Vietnam II: A War Novel Episode 1 (V2) (3 page)

Technical Sergeant Tony Luciano

Air Force Operations Intelligence Specialist

Waco, Texas

I interviewed retired Major Scott Eisenhower, formerly of Stony Beach, at his home.  What drove a man like Eisenhower to give up the warm waters of Hawaii for the dry tumbleweeds of Texas was clear the moment I entered his home.  To say there was a western motif would have been an understatement.  We conducted the interview in his den with a portrait of John Wayne hovering over us on the wall.

“How many MIAs are you aware of?”

“How many?  That easy.  The answer is 2,477.  Are you sure that is what you are asking?”

“There are that many?”  I wrote it down.  Hard numbers were always great when putting together briefs and often the hardest things to come by.

“Not really.  I was with the DIA from 1984 until 1987.  In June of 1983 a division of the Defense Intelligence Agency was assigned personnel and offices to collect information about MIAs and evaluate it.  Later in 1986, on the recommendation of Director of DIA LTG Leonard Perroots himself the division was built up and moved to Hickam and the STONY BEACH GROUP was established.”

“Stony Beach comes up a lot in our records.  Can you tell me about it?”

“Well all of this really started a decade after America's withdrawal from Vietnam when our last President declared that the recovery of the 2,477 American soldiers still Missing in Action would be a national priority.  There was already a Congressional Task Force on POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia formed in 1977, and in the late seventies and early eighties Congress introduced more than 100 bills and resolutions aimed at resolving the issue.  Celebrities took up the cause.  There were public awareness campaigns as well as books, movies and fund-raisers.  It became self-perpetuating.  The less that was known, the wilder the stories became.  Like the Bermuda Triangle or Bigfoot.”

“Why?”

“The word missing to begin with.  It implies mystery instead of assumption.  Did you know there are still people looking for Amelia Earhart?  Is there any doubt among professional pilots that she crashed into the Pacific at this point?”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Then follow this: the term "MIA" is misleading.  Prior to the Vietnam conflict we called missing men who were presumed dead “killed body nonrecoverable.”  That is a little strong.  Especially to family members when the Department of Defense cannot produce a body for the funeral.  So the term missing in action was implemented.  The problem with that is it suggests that the DOD has no idea what happened to the soldiers and airmen in Vietnam.”

“We don’t?”

“We do.  At the end of hostilities, the DOD listed fewer than 800 soldiers as either prisoners of war or missing in action.  Later, the DOD added servicemen to the list that were considered killed in action but whose bodies were never recovered.  Most of these were Air Force and Navy pilots.  In fact 81 percent of the servicemen we now classified as MIAs were pilots, many of whom were unable to eject from their aircraft before crashing into the sea or Vietnamese jungle.

So of the estimated 2,477 MIAs, almost half, around 1,186, are known to actually been killed in action, but their bodies were not able to be recovered.  I mean other pilots saw their planes crash and explode in some cases.  On top of those 1,186 there are another 647 other cases a reasonable presumptive finding of death was made at the time the serviceman disappeared. Thus 1,833 of the 2,477 MIAs are presumed to be dead.  You good with math?”

He could see me trying to figure it out in my head. 

“600?”  I said without confidence.

He shook his head.

“644 to be exact.  That leaves 644 servicemen who could in theory still be alive in Vietnam.  How likely are they after all these years?  And if they are where are they?  Vietnam ain’t that big a country.”

I wrote all of this down.  It was all gold when we started putting the slides together later.

“Why are you asking all these questions?  Have you found something?”

“That’s classified.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”  His eyes got wide and he shook his head rhythmically.  “Holy shit.  And you let me sit here telling you how it couldn’t be possible.  I had scratched those guys all out.  Now I feel like an asshole.”

Lieutenant Colonel William Carter

Air Force Intelligence Officer

Defense Intelligence Agency

Former Defense Intelligence Agency worker Henry James met me at the agency headquarters for the interview.  The man was in his late sixties and was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War.  According to his records he had put in twenty years with the Army and then another twenty as a government service worker.

He had seen a lot.

“I retired in 1981 and this isn’t the first time I’ve been called in to talk about the POWs.  It was every six months in the beginning.  Then once a year.  It has been since 1987 that anyone has spoken to me officially about the POWs.  I was beginning to think that it had become history.”

I went through the standard interview questions that Carol had given me.  He listened politely and shook his head to everyone.  When I was finished he took over the interview.

“Witnesses?  I’ve got all the witnesses you could ever want.”

“Could you put us in touch with them?”

“Of the 4,000 cases of alleged POW sightings from Vietnamese refugees since 1975, the Defense Intelligence Agency discounts almost all.  Only a few hundred were actual firsthand accounts and not just hearsay and rumor.  Most were secondhand accounts.  Many of the supposed sightings were fabricated.  Of those few hundred many of the interviewees merely said they saw a Caucasian.  This does not mean that Caucasian was American or a POW.”

“What about the ones that you could not discount?”

“We used science and due diligence.  It’s not like we could send someone into Vietnam to verify their story.  That’s the real catch isn’t it?  So instead the DIA used polygraph exams to investigating the most credible reported sightings.  Again more than half showed signs of deception or the polygraphs were inconclusive.  Of the interviewees that showed no deception and whose supposed sighting was not verified to be a Russian military advisor or some other white guy there were only a handful that we would consider possible sightings.”

“How many is a handful?”

“Exactly that.  You can count them on one hand.”  He shook his head.  “I’m sorry, but love, magic and emotional appeals aside, there is little credible evidence that any of them are still living.”

Lieutenant Colonel Carol Madison

Air Force Intelligence Officer

Defense Intelligence Agency

“I’m getting nothing actionable here.”  It was TSgt Luciano on the phone.  He was less than positive.  “All the experts are just dumping numbers and statistics on me.”

I knew he was telling the truth.  I had been through everything that the team had collected.  Unfortunately we were looking to affirm the POW theory.

“Thanks for the update.  Move on to the other witnesses.”

“I talked to Colonel Carter.  We’re really bombing out here.”

“Press on.  We need something that we can take to the Pentagon and State.”

“I’ll keep trying.”

“That’s the spirit.”

It was just me and the two Daves in the office.  I was fielding phone calls and they were compiling.  Everyone else was out on the road.  After the flurry of activity following the invasion of Kuwait the offices were uncomfortably quiet.  It was like a house with all the children gone.

“I read somewhere they did not release the French POWs immediately when they pulled out.  If we could prove that we could establish precedent.”  I told the two Daves in an attempt to strike up a conversation.

“I heard that from some of the veterans I talked to as well.”  Ellington said.  “How many was it?”

“The rumor is that there were 13 French POWs captured at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and they were not released until 16 years later.  I cannot verify the source of this claim so it seems rather dubious.”  I said.

“It is.”  Dave Smith broke in.  “I called the French Embassy.  Their spokesman said that all French passengers were released in 1954 in an agreement with the North Vietnamese.”

“What about other POWs?  The ones released during Operation Homecoming.  What did they have to say on the subject?”

“I skimmed four biographies last night, no mentions of POWs left behind.”

“Shut up.”

Technical Sergeant Tony Luciano

Air Force Operations Intelligence Specialist

San Antonio, Texas

I interviewed retired Brigadier General Coker at Fort Sam Houston where he worked as a civilian.  He was at MACV during the heydays of the Vietnam War.  He was an advocate for searching for POWs in the late 1970’s after the fall of South Vietnam.

“You have to understand this POW/MIA issue is unique to the Vietnam War.  Do you know how many American soldiers were unaccounted for after World War II?”

“More than in Vietnam?”

“A lot more.  78,751 American soldiers were missing or unaccounted for.  That is 20,000 more than the total number of American servicemen killed in Vietnam.  Same thing with the Korean War.  Only four years but it resulted in 8,177 MIAs.  Yet neither of these conflicts prompted widespread protests and demands for government inquiries.”

“Why is Vietnam unique?”

“Two possible explanations.  Part of the problem is, of course, because we lost the war.  We do not have immediate access to places where missing soldiers were last seen alive.” 

“That’s one way of looking at it.  What about the second explanation?”

“Well Operation Homecoming was used as a substitute for the victory parades that preceding wars had.  Without victory America needed something to symbolize closure.  After Operation Homecoming the MIA families felt that the country and the military in particular, were too quick to forget the war, and therefore also forgetting their sons and husbands.  What's more, the MIAs have become a matter of American honor.  Vietnam was the first war we lost.  With it went a lot of our prestige.  Their return would symbolize the restoration of that honor that was lost when we lost the war.”

He hesitated and made a funny face.  I decided to dig a little further.

“You think there is more to it?”

“Turn off the recorder.”

I did.

“Now this is just between you and me.  If you put it on paper I will deny it.”

“Understood sir.”

“Far from forgetting these sons and brothers, the government has used them for political use over successive administrations.  Alternately suppressing the families' requests for information and helping them in publicizing their cause.  The results have been cruelly misleading for the families and American people.”

“Initially, in 1966 President Johnson conducted secret negotiations regarding the POWs with the North Vietnamese government in Paris.  They believed it would be detrimental to the talks, as well as to the prisoners, to publicize the problem. Administration officials told the families of POWs and MIAs to keep quiet."

“Then just a few years later President Nixon, aware of the families' growing frustration, decided to champion their cause.  The administration went public with the POW issue in hopes it would force the Vietnamese to follow the rules of the Geneva Convention.  POW and MIA families were featured at press conferences and demonstrations.  Nixon was behind the formation of the national organization of POW and MIA families in 1969.  Defense Secretary Melvin Laird announced on May 18, 1969, that the administration would "go public" with the POW issue in an effort to use public opinion to pressure the Vietcong into obeying the Geneva principles concerning POW rights. The campaign was waged through press conferences, speaking engagements by former POWs, and demonstrations by POW and MIA families.

In December 1969 Nixon met with 26 POW wives to suggest the formation of a national organization of MIA and POW families.  The product of this was the National League of Families of Americans Missing in Southeast Asia.  Spiro Agnew presented the League with their first check for $10,000.  The group later splintered during the drawdown and Nixon’s Vietnamization initiative.  The Nixon administration did not initially have any provisions to their exit from Vietnam regarding the release of the POWs or finding the MIAs.”

“What happened next?”

“The war ended.  At least for America.  South Vietnam lasted a few more years, but that country was a total disaster.  591 POWs were released following the Paris Peace Accords in January of 1973.  According to the North Vietnamese government this was all the POWs they held.”

“What about the families of the others.”

“Naturally they were upset.  The government is bound by the Missing Persons Act of 1942 and the Pentagon had to conduct a review of the status of everyone who had not returned.  When that happened five families from the League filed a suit in U.S. District Court to try and stop them from declaring their men dead.  In August of 1973 the court ruled that the reviews could only be conducted after the next of kin submitted a written request.  Do you see the position that this move put the families in?”

“No I’m not quite following you.”

“The military forced the next of kin to basically ask that their missing family member be declared dead.  Can you imagine a spouse writing a letter to the Pentagon asking for her husband to be officially dead?  Parents writing for the sake of their son.  The emotional turmoil that would create?”

“That’s rough.”

“Yes.  Financially it was ill advised as well.  The benefits to a MIA family would be a continued paycheck while a KIA family would only get the insurance settlement.  This continued for some families until 1978 when the Pentagon finally declared all MIAs “presumed dead” so this resulted in a status reclassification change from MIA to Killed in Action/Body Not Recovered.  This undermined the Missing in Action designation that was invented just to prevent the presumed dead moniker.”

“So you believe that Vietnam turned over all of the POWs?” 

“I don’t mean to give the North Vietnamese a clean bill of health here, far from it.  They committed atrocious human rights abuses against our guys and their own people.  They also complicated the whole process with demands.  Article 21 of the Paris Peace Accords stated that the United States contribute to rebuilding their nation.  When Congress would not grant the aid the Vietnamese refused to talk about the MIAs.  A deadlock was created and neither side has blinked yet.”

“The first congressional committee on MIAs in Southeast Asia was organized in the mid-1970s.  After hearing from 50 officials and reviewing classified information as well as the files of over 200 GIs, they determined that no Americans were still alive as prisoners of war.  With that being said President Carter sent the former head of the United Auto Workers union to Hanoi with a team of experts.  The Woodcock Commission was severely limited by the Vietnamese government.  They didn’t even get out of Hanoi.  They started warming to us though for the purposes of normalization, lifting the embargo that stands to this day, but that didn’t get far as we recognized China, Vietnam’s ancient enemy, in 1978.  Carter’s attempt to settle the issue just pissed off all of the families that were holding onto the hope that their loved ones were still alive.”

“So where do we go from here?”  I asked not knowing the answer.