanish, evoked equal enthusiasm, with the crowd shouting Viva Jackie, viva Jackie and Jack-k-leen, Jack-k-leen, Jack-k-leen."

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Fort Lauderdale, Florida, December 20, 1962. Longshoremen unload food and medicines bound for Cuba in the Bay of Pigs prisoner exchange. The freighter African Pilot will take the cargo to Cuba. (AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS)

After personally greeting many of the freed prisoners who were in formation near the podium, the president and first lady got into their open-topped limousine to depart. As they rode slowly along the sidelines, standing in the back of the open car and shaking the outstretched hands of the exiles, few doubted that John Kennedy had fulfilled his responsibility to those he sent to the Bay of Pigs. The ransomed men of Brigade 2506 were finally home.

Within a week of the Orange Bowl rally, Communist leaders from throughout the world gathered in Havana for ceremonies marking the fourth anniversary of Fidel Castro’s rise to power. Following a two-hour parade of military might before a reviewing stand containing some four hundred notables in the Communist world, Castro delivered the keynote address. The Cuban premier, clearly angered by Kennedy’s remarks at the Orange Bowl the previous week, derided Kennedy as a vulgar pirate chief and openly mocked his decision to pay what Castro insisted was indemnification to Cuba for damages the United States caused during the Bay of Pigs invasion. For the first time in history, Castro boasted, imperialism has paid war indemnification. They call it ransom. We don’t care what they call it. They had to agree to pay indemnification. ¹

e9781429922906_i0003.jpg

Miami, Florida, December 29, 1962. Jacqueline Kennedy speaks in Spanish at a ceremony honoring former Cuban invasion prisoners released a week ago. She tells the Cubans assembled in the Orange Bowl stadium that she hopes her son, John Jr., will be half as brave as the men of Brigade 2506. President Kennedy stands by her.

(AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS)

The delegation from North Vietnam listened attentively.

CHAPTER 1

THE POW HOSTAGE PLAN AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

The war may last five, ten, twenty or more years. Hanoi, Haiphong and other cities and enterprises may be destroyed … [but] once victory is won, our people will rebuild their country and make it even more prosperous and beautiful.

—HO CHI MINH

John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, some eleven months after the Bay of Pigs prisoners were released. He was succeeded in office by his vice president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the former U.S. Senator from Texas.

In early 1964, Johnson, while continuing the gradual buildup of U.S. forces in South Vietnam that Kennedy and he had begun soon after taking office in 1961, approved a covert plan to conduct hit-and-run attacks against coastal targets in North Vietnam. The plan, known as Op Plan 34-A, was a joint South Vietnamese/U.S. effort designed to interdict supplies, munitions, and Communist troops before they could reach South Vietnam. It called for South Vietnamese PT boats to put South Vietnamese commandos ashore at night to blow bridges and attack other transportation-related targets; attack North Vietnamese bases suspected of housing personnel and/or equipment bound for the southern battlefields and other targets of opportunity—all under the watchful eye of U.S. destroyers conducting nighttime intelligence-gathering operations just outside North Vietnamese territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin.¹

The North Vietnamese were hit and hit and hit again throughout the spring and summer of 1964, but did not launch any major military response. Then, after South Vietnamese PT boats shelled two North Vietnamese islands in the Gulf in late July, the North Vietnamese struck back. In the early morning hours of August 2, three of their torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox, one of the U.S. destroyers that had been shadowing the South Vietnamese commando raids. At the time of the attack, the Maddox was conducting its nighttime intelligence-gathering operations just off the North Vietnamese coast in international waters.

The Maddox and U.S. Navy aircraft quickly repelled the North Vietnamese attack, setting fire to one of the boats and sending the others fleeing, but did not carry the fight to the nearby port where the boats were believed based.² When news of the attack on the Maddox—and the Johnson administration’s less-than-overwhelming response—reached America, a war fever erupted. Johnson responded by declaring that any further attacks would be met with overwhelming force and by ordering all U.S. forces operating in the Tonkin Gulf to full battle stations. It was in this charged atmosphere that on August 4, crewmen aboard the Maddox and its sister ship the USS Turner Joy reported possible but unconfirmed attacks against their vessels during storm-tossed nighttime operations in the Gulf.

Without waiting for confirmation that this second round of attacks had, in fact, occurred, Johnson ordered immediate retaliatory strikes against North Vietnamese coastal targets and ports and submitted what amounted to a declaration of war to Congress. The resolution Johnson submitted, which became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorized him, as president, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression and to provide all needed military assistance requested by America’s allies in the region. Though some suspected at the time that the reported attacks on August 4 had not actually occurred and were simply being used by the president and his advisors as a pretext for widening the war, the Senate approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964, by a vote of 88 to 2.³

Knowing what it all meant—a massive buildup of American troop strength and all-out warfare in the South and perhaps years of ruinous U.S. air attacks against the North—the North Vietnamese began planning for a long and potentially very destructive war and, at war’s end, a long and difficult period of reconstruction. U.S. intelligence officials would soon learn that part of the North Vietnamese plan for the war and its aftermath—a key part, in fact—was based on an important lesson they had learned some eighteen months before from Fidel Castro.

THE HOSTAGE PLAN

Intelligence collected by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War indicates that in 1964, the year the United States first bombed North Vietnam, the North Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee ordered that all North Vietnamese military personnel and civilians be trained to capture American military personnel alive so that they could be used as hostages to compel the U.S., in the event of a cease-fire, to pay war reparations for the destruction inflicted upon NVN by the United States.⁴

The CIA reported that North Vietnamese authorities began holding training sessions throughout the country to teach the civilian population the procedures they were to follow in capturing and handling downed fliers.⁵ CIA sources further reported that the main teaching document used in these sessions was a pamphlet titled Policy on Treatment of American Prisoners, which the North Vietnamese government made available to all civilians. Most of the instructional period at the training sessions, these sources reported, was devoted to the section of the pamphlet that dealt with how Americans were to be captured and searched, how their wounds were to be treated, how they were to be protected from harm and then delivered as quickly as possible to the authorities, etc.⁶

Soldiers of the North Vietnamese army—the Peoples Army of Vietnam (the PAVN) reportedly received similar instruction during basic training or in officer candidate school. The CIA reported that during one session at the Son Tay Officers School west of Hanoi in 1966, the instructor stated that the North Vietnamese government considered U.S. POWs to be of first-level importance because they will be used as a means of obtaining payment for bomb damages from the U.S. when the war ends. For that reason, the instructor said, Americans must be captured alive whenever possible, protected, and given good treatment.

The instructor went on to explain that downed American airmen were to be captured by

surrounding them and closing in. To shoot to kill was strictly forbidden under any circumstance. If a crew member was armed and resisted capture, he was to be surrounded and volunteers to rush him were to be requested. The volunteers were to charge the man and overpower him. He was not to be killed even if he killed North Vietnamese personnel while resisting capture … .

… Once capture had been made, the very first act was to search the prisoner for weapons or drugs with which he might kill himself. The prisoner must not be allowed to commit suicide. The second step in the capture was to treat any wounds. Next, the prisoner was to be quickly moved to higher echelons … . No one was to be permitted to beat or otherwise mistreat the prisoner. If someone did, he was [to be] criticized. Prisoners were to be given as much food and water as they wanted … . All of the prisoner’s belongings and equipment were to be confiscated and sent to higher echelons with him. Nothing was to be taken for personal use. If someone did so, he was to be criticized.⁷

To get the POWs back at the end of the war, the instructor told the officer candidates, the United States would have to exchange equipment for them and build up the country.⁸

In a move that underscored the importance the North Vietnamese placed on the matter of postwar reconstruction, the government in Hanoi created in 1966 the Committee of Inquiry and charged it with keeping a day-to-day tally of the damage caused by American bombs. Those appointed to the committee included top officials from the ministries of Health, Foreign Affairs, and Security, as well as high-ranking PAVN officers, the chief of the PAVN Liaison to the International Control Commission, and the president of the People’s Supreme Court. Beginning in 1966, the committee compiled precise information, day by day, factory by factory, village by village, relating to the material and human damage caused by U.S. bombing.⁹

HANOI’S PLAN TO CAPTURE AMERICANS ALIVE IN THE SOUTH

Given Hanoi’s plan to capture as many Americans alive as possible in the North and use them as hostages to secure postwar reconstruction aid, it came as no surprise to U.S. intelligence officials when they learned of a similar North Vietnamese plan to capture American troops fighting in South Vietnam and use them for the same purpose. The information on the North Vietnamese plan came from PAVN soldiers who had infiltrated down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and had been captured in battle or had turned themselves in to the allies and were later interviewed by U.S. interrogators.

The PAVN told U.S. interrogators that they had been trained in both basic training and officer candidate school to capture surrendering Americans alive during combat in the South rather than kill them. The PAVN told of similar training sessions being conducted along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the long trek to the southern battlefields and of reminders being issued to the troops just before battle.¹⁰

Wherever the sessions were held, the intelligence indicates the message was the same: Kill as many Americans as possible during battle, but under no circumstances should surrendering Americans be killed; rather, they should be taken alive and quickly removed from the battlefield. PAVN soldiers who violated this policy and executed those Americans who were attempting to surrender or who had already been captured were disciplined.¹¹

To assist in capturing Americans during ground combat operations, PAVN soldiers were taught to memorize English-language phrases such as hands up, hands down, surrender, not die, after me, go to hospital, go to safe area, etc.¹² In almost every case, these were the only English words in a PAVN soldier’s vocabulary.

The PAVN were also issued 2½ × 3½ capture cards prior to battle, which were to be used when direct contact with the prospective American prisoner occurred. Printed on one side were the following English phrases in phonetic Vietnamese and their meanings in English:

Key words to be used while capturing and dealing with American POWs

The reverse side contained a printed message the PAVN were to show the American soldier who was being captured. The message, deliberately misstating the military affiliation of the bearer because the North Vietnamese government refused to acknowledge the presence of PAVN troops in South Vietnam, read in English:

The National Front for Liberation and the Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam humanely treat their enemy soldiers who have surrendered [to] them. You are now captured, we do not kill you. Just follow our command!

We will have your arms tied up and take you to a safe place. Stand up and follow us right now! Only then can your life be assured and you be soon untied. Should you hesitate or refuse to go, you would probably get killed as a result of the air raids and artillery from the American side. We should fight as the U.S. troops come; then your life is hardly safe.

Printed at the bottom of the card in Vietnamese was: Show this to American soldiers when you capture them.¹³

PAVN policy dictated that American prisoners who had not suffered wounds were to be taken directly to the capturing unit’s headquarters for interrogation. As stated on the capture card, these prisoners were to be moved away from the battlefield as quickly as possible for fear they and their captors would be caught in the artillery barrages and air strikes the allies routinely rained down on withdrawing Communist forces.

Wartime intelligence collected from PAVN sources shows that this fear was indeed justified. One PAVN told U.S. interrogators that nine American prisoners who were being escorted away from their point of capture in Kontum Province in the Central Highlands had been caught in one such artillery barrage. The source said that five of the Americans and one guard had been killed, and that all had been buried in a mass grave next to the trail.¹⁴

Another PAVN told of seeing two badly injured American servicemen being carried on stretchers by PAVN soldiers in Quang Tin Province on South Vietnam’s northern coast. He said the litter bearers told him the Americans had been captured uninjured in fighting the previous day but had been wounded when a U.S. armed reconnaissance plane attacked the group as they were moving away toward a liberated area.¹⁵

Yet another PAVN told how fellow troops had captured twenty-six U.S. soldiers during a battle in Quang Tri Province, the northernmost province in South Vietnam. He reported that the prisoners were being moved from the battlefield under guard when they and their guards were attacked by allied aircraft. He reported that ten American prisoners were killed in the attack and four others wounded, one seriously. He also said that three of the PAVN guards were killed and two others wounded. The source added that a PAVN doctor came to the site of the attack and treated the wounded prisoners and that the Americans and their guards then resumed their journey to a base camp in a secure area.¹⁶

According to a number of the PAVN sources, official policy dictated that all wounded Americans be taken to the nearest field hospital for treatment. Those who were wounded so severely that they could not walk were to be carried.¹⁷

Though the intelligence indicates general PAVN compliance with the stated PAVN policy of capturing rather than killing Americans who were attempting to surrender and caring for rather than killing those who had been wounded, revenge killings did occur on a number of occasions. Among these were the killings that occurred during the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in 1965 when PAVN troops sought out the American wounded and executed as many of them as possible, and the killings of American pilots and aircrewmen that reportedly occurred along remote sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.¹⁸

THE QUALITY OF THE INTELLIGENCE • THE QUALITY OF THE PAVN AS INTELLIGENCE SOURCES

U.S. interrogators found early on that the information provided by the PAVN concerning the American prisoners they had reportedly seen was often highly specific as to date and circumstance. The interrogators concluded that the PAVN were aided in their recall by two factors. First, the soldiers relied on recent specific frames of reference in their highly regimented lives to help them remember the exact date of their sighting—the date they completed basic training, the date they started marching south, the date they crossed the border into Laos, the date they crossed a certain river during infiltration, the date they arrived at a certain rest station along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the date they arrived in South Vietnam, etc. Second, U.S. interrogators ascribed their highly specific descriptions of the circumstances surrounding the sighting of the American or Americans and the often detailed descriptions of the prisoners to the fact that most PAVN had never before seen an American and when they did the event created an indelible impression upon them.¹⁹

Given the novelty of seeing an American and the apparent impact that such sighting had on the PAVN, U.S. interrogators were not surprised to find that the education and intelligence level of the individual PAVN sources seemed to have little bearing on the quality of intelligence each provided. Barely literate PAVN were often able to recall the physical characteristics of individual American POWs they had seen in detail sufficient to allow interrogators to combine the descriptions and the reported date of the sighting with known U.S. battle losses and determine the identity of the Americans with reasonable certainty. On the other end of the education spectrum, captured PAVN doctors were, as one might expect, able to recall clearly the specific surgical procedures they performed on wounded American servicemen in the South and in several cases were able to provide interrogators with their former patients’ names. Captured PAVN nurses and medics were likewise able to remember the specific medications and first aid procedures they administered to dozens of wounded Americans on the battlefields and at aid stations and at field hospitals in the South.

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Two PAVN soldiers captured in South Vietnam in 1967.

(U.S. ARMY)

Given where they had come from, what they had seen along the way, and their uncanny ability to recall date and detail, the PAVN were fertile ground indeed for U.S. intelligence officials hungry for information about missing Americans. Their value to the intelligence community was enhanced by the fact that, apparently believing that what they said about American POWs would not adversely affect their country’s war effort, the PAVN were generally willing to share this information openly and without apparent intent to deceive.²⁰

U.S. military interrogators operating at or under the auspices of one of Saigon’s two main interrogation centers, the Combined U.S./South Vietnamese Military Interrogation Center (CMIC) or the National Interrogation Center (NIC), conducted most of the PAVN interrogations. As a matter of routine, at the end of each interview the interrogator assigned each case an evaluation of F-6 on the standard intelligence community evaluation scale. This meant credibility of source unknown/credibility of information cannot be judged.²¹ The F was routinely assigned for the obvious reason that each captured or surrendered PAVN had, by virtue of his past service, never before provided intelligence to the U.S. government and thus had not established himself as a reliable source over time. The 6 was routinely assigned because the information provided by the source had almost always originated behind enemy lines and thus did not lend itself to on-site verification.

In addition to the standard letter/number evaluation, the interrogator would often add comments concerning the demeanor and perceived truthfulness of the source. An example of one interrogator’s comments and the relationship of these comments to the letter/number evaluation assigned to the PAVN source is noted below:

COMMENTS OF THE COLLECTOR

5. (u) Source was cooperative during the interrogation and answered all questions willingly. He appeared to be of average intelligence and correctly responded to control questions with acceptable consistency. The interrogator felt that source was not withholding information and related facts to the best

Reviews for An Enormous Crime

[Richard Daly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An Amazing book, the POW/MIA government establishment has not found even one error in this fact-filled book going over the government intelligence about the American POWs left behind in Southeast Asia. From signals on the ground spelling out names and classified codes of American POWs picked up by U.S. spy satellite long after the war to criminal government analysis of live sighting reports, this book should shock all Americans.