AMERICAN POW'S IN LAOS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP01-00569R000100030024-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 5, 2010
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: July 6, 1981
• Content Type: MEMO

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6 July 1981
MEMORANDUM FOR: Chief, East Asia Division
SUBJECT American POW's in LAOS?
1. Page 2 (my number in red ink) of the copy of the attached
letter makes reference to American prisoners of war sighted in
Laos. Hopefully the information will have been checked out in
the field by now; but in the event that it hasn't, I thought it STAT
might be of interest to E.A.
2. The letter was given to me last Friday (3 July 1981) by
my neighbox a Special Assistant to an Assis- STAT
tant Secretary in the Navy Department. The letter had been written
td mother, STAT
by her brothex -who apparently has spent STAT
many years in SEA.
3. told me to use the letter as I saw it. He STAT
thought it might be of interest to this Agency. knows STAT
me as an overt employee of CIA.)
STAT
CIA History Sta
316 Ames Bldg.
STAT
Attachment:
as stated
Distribution:
0E,1-Addressee
-I-IS Chrono
1WJBP
[tuff:T:h: wTVTPit
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English Language & Cultural Orientation Program
Nlay 23, 1981
Dear Hazel a t& Bud,
Finally, the rainy season has begun. in Thailand, after six
months of dry and dusty heat. We entered this heat in Octo-
ber, me as a Program Manager at the Hmoung refugee camp, in
the northeast of Thailand, Mary as an administrative assi-
tant, and the kid.s swimming in the Mekong just across the
river from Laos. We rented a large house along the river
in a small, sleepy town., Chiengkhan, and. before long every
one in the town knew all, our comings and goings, all our
business, what we paid for this and that in the shops and
when we went here and there. It was a no privicy townl
Working with the Hmoung was an enjoyable time, although
being prel.iter--.i.te made our tasks Herculean. The Hmoung
never had a written langugge until most recently, and
that was put together by French missionaries. Around
about -the end of the year we were told to expect to
move to another camp near the Gulf of Thailand, and so
this is where we now are and I now have a program for
Khmer refugees preparing for resettlement to third
countries. The Khmer are easy to work with and many
already speak French and some.English.
1-he environment here is a bit better, larger and cleaner
town. to live in, wonderful fruit, and excellent seafood.
Still, it does not have the beauty of the northeast with
its beat tifu1 Mekong River, , hills and mountains and prob?
ably the world's best sunsets. (Some nights the bad guys
across the river would fire a few rockets or automatic
small arms to remind us that they are still around.
Well, the USG decided. to move us here and we moved our
The Experiment in International Living
World Education Save the Children
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program down east over a three month period. I was the last
IrG..
Pe out of the camp at Ban Vinai.. When T was saying goodbye
to the fimoung leadership in the camp, some of which I remem-
bered from our earlier days in Laos, a Hmoung friend passed
a leper to me which, when I finally got around to reading it,
described a group of Americans they had seen on their regu-
lar sorties in-to nor el y- Laos, in consort with the Thai
military, and I shouldAthe U.S. it -letter even ven in-
cluded the length of the ankle chains they were wearing. I
wesnot that surprised since Embassy people were talking
about such sightings for some time, so I asked the guy to
put it in writing, in Lao, and send it to me. Anyway, to
make things short, I went off to our new U.N.H.C.R. loca-
tion only to be surprised these last few days about an
American-backed combat team of other nationalities on the
ground in Laos to check things out. We don't get much news'
here, and I would be interested. any newspaper articles you
may have seen about American prisoners still in Laos, par-
ticularly so because the location given to me was quite
different from the locations in Thailand's newspapers.
Anyway, here we are settling into a new house, new rou-
tines, and two weeks of vacation coming up, our first in
the six months we've been here. We'll spend the first week
on an island in the Gulf of Thailand, then the second week
put the kids in summer school in ft Bangkok and Mary and
I will go out and eat in. the best western restaurants in
Bangkok, probably find. a good. piano bar, without kids!
They'll. be six weeks in. school, and after that we may
decide to return to the states. My contract ends in
October and we will certainly return by then. My hope
is that T can get out of management and into training
and program design work, probably in Kenya if that pro-
gram fina.ll,~ gets, off the ground.
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paeni WW ? W
Things have really worked out well for us here. The ? had been,
naturally, the children. They turned out to be superb. No
problem with Thai food, Thai ways, and that is remarkable.
Sheri has a real good use of,the Thai language, as does
Mary. Michael is'nt speaking Thai yet, but he listens to
enough to offer ? xxxxi translations to us in English reg-
ularly, perhaps too! regular translations.
Sheri, my 11 year old daughter turning 27, is now teaching
cultural orientation in the camp here to the children of
refugees. Imagine, Sheri working every day on her lesson
plans for her students! She spends a lot of time with the.
Thai teachers who, in many ways, are as Ayoung.as she is.
She's a Ex ga beautiful gal, very self-motivated and
quite assertive in a nice way. A lot of it, of course,
came from being around my graduate students in Vermont,
people with many languages and experience with many cul-
tures, nice people who still write to me from places
all around the world -- I've had letters today from Sri
Lanka, Morocco, Kenya, and Libya, of all places. When
we were in Vermont the kids mingled (?sp?) with them in
the classrooms as well as at our little farm in Leyden,
Massachusetts. That was a rental farm, but so much fun.
for everyone.
I had a letter from mom today telling me that Jimmey*
has bought out his partner and now owns the mzt motel
on the water at the cape outright, and that Art has sold
all the Ogunquit property and plans to buy a louse on the
water in Maine. I expect Gene and (iii.nny Will summer at
the cape, running the motel while school is in session,
and winter back in. Florida. Do you think so? Or have
they sold their place there?
Well, as you can see from my typing and spelling, it's late'
and I am rather tired tonight. I hope, though, that the
message is clear that we will be back in the States in
October, if not a bit earlier. We will most likely go
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first. I would like you to tell her. I wrote a long
letter to Art, b ; no response and when Dotty writes i
related to the car I gave her when" I left the states.
back. on a United 2tm. Nations flight to the West Coast. Our ivxm
original plan was 'to Florida, then Virginia to Massachusetts.,,
and New York, upstate. But now we would rather skip Flord !a
and visit you. I also need to talk with people in Washington,
although. I may not be ready for that after the trip back from
Southeast Asia. Please let me know if you are not going to
be there in. October, we would really like to spend some. time
with you and Bud and Eddy and Bill. (By the way, I'm no long-
er Wally, I'm Walter since Vermont).
If you have a chance to talk with mom please tell her. we
will be back in October the latest. I haven't, told any of
others, dimply because I have not had a chance to. And,
most important in the Worcester circle, she should know
and I need to begin planning these upcoming vacation weeks`.
Say hello to everyone for us and best wishes ', peace and
love from all of us here in Thailand.
As I said ear.l.ier, it indeed is late in Thailand right now
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