THE NAPA SENTINEL
FRIDAY APRIL 17, 1992

By Harry Martin
Ninth in a Series

If the United States government declares that all POWs and MIAs
are dead--dead from World War One, dead from World War Two, dead
from Korea, and dead from Vietnam - what proof have they offered
to the American public?  Can they name when, where and how each
one died?  No, they cannot.  The United States has made a
bookkeeping entry - crossing off names.

The government has ignored tons of evidence - reports from its
own intelligence organizations, internal documents from their own
officials, thousands of first and second hand sightings.

On March 9, 1988 Central Intelligence Agency memorandum was
issued from Col. Joseph A. Schlatter, U. S. Army Chief, Special
Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action.  The subject
of his memo was Alleged Sightings of American POWs in North Korea
from 1975 to 1982. The letter, which has many blacked out
portions, states, "In response to your request, (blacked out),
three separate reports of such sightings, which are attached:

    The first report, dated April 1989, indicates that (blacked
out) sighted two Americans in August 1986 (blacked out) on
outskirts of P'youngyang.  (Blacked out) about 10 military pilots
captured in North Vietnam were brought to North Korea.

    The second report, dated April 1980 apparently describes the
same incident (blacked out).

    In the third report, dated March 1988, (blacked out)
indicated sighting as many as 11 Caucasians, possibly American
prisoners from the Korean War, in the fall of 1979 on a
collective farm north of P'youngyang."

These reports are numerous.  Some are old - but let's look at one
secret report that only surfaced on Monday.  It is a military
intelligence report that cites approximately 170 POWs - a few of
them have been actually named: Navy Lieutenant Larry James
Stevens at Bak Sam, Jim Dooley at Yen Vai Camp, Charles Scharf at
Ban Puoi Crossing.  A top secret military communication dated
April 10 also states, "American Embassy received validation of
visual ID USN Lt. Larry James Stevens MIA 02/14/69."  That secret
document also states, "Private Sector Project may have
established direct contact with USAF Lt. Col Charles Stoddard
Rowley."

In the case of Lt. Larry James Stevens - a photograph alleged to
be taken of him was debunked by the U.S. Government as being a
fake.  Yet official U.S. military cables indicate that a U. S.
Embassy has verified his location not once, but twice. The United
States Senate Select team on POW/MIA has already arrived in
Vietnam.  A privately financed force has also arrived in Hanoi -
without their leaders.  The U.S. Government is concerned about
this privately financed force.  Top secret military intelligence
reports state that private sector is obtaining intelligence
directly from Laos and Nakhon Ratachasima.  The government has
sent out a dispatch requesting intervention with the private
sector missions.  In one part of the document it states,
"American Embassy unable to penetrate operational net(work)
suspected to be operational in Northern California.  To
preclude anticipated mission, recommend interdiction."

In a secret memo dated 27, March 1992 from Guatemala, the
statement is made as to the reference of the memo:
"Neutralization of private sector recovery efforts."  The letter
by C.H. Fehlandt to Carl West in Miami - a "Rambo-type", states,
"Please investigate the matter discussed during our meeting, with
particular attention to the anticipated threat of a private
sector domestic recovery program.  As of this date, the
indigenous network being utilized by this private effort has been
impenetrable.  As you may conclude following our meeting with
embassy MILGRP (Military Group - representatives; a serious
dilemma may be inflicting it's unwanted repercussions upon the
party.  Therefore I can only conclude that your services may be
most appropriate for the problem."

The United States Senate Foreign Relations report on POWs and
MIAs states, "For Vietnam, the U. S. Government has at least 1400
such reports, indicating reports that have been received up until
publication of this report in May, 1991.  In addition, the U. S.
government has received thousands and thousands of second-hand
reports - accounts often full of vivid detail, such as "my
brother told me he saw 11 American POWs being transported in a
truck at such and such a place."

"Yet, amazingly, the U. S. Government has not judged a single one
of these thousands of reports to be credible.  Instead, the
policy enunciated by an official statement of the U.S. Government
in 1973 was that "There are no more prisoners in Southeast Asia.
They are all dead."  That policy - in the face of extensive
evidence that all U.S. POWs in Southeast Asia were not dead -
evolved to the U.S. government's present policy that there is no
credible evidence that there are any U.S. POWs still alive in all
of Indochina.  In spite of 1400 unresolved reports of first-hand
live-sightings, the Department of Defense, remarkably, still
believe it has "no credible evidence."  How does it dismiss these
reports?"

The U.S. Senate report states, "In reviewing hundreds of raw
intelligence files on the 1400 reports, investigators found a
predisposition by DOD evaluations to ignore corroborative
evidence, and has little interest to follow-up what normal
searches would consider as good leads.  Many cases, of course,
were quite properly disposed of.  Yet often DOD evaluators seemed
more intent upon upholding the validity of the "no credible
evidence" policy."  The U.S. Senate report states it is contrary
to common sense that all of the reports - all 1400  - are
spurious, especially in the light of such obvious contradictions
as the actual return of the unfortunate Private Robert Garwood in
1979.  Garwood was court martialed on his return - the only POW
known to have returned.  Records of this court martial are sealed
- but records of other court martials are not sealed.

Garwood was a battle casualty taken into custody by the North
Vietnamese under fire.  "However," the Senate report states, "his
court martial as a collaborator and deserter solved two problems
for DOD: By bringing up the charges DOD sought to redefine his
case as a voluntary expatriate and therefore not technically a
prisoner - and it enabled DOD evaluators to dismiss fully 64
percent of the live-sighting reports as sightings of Garwood. 
Since Garwood reported that he had been moved from prison to
prison, the faulty logic of DOD seemed to demand that any report
from the prisons he cited must have been a sighting of Garwood. 
The policy that there was "no credible evidence" of living
prisoners made it necessary to assume that other U.S. prisoners
in those prisons could not and did not exist."

Garwood was convicted of one count of simple assault on a fellow
POW, one count of aiding the enemy by acting as a translator,
interpreter, and interrogator, one count of wearing black pajamas
- the enemy uniform - and one count of transporting an AK-47
(unloaded) during a patrol. "Whether these convictions added up
to meaningful collaboration with the enemy or not, it was never
proven that he was a voluntary deserter. Nevertheless the living
proof that the "no credible evidence" policy was not correct,
thoroughly discredited the policy," the Senate report states.

"Convenient as the Gardwood (sic) case was for DOD had publicly
issued the "they are all dead" policy.  Indeed, documents and
witnesses available to the Minority Staff (Senate) show that CIA
and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) knew of Garwood's location
as well as other so-called U.S. deserters in Vietnamese custody,
after 1973," the report continued.  "And these reports of
Garwood, obviously, proved to be correct.  Since Garwood was
alive in Indochina from 1973 to 1979, DOD policy was salvaged to
some degree by his court martial.  As a "collaborator" he may
have been in North Vietnamese custody in 1973, but he no longer
fit the definition of "prisoner".  Nevertheless, Garwood, upon
his return reporting (sic) seeing another presumed deserter, Earl
C. Weatherman, alive in 1977.  He stated also that third presumed
deserter, Mc Kinley Nolan, was alive after 1973.  It may be
assumed that Garwood was not reporting a live-sighting of Garwood
in these cases."

Garwood stated publicly on his return as well as to the Senate
Committee investigators when questioned that he had seen at lest
30 U. S. POWs off loading from a box car in Vietnam in the late
1970s.  "In the light of what appears to be a compelling need on
the part of DOD to uphold the "no credible evidence" policy, the
Minority Staff believes that every live-sighting should be
pursued vigorously without prejudgment.  Even if one POW who was
detained in Southeast Asia is still alive, then no resources of
the U.S. Government should be spared to locate him and effect his
return t o the United States if he so desires," the Senate
report states.
                    (To be continued)
[PROVIDED BY THE POW/MIA BBS 908-787-8383, FIDO 1:107/450]
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