POWS WON'T BE FOUND WITHOUT COST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000604950004-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: April 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000604950004-7
~~*+ 24 April 1985
61' R
n
i
nap s outburst- The CIA official mdicates that s
But critics of the government's efforts mntio CIA or from .a few reliable" for- According to the Defense Department's
to investigate reports of POWs-notably me, South Vietnamese military officers POW-MIA Fact Book, evidence of Amer-
Mr. , North DornanIs fellow conservative Republi- who now conduct resistance activities icans still being held against their will
cans, North Carolina Rep. William Hendon against the Communists. The informers ~ must be "convincing" before the U.S. acts.
and former New York Rep. John LeBoutir aren't paid for this information. e says By convincing, the Fact Book explains, the
lier-have repeatedly charged that that the Gen. James A. Williams, current head evidence must be recent and specific, and
president is getting bad information and of the DIA, says he hasn't ever seen or it must come either from a refugee whose
the U.S. effort to account for its nearly 2,- heard of such a list. A CIA spokeswoman sighting report "can be strengthened and
500 men still missing in Southeast Asia is says there isn't such a CIA list, adding that supported through technical means," or
seriously flawed. the notion is "nonsense." rom two or more refugees whose reports
'Disclaiming Good Reports' Those running the Reagan administra, fmatch 'up.
The critics appear to be right. There is tion's effort to account for the missing But the former intelligence analyst says
reason to a ieve that the Central Intelli- think the program is making progress, de- the Fact Book is misleading. He sas that
Bence Agency knows for a fact that Amen spite a general lack of cooperation by the for evidence to be uu ge convtncmt' r~
cans are still being held against their will. Vietnamese. In testimony before a House U S experts it must be developed by the
ere also is reason to believe that mili- committee last August, Richard Armitage, U.S.'s own technical means; i.e., aerial
tary analysts have squandered some prom- assistant secretary of defense, said the photographs from satellites or high-alti-
ising leads, leads that, if they had been Reagan administration has increased the tude aircraft. "Humint," the acronym for
properly pursued, might by now have intelligence resources devoted to resolving human intelligence, ism enoug , is ana-
proved the continued presence of U.S. the POW question. lust says because the feelin Wlthn the
POWs in Southeast Asia. Many Americans don't believe that the S intelligence comm unity is that people
Gen. Eugene Tighe, who worked on the Indochinese Communists still hold U.S. can and do he.
POW issue at DIA from 1974 until he. re- I prisoners. Vietnam denies it has any U.S. i U* S* officials have testified before Con
tired, as director, in September 1981, says, captives. But in three wars, Communist gress that the vast majority of their POW
"It may be time for an independently spon- nations have demonstrated a willingness to information comes from human sources-
sored presidential commission to examine keep their prisoners after the shooting refugees. If, refugees' reports aren't
the U.S. POW effort." stops. enough, how then.can the U.S. ever prove
that POWs are still in Indochina?..
Gen. Tighe, who has remained close to The Soviet Union finally released nearly
the issue, adds: "Some people [involved in 'I 10,000 German prisoners in 1955, 10 years Gen. Williams, the current head of the
the U.S.'s effort] have been disclaiming 'after the end of World War II, claiming DIA insists that humint can be enough to
good reports [about remaining American they had been criminals, not prisoners: act u on. But the fact is that the~nL
captives] for so long that :it's become Thousands more German prisoners simply known time the U.S. made an armed incur-
habit-forming." Moreover, "I continue to vanished. Sion to try to rescue men it oug were
anded POWs-the so-called Nhom Marat mission
m
A exper on ao s
government already has a list of 25 or so can prisoners in Korea apparently never
missing Americans who are living today to did come home.)
Laos. This man, who was intimately in- . in what is now an obscure footnote to
volved in the U.S.'s "secret war" in Laos, the Vietnam War, Hanoi nearly succeeded
made the statement four months ago in a in holding on to nine U.S. prisoners in 1973.
private letter shown to me. The men, captured in Laos, were released
The CIA official states in his letter that after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
the Americans "are now working for the reportedly wouldn't complete the pre-
enemy, fairly openly, and married to local viously negotiated U.S. troop withdrawal
women with children in most cases." In from Vietnam until several remaining pris-
describing one of them, the letter states oners
some fos his laccounted ist were freed, Only af-
that he "has some freedom but not much." ter Further, the letter states that this individ- with others the U.S. had listed simply as learn t
ual "apparently has no desire to return to missing i had actbeen ion, did the U.S. V etnam as
the USA because his 'probably' [being] the year earlier and held there apart from the
forced to work for r the enemy in in order to Mh- TT c vnwI, who were released during
Agency officials just days after Rep. Dor- stay alive this long."
fo-
i
h
By BILL PAUL
As soon as a White House reception last
December for new Republican congress-
men was thrown open to questions, Califor-
nia Rep. Robert -Dornan leaped to his
feet.
Mr. Dornan begged President Reagan
to intensify government efforts to ascer-
tain whether U.S. prisoners are still being
held by Vietnam. Mr. Reagan responded,
as Mr. Doman recalls, that every time the
U.S. pursues a lead on POWs, it turns out
to be a dead end.
That is what the president has been told
by his advisers-most recently at a brief-
ing he was given by Defense Intelligence
POWs Won't Be Found Without os
Chinese soon thereafter, but many Amert-
CIA t L ~ avs the Ti S
for 12 years, we've completely and abso- in the was a the. ,
cutely ignored these people. ria..'? -(A few fliers were released by
turbine view of the U S effort to account prisoner exchanges. How many
for its missing . "There are a lot of rest U. N. POWs," Gen. Clark wrote, ,,,may we .told U.S. officials that in November 1977
cures not to believe" that Amercans are expect the Communists to yield, possibly she saw four Americans working in a field
still held prisoner he said in an interview. seven or eight years from now? And how, near Bien Hoa City, about 20 miles from
If we recover one, it's a travesty because many may we never see again*who will die', .. Ho Chi.Minh- City, formerly Saigon.; The
f s" of Korea-Manchuria Sibe -
run into civilians [in the U.S. government] 1 U.S. Gen. Mark Clark, W110 Com
associated with this issue who tend to think United Nations forces in Korea, wrote in in-1981-the intelligence that led to the
that military personnel are expendable."-.-- :_ his 1954 autobiography "From the Danube foray came from aeral photographs.
Some DIA analyses of refugee reports
A former intelligence analyst who re to the Yalu" that he had "solid evidence
- seem-- aime- to impeach: cently retired after working daily on the that the Communists held' on to hundreds rather than d gad to invest gaUonsefugees
POW issue for two years also gives a dis of U.S. prisoners after the U.N Commmo For example, refugee Nguyen Thi Xuan
1973's "Operation Homecoming."
Qx&md
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000604950004-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000604950004-7
DIA concluded that her report was "suspi-
cious" because "the Communists would be
unlikely to place four detained Americans
in an open field next to a major highway
while at the same time publicly denying
that they hold Americans."
Gen. Tighe, the retired head of the DIA,
says this analysis "shows a mind-set to de-
bunk:" (Gen. Tighe is chagrined that poor
analyses were done while he headed the
DIA. He says that, as director, he didn't
review most individual reports.)
Might Be Alive
Another, more recent, account came
last year from a Vietnamese doctor who
gave the U.S. a list of names of Americans
he said he treated in Vietnam who are still
POWs. This report has been written off as
a fabrication by U.S. officials who ascribed
it to the man's self-serving motivations.
But consider:
The DIA acknowledged that "it. isn't
precisely known" how the doctor got the
Americans' names. The DIA suggested
that he may have gotten them off a pub-
licly available list of America's missing,
but the analysis also stated that some on
the doctor's list were servicemen believed
to have died in action whose bodies weren't
recovered. Thus, at least some names
wouldn't have appeared on any MIA list,
and those men in particular might still be
alive.
If the continued presence of POWs in
Southeast Asia were ever publicly ac-
cepted, it would provoke a foreign-policy
dilemma. Americans would demand that
Washington act, but what could the U.S.
do? A military operation might get some
prisoners out, but the rest might then be
put to death, perhaps after show trials. Ne-
gotiations could easily dissolve into a kind
of Iran hostage crisis, with Washington
looking weak.
Yet while a military action seems self-
defeating, entering into talks is a chance
worth taking. Vietnam's economy is a
shambles, offering the makings of a deal.
Getting the men back would demonstrate a
moral commitment few nations possess.
Mr. Paul is a reporter in the Journal's
I New York bureau.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000604950004-7