VIETNAM'S ABILITY TO ACCOUNT FOR AMERICANS

MISSING FROM THE VIETNAM WAR

April 24, 2008

Family members, veteran organizations and other POW/MIA supporters throughout the country consistently opposed steps to improve economic and political relations with Vietnam until their leadership made the decision to cooperate fully to resolve the POW/MIA issue. The League supported a policy of reciprocity – steps by the U.S. to respond to efforts by Vietnam to locate and return remains and provide case-specific archival documents. In the League’s view, important leverage was lost without commensurate results during the normalization process.

One way of viewing what the U.S. knows and what Vietnam can do is by looking at what Vietnam has not, but could have done. At the end of the war, U.S. intelligence and other data confirm that roughly 200 missing Americans were last known alive or reported alive in close proximity to capture. Vietnam knows that these are highest priority cases, directly related to the live prisoner issue, but has accounted for far less than half of these Americans by returning identifiable remains. In all but about 30 of these cases, joint field investigations have reportedly been sufficient to confirm death. If true, remains of these Americans logically should be the most readily available for return (other than those who died in captivity in South Vietnam) since they were in captivity or on the ground near Vietnamese forces.

U.S. wartime and post-war reporting on specific cases, captured Vietnamese documents concerning the handling of U.S. prisoners and casualties, and debriefs of communist Vietnamese captives, reinforced by U.S. monitored directives and other reporting, form a clear picture of a comprehensive Vietnamese system for collection of information and remains, dating back to the French-Indochina War. Specific sources, such as the mortician in 1979, substantiated by others in the 1980’s, highlighted remains collection and storage as a key aspect of Vietnam’s policy for eventual dealings with the U.S.

Assessments by community-wide intelligence served as the basis for long-standing U.S. expectations that hundreds of Americans could readily be accounted for by unilateral Vietnamese actions to locate and return remains. In 1986-87, the entire intelligence community maintained much higher estimates, but the numbers were subsequently further screened to establish the most realistic targets for the Vietnamese government to meet.

During the war and since, the Vietnamese government placed great value on the recovery and /or recording of burial locations of U.S. remains. In wartime, if jeopardized by imminent discovery or recovery by U.S. forces, burial was immediate to hide remains, which were disinterred and photographed when possible, then reburied or transferred to Hanoi when feasible. Evidence of this process is confirmed by U.S. intelligence.

Forensic evidence serves as another basis for establishing expectations. Scientific evidence of above or below ground storage, or both, exists on 180 of the 569 identified remains returned from Vietnam since the end of the war in 1975. This number, confirmed by CIL forensic scientists, is far below U.S. expectations, based on reliable intelligence indicating that hundreds more were stored by the Vietnamese government and, if Vietnam’s leaders issue authorization, could be repatriated.

The total number of identified remains returned from Vietnam with scientific evidence of storage (180) is far short of the 400+ reported stored by valid sources and does not come close to the U.S. Government’s long-standing assessments of remains available for unilateral repatriation by the Government of Vietnam. Evidence of storage also exists on three remains returned in 1992 and subsequently identified, and an important signal was sent by the Vietnamese in a 1989 stored-remains repatriation. Both instances revealed province-level storage/curation.

After two years of no results from the Vietnamese in 1979-80, during a September 1982 ABC “Nightline” program, the late Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach flatly denied that Vietnam was holding any U.S. remains, as did other senior Vietnamese officials throughout the Carter Administration. Yet, in 1983, Vietnam returned eight remains with clear evidence of storage. Negotiations for a two-year plan in 1985 brought the largest number of remains obtained to that point; nearly all showed evidence of storage. In 1987, negotiations resulted in the largest number returned during one year – over 60 in 1988 – about half of them returned at one time. Nearly all were virtually complete skeletons that showed clear evidence of storage; there are more recent examples.

Vietnamese officials have admitted storage of remains. In 1985, following up an initiative through a regional government, a U.S. National Security Council (NSC) official met privately with a Vietnamese Politburo member during an NSC-led U.S. delegation to Hanoi. The carefully drawn plan was for negotiations on live prisoners and remains, but the minister indicated live prisoners were not on the table for discussion. Rather, as discussed through the third party, the subject was hundreds of remains.

In order to test the scope of Vietnam’s knowledge, two specific cases were officially presented to officials in Hanoi in 1985/86 with a request for their unilateral assistance; both losses were judged by the U.S. Government to have occurred inside Laos, in areas under Vietnamese control during the war. One was returned unilaterally in 1988, 98% complete and stored above ground since his 1972 incident along the Lao/Vietnamese border. Vietnam has unilaterally repatriated stored remains from Cambodia and very remote locations spanning the entire war, not just highly populated areas.

There is continuity. In 1991 and 1993, the Vietnamese provided graves registration lists with names of unaccounted for Americans. Inclusion of these names was likely purposeful, as was filtering through private channels photographs of dead, unaccounted for Americans whose remains have not yet been returned. The Government of Vietnam directed combat photography; their soldiers did not own personal cameras, much less carry them. Regardless of mixed or conflicting signals, these and other actions by Vietnamese officials were apparently intended to signal the U.S. Government of remains availability.

Information obtained from US field operations after the war reveals that central Vietnamese authorities systematically recovered U.S. remains. Eyewitnesses reported central-level supervision of remains recoveries of Americans who still have not been accounted for. Vietnam’s leaders have repeatedly pledged to renew and increase their own efforts to locate and return remains and provide relevant documents, but they invariably move incrementally, or obfuscate in other ways.

VIETNAM: ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS FOR UNILATERAL SRV ACTION

October, 2006

OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER

Directive 286

On October 21, 1972, the Prime Minister issued Directive 286 (Message Number 286/ TT-TW 21 October 1972), which tasked provincial military headquarters, district and city security police, and concerned local authorities to inspect and reconfirm American pilots’ graves. This directive applied to Vietnamese organizations throughout Indochina.

According to persons assigned to carry out these tasks, this directive was necessary to authorize the involvement of civil elements in activities assigned to Group 875, a purely military organization. In response, each province appears to have formed teams by military and public security service personnel. In most, if not all, provinces these tasks were delegated to similarly staffed district-level teams. In turn, these teams notified village authorities and military units to collect information on U.S. casualties and graves and forward the results up the chain of command. A copy of Directive 286 has not been provided, and the USG and the families believe a copy would assist in understanding Vietnam’s recovery procedures.

Directive coordinating the simultaneous release of American POWs in the south and the north on 12 February 1973 to implement the Paris Peace Agreement, signed on 27 January 1973

The Paris Peace Agreement called for the release of all POWs by both sides and the Office of the Prime Minister issued a directive to release prisoners simultaneously in accordance with the agreement. This document relates to accounting for missing Americans because it details how, when and where American POWs were to be released. This document would logically have been retained in the files of the Office of the Prime Minister.

MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE

Shoot-down Records for the capital region

Although your government has shared with US officials the shoot-down records of a number of provinces in the north, we have several losses in the capital region for which a similar record would be helpful. The USG and the League are interested in obtaining such a record for the capital region and believe it would provide critical leads to Americans still missing and unaccounted for in that region.

Archives on Phou Pha Thi/Lima Site 85, priority DRV attack with Pathet Laos, March, 1968

The US knows of the existence of at least one document related to this historic battle: “REPORT BY THE NORTHWEST MILITARY REGION GENERAL STAFF DEPARTMENT, PRELIMINARY SUMMARY OF THE SAPPER ATTACK ON THE AMERICAN TACAN SITE ON PHA-THI MOUNTAIN, dated 11 June 1968. This classified document held at PAVN Military Region 2 Headquarters, served as the basis for the Phou Pha Thi chapter of the Vietnamese-language military history book Together in One Foxhole. The author of the chapter, retired PAVN Major Do Chi Ben, admitted the existence of the document in an interview with US investigators in Hanoi on 31 October 2003.

Order of battle records for PAVN units operating in Vietnamese-controlled areas of Laos and Cambodia during the war

These records would provide the names of potential sources for the large number of cases along the border of both countries. In the absence of relevant archives, thus far not provided, but requested below, reaching sources while they are still alive and coherent becomes critical, and time is running out.

Situation reports from individual units stationed in Laos and Cambodia

We appreciate your government providing the comprehensive Group 559 shoot-down record. This summary document has been invaluable in identifying units associated with losses in Laos and along the Vietnam-Laos border. The USG and the League are also very interested in obtaining reports originating directly with the individual units involved. Such documents would logically help to further identify the units and personnel involved in incidents involving missing and unaccounted for Americans.

MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE/GENERAL POLITICAL DIRECTORATE

Companion Document to Department of Military Justice’s summary list of American remains that Vietnamese authorities had been unable to recover

The Department of Military Justice was responsible for remains recovery and storage until it was disbanded in late 1978 or 1979. Near the end of its existence, that Department compiled a summary list, dated November 2, 1978, of American remains that Vietnamese authorities had been unable to recover. A companion document, namely a summary list of remains successfully recovered should be invaluable in helping your government to take the unilateral actions needed to account for those Americans listed.

Photographs of remains and identifying data disinterred from burial sites throughout northern Vietnam by the Department of Military Justice

The USG knows that remains disinterred and taken to Hanoi were prepared for storage and photographed with their identifying data by the Department of Military Justice. Some of these photos have come to US attention, but a unilateral search the National Defense Ministry archives for files containing these photographs should prove fruitful. As in the case of Major Joseph C. Morrison, USAF, these photographs would provide valuable leads to accounting for the Americans portrayed.

MINISTRY OF PUBLIC SECURITY

Records, contemporaneous during wartime, used to construct the “prison document” provided to the US

The document turned over to the US at the end of the war was written in one person’s hand, obviously constructed from a document compiled on an ongoing basis during wartime.

Records from the Security office of the Central Office for South Vietnam concerning American POWs in the south

The USG has few documents associated with Americans imprisoned in the south. Though record-keeping in the south was likely not up to the standards adhered to in the north, US analysts believe that a multi-layered organization such as the COSVN, particularly its security office, maintained records on prisons they controlled, such as their detention facilities in Tay Ninh Province and the C312-C24 detention facilities in War Zone D (also known as T1 and MR7).

They also likely maintained records on individual imprisoned Americans. In fact records on the latter prison facilities could shed light on the priority discrepancy case involving civilian Daniel Niehouse. Those records are likely to now be in Hanoi and would be of great assistance in accounting for missing Americans.

Records detailing American POW handling protocols in Ministry of Public Security facilities that held U.S. POWs, such as Hoa Lo, Bang Liet, Thanh Liet, Son Tay, Bat Bat, and in facilities associated with the Central Office for South Vietnam

Because many American POWs were held in facilities controlled by the Ministry of Public Security, written protocols concerning how these facilities were to be administered must have been produced and would have been retained by the ministry. These documents could be extremely useful in facilitating realism and US understanding of prisoner handling procedures.

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Documents associated with the preparation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s and the Provisional Revolutionary Government’s Died-In-Captivity Lists

Both Died-In-Captivity Lists passed to the US in 1973, though ostensibly produced by different governments, were prepared in Hanoi using the same typewriter. US analysts believe this likely was done at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MFA would have retained the documentation used to compile these two critically important lists. The source documents used could shed light on many of the unaccounted for personnel on the lists.

Documents associated with foreigners imprisoned for violating Vietnam’s territorial waters during the period extending from the end of the war through the late 1980s

From the end of the war through the late 1980s, the USG received many reports of American POWs held in Vietnamese prisons. Many relate to foreigners incarcerated in Vietnam for violating Vietnam’s laws. Documentation identifying foreigners who were imprisoned during this period and relating the circumstances of their imprisonment would help clarify who many of these reports are referring to. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the probable repository for these documents.