Military intelligence confirms at least 170 POWs still alive

By Harry V. Martin
Eighth in a Series
     LATE NEWS

                                               Tuesday, April 14, 1992

Cable traffic and recent secret government reports from Southeast Asia reveal
some startling details on U.S. POWs in the region. According to top secret
government communications received this week, there are over 170 POWs who have
been sighted.

These sites and the numbers of POWs are as follows: (Editor's Note: the
spelling of some of these locations may not be exactly correct) .

. Ban Halt Ham - 9 Americans.
. Bankha Mphe - 7 to 9 Americans.
. Bait Sarn - 6 Americans, including naval personnel.
. Tcepo Ne- 105 Americans.
. Phu Xun Mountain - several groups of Americans.
. Yen Vai Camp- 7 groups, including black personnel.
. Ban Puoi Crossing - 2 Americans.

The names of four American POWs have been verified. All these POWs are being
moved to central Locations in Laos. Laos is still technically at war with the
United States and has a legal right under the Geneva Convention to hold POWs
until a formal treaty is signed.

In the meantime, President George Bush has sent a special envoy to Hanoi to
intercede with a privately financed team seeking to liberate 10 to 13 POWs.
Cable traffic also verifies the interdiction. The mission has also been
endangered by a former team member, who has provided PBS and ABC with the
names of the team, the maps of the mission locations, names of the POWs they
are seeking to release, and the names of three Cambodia nationals assisting in
the operation. After the release of this information, one of the Cambodian
nationals was arrested on Sunday.

                         THE SERIES CONTINUES
                               1985
'There is a great deal of evidence that live Americans are being held in
Southeast Asia.' - Lieutenant General Eugene F. Tighe, Jr. (USAF. ret).
former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. 1985.

                               JANUARY 6, 1988
'You should be aware that when we came to office in 1981, neither the
President nor I were satisfied with the effort the U.S. Government had made to
that time on behalf of our POWs and MIAs. Fundamental to our approach, and
contained in the mandate the President issued to ]us staff and all agencies,
was and is the assumption that live American prisoners remain in Southeast
Asian - Vice President George Bush. January 6. 1988.

                             FEBRUARY  12,  1991
'That National leaders continue to address the prisoner of war and missing in
action issue as the 'highest national priority' is a travesty. The mindset to
'debunk' is alive and well. I feel strongly that this issue is being
manipulated and controlled at a higher level, not with the goal of resolving
it, but more to obfuscate the question of live prisoners, and give the
illusion of progress through hyperactivity." - Colonel Millard A. Peck. Chief
of the Special Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action. February 12,
1991.

                                MAY  23,  1991  
'After examining hundreds of documents relating to the raw intelligence and
interviewing families and friends of POW/MIAs, the Minority Staff concluded
that, despite public pronouncements to the contrary, the real, internal policy
of the U.S. government war to act upon the presumption that all MIAs were
dead. As a result, the Minority Staff found any evidence that suggested an
MIA might be alive was uniformly and arbitrarily rejected, and all efforts
were directed towards finding and identifying remains of dead personnel, even
though the U.S. government's techniques of identification were inadequate and
deeply flawed. Colonel Peck confirmed that a 'cover-up' has been in progress.'
- U.S. Senate Jesse Helms, member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations, May 23. 1991

The POW/MIA debate continues to plague the United States. The U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations has addressed the issue in 1991. The U.S.
Senate Select on POW/MIAs is presently addressing the issue today. Armed with
the facts of non-returning POW/MIAs from World War One, World War Two, Korea
and the French IndoChina War, it is apparently that negotiations with the
Communists short of all-out victory - which the American nation has never seen
- American POWs and MIAs are not returned.

After nearly two decades, are any POWs from any of the wars -- and especially
Vietnam - still alive? The debate over Vietnam POWs and MIAs is the strongest
in history - perhaps because the war was so distorted, fragmented and
inconclusive. To this day, there are still 2271 American fighting men still
unaccounted for - by official government records of the Reagan Administration.
During the Paris Peace Accords, the Vietnamese wanted war reparations which
included 700,000 square meters of prefabricated housing and warehouses;
200,000 metric tons of steel building supplies; 50.000 cubic meters of timber,
40 million meters of cloth; 2000 metric tons of Rayon fibers; between 2650 and
2900 tractors, bulldozers and excavators; three repair plants for the
equipment; 20,000 metric tons of steel tubes; 25-50 tug boats, 3 floating
ports and 3 cranes, one floating; 600 metric tons of barges; 570 trucks; 10
diesel locomotives,  between 250-500 freight cars; 10 000 metric tons of rail
10 6-25 ton pile hammer's: 15,000 metric tons of synthetic rubber; 10,000 metric tons of caustic
soda; 10,000 metric tons of steel; 5000 metric tons of coal: 1 million meters
of tire cord; and other items.

The deal was agreed upon, the POWs were to be released. But political problems
arose, however, and endangered the Administration plans to aid North Vietnam.
The American nation had helped all its enemies in the 20th century and Vietnam
was not going to be an exception, the Nixon Administration decided.  Congress
balked. Then Secretary of State William P. Rogers warned the Congress three
times to restrain their adverse comments on the aid issue at least until
American troops were out of Vietnam and all American prisoners were released.
Rogers asked that the controversy over aid be kept to a minimum for the next
month or so. Such a recess in debate would allow the release of American
prisoners to  be completed and would also provide time for the
administration to formulate its proposals.

The American government listed 5000 American soldiers were held prisoner by
the Vietnamese, but only 591 were repatriated. According to the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, many U.S. POWs were transported to the Soviet Union.
According to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "United States
government officials have been told by North Vietnamese officials that the
North Vietnamese government was still holding U.S. POWs well after the
conclusion of Operation Homecoming. Lt. Co1. Stuart A. Harrington, who worked
on the POW/MIA issue as a military intelligence and liaison officer with the
North Vietnamese and the People's Republic of China from 1973 to 1975, stated
that North Vietnamese officials told him U.S. POWs would be  returned when the
reparations that Kissinger promised to the North Vietnamese were paid."
Harrington stated, "U.S. casualties under North Vietnamese control would be
accounted for and prisoners returned after fulfillment of the promise.""

The promise was never fulfilled. The U.S. Senate report states. "The North
Vietnamese, apparently - were waiting for the reparations that Kissinger
had promised them, before the vast majority of American POWs were repatriated.
Doubtless the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao held the prisoners back as human
collateral. The North Vietnamese knew well enough that the internal political
dynamics of the peace movement in the United States had forced the United
States to the bargaining table in a weakened condition. Through this same
political network, they clearly saw that it was unlikely the U.S. Congress
would vote for billions in reparations."

The Senate voted 88-3 roll call vote to indicate aid to North Vietnam would be
impossible. The final death knell of aid came when Armed Services Chairman F.
Edward Herbert served notice he was going to introduce a proposal to prohibit
any U.S. aid for Hanoi. The Louisiana Democrat also said justification for
President Nixon's request for $1.3 billion aid to Southeast Asia so far is
either nebulous or nonexistent." The very next day, after Herbert announced
his proposal, the United States government made a definitive statement that
there were no more Americans alive in Southeast Asia and that 'rumors' did the
families a disservice.

The Administration hid from Congress a secret agreement between Kissinger and
Hanoi - the United States had promised $3.25 billion.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report stated. "Perhaps if
Congress and the American public had known of the existence of the secret
(Kissinger) letter, perhaps if Congress had been given a full accounting of
the information on MIAs possessed by the U.S. government, instead of a
cover-up, then a concrete plan for implementing the provisions for gaining
accounting of captives as described in the Paris Peace Accords, might have
been implemented. But there was no way that Congress, with honor, could be
blackmailed into accepting the payment of reparations with its tacit
implication of surrender to a ruthless Communist regime."

There have been 1519 first-hand sighting reports of U.S. POWs in Southeast
Asia. The Defense Intelligence Agency has stated that 373 were fabrications.
At least 109 first-hand sightings are currently under investigation.

There is a tremendous amount of activity currently in Southeast Asia. The
Vietnamese arc seeking normalization with the United States - but
normalization doesn't mean repatriation. The United States government is torn
from within. The Military Intelligence Community wants to continue to locate
POWs - and they believe there arc hundreds there - but the Defense
Intelligence Agency does not make policy, they carry it out. The Bush
Administration and the CIA do not want the POWs out, according to the various
reports that have surfaced - even to this day. The main reason they don't want
release of POWs is because of the massive heroin trade - and the CIA's use of
heroin to gain ready cash for covert operations - operations that are banned
by Congress.[to be continued.)
