From: jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Larry Jewell)
Subject: 'NamVet Newsletter, Vol.5, no.1 (2/7)
Followup-To: soc.veterans
Organization: Purdue University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 11:16:03 GMT


     contested  the outside experts charges of forensic fraud.  But  it 
     says  that two so called "doctors"  at the Hawaii laboratory  were 
     replaced following the complaints by the forensic scientists.
       However   it  says  the  Defense  Department  overall  has  been 
     responsible  for a long term effort to discredit all live sighting 
     reports of MIAs.
       Staff  reviewed  hundreds of these classified  and  unclassified 
     live  sighting reports in the opinion of staff many live  sighting 
     reports  were closed prematurely (by the Defense Department)  when 
     minimal  additional effort could have resolved the veracity of the 
     report, the report explains.
       It   says   that  the  Defense  Department  has  dismissed   the 
     credibility  of live sighting reports based on even the  slightest 
     inconsistencies    in   descriptions   of   time,    location   or 
     circumstances. It denounces such "debunking."
       It  also accuses the Defense Department of arbitrary findings of 
     death saying that its review at the Pentagon showed that often the 
     facts  contained  in the MIA files did not support the finding  of 
     death.
       "The  method  of making a presumptive finding of death has  been 
     abused by the DOD (Department of Defense)" says the report.
       If the department has issued a presumptive finding of death then 
     it  is  prepared  to conduct ceremonial burials  of  non  existent 
     remains, the report notes.
       And  it says that just last month at Arlington National Cemetery 
     the  Pentagon buried with full military honors what were described 
     as  the remains of two US airmen presumed to have died in Laos  20 
     years ago.
       It  adds  "However the caskets of remains of the two  servicemen 
     contained  no bones,  no physical matter whatsoever.  The  coffins 
     contained  nothing  but air.  The Defense Department has  its  own 
     meaning  for  the word "remains"  of US servicemen,  which is  not 
     found in any English Language dictionary."
       A  Senate Foreign Relations committee staff report released Oct. 
     28  says  the  Nixon  Administration made a  decision  to  abandon 
     remaining US prisoners in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  Subsequent 
     administrations   have  resisted  efforts  to  reopen  the   issue 
     officials say.
       With  the  repatriation  of  591  prisoners  of  was  (POWs)  in 
     "Operation Homecoming," the Nixon Administration claimed April 12, 
     1973  that  all  live  prisoners of  war  had  been  retuned,  and 
     subsequent  administrations have insisted that reported  sightings 
     of American prisoners were false.
       But  a  government official told the New York City Tribune  last 
     month  that while many of the live sighting reports are incorrect, 
     others are almost certainly accurate.
       He   said   that  for  diplomatic  and  political  reasons   all 
     administrations  since  the Nixon Administration have  misled  the 
     public  about  the sightings.  He said satellite  photography  has 
     confirmed the presence of live US prisoners in Indochina.
       Senate  Foreign Relations Committee staff under the direction of 
     Sen. Charles Grassley R-Iowa and minority leader Sen. Jesse Helms, 
     R-N.C.  have  spent  the  past year examining  classified  Defense 
     Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents on the issue.
       The most dramatic discovery of the Foreign Relations staff was a 
     major  DIA  report  dated  April 1974  addressed  to  all  service 
     intelligence  chiefs  stating  that there  were  "several  hundred 
     living POW/MIAs"  being held in Vietnam,  Laos and Cambodia.  This 
     was  a year after the Nixon Administration's decision to sweep the 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 14
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     POW/MIA issue under the carpet.
       The Witmire Report is likely to be the subject of future inquiry 
     and controversy.
       "The  evidence indicates that American government officials made 
     a  decision  to  abandon US citizens still in the custody  of  the 
     Socialist  Republic  of  Vietnam,  Laos,  and  Cambodia,   at  the 
     conclusion  of  US involvement in the second Indochina  war,"  the 
     report says.
     


















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 15
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

                  SENATE PROBERS SAY U.S. ABANDONED MIA'S
                  WHEN A NIXON DEAL WITH HANOI COLLAPSED
                              By Peter Samuel
                       In the New York City Tribune
                   Input by: Terry Hayes - Waterloo, NY
                        VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA
                              (413) 443-6313
     
     Washington  -  A  secret deal was made in 1973 between  the  Nixon 
     Administration  and  the newly victorious North Vietnamese  regime 
     that  would have allowed thousands of US prisoners to be exchanged 
     for billions in US aid, according to Senate probers
       But  according  to a copy of a report obtained by the  New  York 
     City Tribune, the prisoners were abandoned and the deal fell apart 
     when Nixon already weakened by the Watergate scandal at home could 
     not push the package through Congress.
       Several thousand prisoners of war (POWS)  and servicemen missing 
     in  action (MIAS)  who the Nixon Administration was bargaining for 
     with  promises of $3.25 billion in aid one week were the next week 
     written  off  with  the adamant declaration form the  Pentagon  on 
     April  13,  1973  "There are no more [US]  prisoners in  Southeast 
     Asia. They are all dead," according to the report.
       The Nixon Administration simply writing off the prisoners is the 
     dramatic  conclusion  of  the Senate Foreign  Relations  Committee 
     under  the direction of Sen.  Charles Grassley,  R-Iowa,  who have 
     been  studying previously classified documents at the Pentagon  as 
     well as recently declassified documents at the National Archives.
       A  new report by the committee calls the April 1973 statement  a 
     lie.  As  well as abandoning known prisoners in Vietnam the report 
     says "The fact of the matter is that we left men in Laos,  men the 
     Pathet Lao publicly admitted to be holding."
       Following  the formal US surrender in Vietnam signed January 27, 
     1973,  President  Nixon proposed in a then secret letter to  Hanoi 
     that the United States would provide $3.25 billion of economic aid 
     over 5 years. 
       The  administration and the Vietnamese agreed on a long detailed 
     list  of  items the United States would furnish in the first  year 
     including:  700,00  square  meters  of prefabricated  housing  and 
     warehousing; 200,000 tons of steel building supplies; 50,000 cubic 
     meters of lumber; 40 million meters of cloth.
       When  details  of  the  proposed aid  leaked  to  Capitol  Hill, 
     criticism  was  widespread and sharp.  Secretary of State  William 
     Rogers reportedly called on congressmen to exercise "restraint" in 
     their  criticism  of  the  aid proposal at  least  until  American 
     prisoners  were  released by the North Vietnamese.  By the end  of 
     March 1973 Hanoi had released 591 US prisoners, but their tales of 
     mistreatment   and   atrocities  in  prison  camps   only   fanned 
     congressional determination not to authorize any aid to Hanoi.
       For example, Rep.  Joel Broyhill R-Va.  said that "not a cent of 
     American  aid should be spent on a country that is apparently  run 
     by savages."
       The  Senate  Foreign Relations Committee report quotes a  source 
     from  1973 as stating that the 592 released prisoners  constituted 
     15  percent of the total servicemen held by Hanoi suggesting  that 
     there  were in fact about 4,000 there before the release and  that 
     about  3500 were eventually abandoned The Associated Press and the 
     New  York Times quoted Nixon administration sources as stating  in 
     February 1973 that Hanoi held about 5,000 American prisoners which 
     would  mean that about 4,400 were left behind officially  declared 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 16
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     dead.
       The report says the Vietnamese communist leaders always regarded 
     the  US  prisoners  as collateral for the promised  economic  aid. 
     "Apparently  the  North Vietnamese were waiting for the  aid  that 
     Nixon  promised  before  they released the vast  majority  of  the 
     American POWs"
       By  April  1973  the chairman of the Armed  Services  Committee, 
     Edward Herbert,  D-La,  had said he could see no justification for 
     Nixon's  request of $3.25 billion aid to Hanoi.  It was then  that 
     the administration decided it had no hope of freeing the thousands 
     of remaining POWS, so it decided to declare them nonexistent,  the 
     Senate committee says.
       It  says that this political decision to declare all unaccounted 
     for  US prisoners dead was pursued "to extraordinary lengths."  It 
     quotes a June 1973 cable in which the US embassy in Saigon said it 
     persuaded  US  reporters  for  United  Press  International,   The 
     Associated Press and NBC to omit from their dispatches a reference 
     by  a North Vietnamese defector of live US POWS remaining in North 
     Vietnam.
       The report says that similar abandonments of remaining live POWS 
     were made in the Korean War and World War II.
     





































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 17
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

                         MIA's Widow still has many questions
                     1/13/91 Rochester, NY Democrat and Chronicle
                                  By Michael Ziegler
                         Input by Terry Hayes - Waterloo, NY
                             VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA
                                    (413) 443-6313
     
        Jane  Lono  was a good military wife.  When her  husband,  Maj. 
     Luther A. Lono, was a Marine pilot in Vietnam,  she dutifully kept 
     the home fires burning.
        When  his  plane  disappeared and he was  declared  missing  in 
     action,  she  didn't doubt the government would do all it could to 
     bring him back.
        Even after she learned that his plane had gone down in Laos - a 
     neutral   nation  the  United  States  was  bombing  secretly  and 
     illegally  -  she kept her silence because the government told her 
     to.
        She isn't silent any more.
        TWENTY-ONE  YEARS after her husband disappeared -  and 13 years 
     after  he  was declared dead -  Lono is no closer to the truth  of 
     what happened to him than she was then.
        She believes the government lied to her about the circumstances 
     of  his  disappearance and withheld evidence that her husband  may 
     have  been  taken prisoner and could still be alive  in  Southeast 
     Asia.
        She  is angry and disillusioned with a government she trusted - 
     a government her husband may have died for. She regrets she didn't 
     join the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And now,  as a deadline 
     for  another war approaches and President Bush has the go-ahead to 
     use  military force,  she wonders if we have learned anything from 
     our last major bloodletting.
        "If  Vietnam  served  a purpose,  it was to  help  prevent  any 
     needless  sacrifice  of  lives,"  said Lono,  who  lives  in  East 
     Rochester. "If we get into another war, that makes Vietnam to have 
     been in vain."
        "THE  ANTI-WAR movement during Vietnam was not an anti-American 
     movement,"  she  said.  "But  I didn't learn that until after  the 
     fact, I think that's what makes it so painful."
        Lono's  husband was in his second tour of duty in Vietnam  when 
     his  A-6 bomber disappeared on Sept.  29,  1969.  She and her four 
     children  moved  from a Marine base on the East Coast  to  Hawaii, 
     where she planned to stay until her husband returned.
        "I  went there thinking I'd be there a year or two,"  she said. 
     "I never thought I'd be there for 20."
        A portrait artist, she began taking college courses that caused 
     her  to question what the American people had been told about  the 
     war.
        After her husband was declared dead, her doubts were compounded 
     by  information she received from a reliable source that he  might 
     have survived and been taken prisoner.
        IN  THE 1980s she became active in the nuclear freeze  movement 
     and made a trip to the Soviet Union.
        "It was totally non-political,"  she said.  "It was just people 
     meeting people."  She left Hawaii a year ago to be close to family 
     members  in  the Rochester area,  her questions about her  husband 
     still unresolved. She is thinking of writing an autobiography that 
     records her journey over the past two decades.
        With  the  rebirth  of the peace movement in the  past  several 
     months,  Lono  has  been busy collecting signatures  on  petitions 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 18
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     urging  negotiations.  Last Sunday,  she marched through  downtown 
     Rochester with 5,500 others in a candlelight vigil for peace.
        Given the government's track record about her husband,  and the 
     way  it lied to the nation about the war in Southeast  Asia,  Lono 
     doubts if it is being forthright about its goals and agenda in the 
     Middle East.
        HER HUSBAND'S name,  with those of others killed and missing in 
     Vietnam, is etched on the Vietnam war memorial in Washington,  DE. 
     She  doesn't consider the memorial a place to mourn.  She believes 
     it gives her resolve to help prevent another needless war.
        "When you look at the shiny black granite, and you see the name 
     of  someone  you loved,  you look at yourself and you have to  ask 
     yourself, 'What did I do to help this, or what did I do to prevent 
     it?'" she said.
        "My  greatest  fear now is:  'Have I done enough this  time  to 
     prevent  another war?  Have I done enough to prevent other mothers 
     and  wives  and daughters and sons from going through what I  have 
     gone through?'"
     
        Michael  Zeigler  is the local news columnist for the  Democrat 
     and Chronicle.
     
                         ^^Note from Terry Hayes^^
        Prior  to  the  peace accords of 1973 the Pathet  Lao  publicly 
     admitted  to holding American Prisoners.  NOT ONE SINGLE  AMERICAN 
     PRISONER HAS EVER BEEN RETURNED FROM LAOS.
     
































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 19
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     US Veterans Group Reaffirms POW Reward Offer -- "It Is No Rumor"
           National Steering Committee for American War Veterans 
                      PO Box 1713, Kinston, NC 28503
           Input by Terry Hayes - Waterloo, NY from POW Network
                       VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA
                             (413) 443-6313
     
     FOR RELEASE 17 JULY, 1990
     CONTACT: Ted Sampley - chairman - 919-527-8079
     
       On 10 July 1990 the Reuters news wire and the Bangkok Post ran a 
     story  about  attempts  by  Cambodians to peddle  the  remains  of 
     missing American servicemen in Southeast Asia. The story,  written 
     by  Tom Lansner reporting from Pnomh Penh,  contained a number  of 
     inaccuracies  about  the efforts of private American citizens  and 
     the  National  Steering  Committee for American  War  Veterans  to 
     locate Americans still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.
       Mr.  Lansner  writes that "the existence of a committee  handing 
     out cash (for the repatriation of) remains"  is a popular myth and 
     appears  to have started after the committee threw bank notes into 
     the Mekong River.
       In  early  October  1988,  a group from  the  National  Steering 
     Committee  for  American War Veterans,  a veterans activist  group 
     based in Kinston, NC, deposited approximately 4,000 Ziploc packets 
     containing  money from Laos,  Vietnam,  Cambodia,  the US and  the 
     Soviet  Union into the Mekong River.  Each bill was stamped with a 
     reward  offer  in  several different languages promising  US  $2.4 
     million  to  anyone who could produce a live American prisoner  of 
     war.
       It   was   suggested  that  the  POW  be  turned  over  to   the 
     International  Red Cross instead of the US government in order for 
     the claim to be more expeditiously and more honestly processed.
       The  incident  was widely reported by the Bangkok Post  and  The 
     Associated   Press  and  a  cursory  check  of  your  files   will 
     substantiate this. The reward is no myth.  The US $2.4 million has 
     been  pledged  by  21 members of the United States  Congress  and, 
     according  to Capt.  Eugene "Red"  McDaniel (US  Navy-retired),  a 
     former  POW  in North Vietnam and a sponsor of the  reward,  those 
     pledges remain in effect.
       What  Mr.  Lansner  may be referring to in his article  when  he 
     speaks of the "myth"  about the money being offered for remains is 
     the United States government's intense interest in repatriation of 
     remains. This interest,  which ignores the possibility that living 
     Americans are still being held POW in Southeast Asia,  has created 
     a virtual frenzy among refugees and citizens of Laos, Cambodia and 
     Vietnam to go digging for bones.
       It  is no secret in the United States that Lao,  Vietnamese  and 
     Cambodians   have  trashed  numerous  crash  sites  in  search  of 
     salvageable  metal,   frequently  destroying  and  scattering  any 
     remains present. Subsequent excavations of these crash sites by US 
     government officials are little more than exercises in futility.
       The  US  government says it is vigorously opposed to paying  for 
     the  repatriation of living prisoners or the remains of our  dead. 
     Yet,  while  the  US government denigrates the efforts of  private 
     citizens  to  seek  an accounting by paying cash rewards  for  the 
     return of American servicemen lost during the war, it pays rewards 
     in other ways.
       The  US government is secretly paying rewards for the return  of 
     remains  to the Vietnamese and Laotian governments in the forms of 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 20
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     humanitarian aid, health clinics and trade concessions. It may not 
     pay  individuals  for bones,  but the US government is  more  than 
     willing to pay governments for those same bones.
       During  World  War II,  Korea and Vietnam,  many  United  States 
     fliers  carried "Blood Chits"  written in several languages  which 
     offered  unspecified rewards from the US government for return  of 
     downed fliers.  World War II Flying Tiger pilots were the first to 
     wear the "Blood Chits"  on their flying jackets.  Printed on silk, 
     the  "Blood  Chit"  was a pledge from the US government to  reward 
     anyone who helped a downed American airman return to Allied lines. 
     Many of the airmen who fought in Vietnam carried or wore the Blood 
     Chit, particularly the US Air Force pilots. Now, the US government 
     is reneging on that "Blood Chit" agreement.
       The  National  Steering Committee for American War  Veterans  is 
     promising to make good on the US government's promise.
       In  addition to the US $2.4 million offer for any live  American 
     POW,  the National Steering Committee for American War Veterans is 
     offering  US  $50 each for the repatriation of remains of  any  US 
     servicemen  from the war in Southeast Asia.  The money will not be 
     paid   until  those  remains  are  examined  and  verified  by  an 
     independent  forensics  expert.  Unlike  the  US  government,   US 
     veterans don't renege on their promises. Anyone seeking to claim a 
     reward  should  write  a letter and give their  name,  how  to  be 
     contacted,  and  give evidence of what they have  to:  AFAMO,  BOX 
     1079, Silom Post Office, Bangkok 10504, Thailand.
       POW/MIA activist organizations -  Homecoming II Project and Camp 
     Brandenburg  -  have pledged financial support for/to these reward 
     offers.
     






























     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 21
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     
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                       " Bring them home --- NOW !!! "
     












     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 22
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     GIs  "DEAD"  ON  SECRET  VIETNAM WAR FORAYS WERE  REALLY  CAPTURED 
                            SENATE REPORT SAYS.
                              By Peter Samuel
               Special to the 11/21/90 New York City Tribune
                   Input by: Terry Hayes - Waterloo, NY
                        VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA
                              (413) 443-6313
     
     Washington  Nov  21 -  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee  has 
     concluded  that extensive covert US operations in countries on the 
     fringes  of  Vietnam  resulted in many American  servicemen  being 
     declared dead to cover their activities.
       The  committee's  staff investigation showed that some of  those 
     declared   dead  were  almost  certainly  captured  by   Communist 
     authorities, swelling unaccounted for prisoner numbers well beyond 
     those previously published.
       Some of those declared dead may still be alive, the report said.
       Men missing on covert operations whether in fact lost,  captured 
     of   killed  would  normally  be  declared  dead  immediately  and 
     classified  Killed-in-Action,  Body-Not-Recovered  (KIA-BNR)   the 
     report said. A "cover story"  about a training of traffic accident 
     would  be  made  up  for his family to  explain  the  serviceman's 
     disappearance without revealing anything about the secret mission.
       The 67 page report obtained by the New York City Tribune, titled 
     simply "Issues" is an addendum to a report released Oct. 28,  that 
     concluded  the Nixon Administration made a formal decision in 1973 
     to abandon remaining US prisoners-of-war (POWS).
       Since that time the Dept of Defense (DOD) has been over eager to 
     accept  offerings of supposed human remains of servicemen missing-
     in-action (MIAS) from Vietnam,  the report said,  and too quick to 
     dismiss reports of live sightings of prisoners.
       "Given  some  of  the evidence that staff has found  during  the 
     course  of our investigation,  it is highly probable that a number 
     of  U.S.  servicemen listed and POW,  MIA,  or KIA-BNR (Killed-in-
     Action, Body-not-Recovered are alive in Southeast Asia today," the 
     report said.
       Senate  staff,  together  with  the  investigation  leader  Sen. 
     Charles  Grassley,  R-Iowa,  spent weeks going through  previously 
     classified   Defense  Intelligence  Agency  (DIA)   files  at  the 
     Pentagon.
       The most dramatic discovery of the Foreign Relations staff was a 
     major DIA report dated April 1974 stating that there were "several 
     hundred living POW/MIAS" being held in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. 
     It  was  signed  by  Admiral Donald  B.  Whitmire  then  executive 
     director of the DIA, and classified "Secret."
       The  assessment of "several hundred live prisoners"  was a  year 
     after  the  Nixon Administration's decision to sweep  the  POW/MIA 
     issue  under  the  carpet by declaring all lost servicemen  to  be 
     accounted for.
       The  latest report gave new details on the extent and nature  of 
     many secret operations and losses involving U.S. servicemen, State 
     Department  officers,  Central  Intelligence Agency employees  and 
     company contractors in Vietnam and in nearby countries, especially 
     Laos.
       It  made no precise estimate,  but quoted government sources  as 
     saying  that the number of persons missing from covert  operations 
     "rivals"  the  DOD'S  list of 2,302 MIA'S from U.S.  military  and 
     intelligence operations.
       The  covert  operations men,  known inside the system  as  Black 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 23
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     Cowboys,  were  involved  mainly  in Laos  in  reconnaissance  and 
     support of U.S. military operations in Vietnam, but because of the 
     Geneva  peace accords of 1962 banning outsiders in Laos,  the U.S. 
     government did not want to admit their presence in that country.
       The  new report gave more details of one on-going covert mission 
     in  Laos  that supported U.S.  Air Force bombing around Hanoi  and 
     Haiphong.  A  group  of 10 to 20 Air Force personnel and  civilian 
     technicians, officially listed as employees of Lockheed Corp. were 
     based  on  the top of Phao Pha Thi mountain in Sam Neus  province, 
     just 120 miles form Hanoi, in a site code named Lima Site 85.
       The  U.S.  servicemen were rotated every 10 days out of Thailand 
     by  CIA Air America helicopters,  and they had a security guard of 
     anti-Communist Hmong tribal soldiers on the CIA payroll.
       In late March 1968,  North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops made 
     an   early  morning  surprise  attack  on  Site   85,   eventually 
     overrunning  it.  Five air force technicians were rescued by a CIA 
     helicopter, but another 11 were lost, their status whether dead or 
     captured being unknown the report said.
       However, the next day all 11 missing were declared KIA-BNR,  and 
     saturation  bombing  of  the site was ordered  to  prevent  secret 
     electronic equipment being retrieved by Communist forces.
       "There  is evidence that as many as four of the technicians left 
     on  the  mountain  top  were taken prisoner  by  Pathet  Lao/North 
     Vietnamese troops," the Senate staff report said.
       Another  on-going  series of covert operations  involved  planes 
     used  for target-spotting in Laos along the many North  Vietnamese 
     trails  and  safe  havens.  The  pilots  known  as  "Ravens"  were 
     officially  based in Thailand but operated their light planes from 
     rough  air  strips  in  Laos.  They were  involved  in  collecting 
     intelligence,  spotting for artillery fire and providing targeting 
     for fighter bomber operations in Laos.
     
     HIGH CASUALTIES
       The  report  said many Raven pilots were lost because of  ground 
     fire,  bad  weather,  mechanical  failures or pilot error  in  the 
     dangerous mountainous flying conditions.  Those missing would have 
     been  declared  KIA-BNR  by the U.S.  government  but  some  would 
     actually have been captured.
       "Between  1957  and  1975 Army SF (Special  Forces)  lost  large 
     numbers  of  personnel in Laos and other areas of  Indochina...the 
     vast  majority  of  KIA-BNR,  loses  and  those  individuals  that 
     vanished (MIAS) remain unaccounted for to date," the report said.
       It  added that others involved in dangerous covert operations in 
     nearby  countries during the Vietnam was years including Air Force 
     commandos,  Marine Corps reconnaissance,  Navy SEALs (Sea Air Land 
     commandos)  and  other  Navy  and Army units.  It said  they  were 
     involved   in  what  the  report  calls  "covert  ground  and  air 
     operations in Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Burma, 
     China and Thailand."
       "Due  to the covert nature of their activities personnel  losses 
     from  intelligence agencies do not appear in public documents  for 
     the  Second  Indochina War (1965-75).  The number of persons  lost 
     during   covert  operations  in  Southeast  Asia  is  not  public. 
     Circumstances  of these losses are generally kept from loved ones, 
     from Congress and from others." the report said.
     



     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 24
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

                 POW/MIA Family Members Arrested in Hanoi
                             From POW Network
                  Input by: Terry Hayes, Waterloo, NY at
                        VETLink #1 - Pittsfield, MA
                              (413) 443-6313
     
                        Special to the U.S. Veteran
                               By Donna Long
     
       A group of Americans, including two POW/MIA family members, were 
     arrested  in  Hanoi  last month and threatened with a  3-12  month 
     prison  term  for distributing Vietnamese currency stamped with  a 
     reward  sticker  offering  $2.5 million for the return of  a  live 
     American prisoner of war.
       "They  said we had broken Law 81,"  said Barbara Birchim,  whose 
     husband,  Green  Beret Capt.  James Birchim,  has been missing  in 
     Vietnam since Nov. 15, 1968.
       On  February  12,  Mrs.  Birchim,  MIA sister Roni  Shanley  and 
     Vietnam  veterans  Bill  Evans  and Sam Van  Alstyne  traveled  to 
     Vietnam on a three-week visa.
       About a month before the group left, Ms. Shanley, whose brother, 
     SP5  Michael  Shanley  Jr.,  has been missing in action  in  South 
     Vietnam since Dec. 2, 1969, was contacted by the U.S. Army.
       "The  Army was real coy -  they told her they were probably  way 
     out  of line,  but they were going to come visit her and she might 
     want  to  change her mind about going to  Vietnam,"  Mrs.  Birchim 
     said.
       Five days before the group left, Army officials showed up at the 
     Shanley  home and told the family that remains had been  recovered 
     from  the crash site of a helicopter on which Michael Shanley  had 
     been a crew member.
       The  family  was  told that although only one of the  four  crew 
     members  on the helicopter had been positively identified from the 
     recovered remains, the Army had concluded all four men had died in 
     the crash.
       A  mass  burial of the remains recovered at the crash site  took 
     place  in Arlington Cemetery on April 20,  and is the second  mass 
     internment of unidentifiable remains from the Vietnam War within a 
     month.
       "I guess they thought Roni would cancel her trip - but it didn't 
     work,"  Mrs.  Birchim  said,  calling  the Army's timing of  their 
     announcement "quite a coincidence".
       The  stated  purpose  of  the group's visit to  Vietnam  was  to 
     distribute 500 pounds of medical supplies which Mrs. Birchim,  who 
     is a nurse, had collected.
       "We  delivered  the medical supplies,  but we also had a  hidden 
     agenda," Mrs. Birchim said.
       The  hidden  agenda was to pass out Vietnamese currency  stamped 
     with  a  sticker  offering $2.5 million for the return of  a  live 
     American POW.
       "We put them everywhere -  from Saigon to Hanoi -  before we got 
     caught," Mrs. Birchim said.
       On March 2, the American group made an overnight trip from Hanoi 
     to a nearby pagoda and left some of the stamped money behind.
       "Unfortunately,  Vietnamese officials found the money and we had 
     been the only visitors at the pagoda," Mrs. Birchim said.
       After  being  interrogated  for about  an  hour,  the  Americans 
     admitted what they had done and signed a document promising not to 
     put the reward stickers on any more pieces of Vietnamese currency.
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 25
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

       "We were told that would be the end of it,  but that was a bunch 
     of lies," Mrs. Birchim said.
       Mrs.  Birchim  said  when the group returned to Hanoi they  were 
     visited by an official, who flashed a badge. She said the official 
     told  everyone  in  the  group except Van Alstyne  to  be  at  the 
     Department of Interior at 10 a.m. the next morning.
       The following morning, Mrs. Birchim, Ms.  Shanley and Evans were 
     interrogated for about two hours.
       The  officials  praised  the  group  for  bringing  the  medical 
     supplies  to Vietnam,  but said they had broken the law and wanted 
     to  know the names of the provinces in which they had  distributed 
     the money and how much money they had passed out.
       "We  told them we didn't know how much we had passed out and  we 
     couldn't remember the names of the provinces," Mrs.  Birchim said, 
     adding that the latter statement was the truth.
       Mrs.  Birchim  said she showed the officials leaflets about  her 
     missing  husband and told them she had not passed them out because 
     she did not want to do anything wrong.
       On November 15, 1968, Capt. Birchim, who was wounded,  was being 
     extracted  out  of Laos with three other wounded men.  There  were 
     only  three McQuire rigs on the helicopter,  and Birchim,  who was 
     holding  onto  a  man in one of the rigs,  slipped  off  somewhere 
     between  the  Tri-border area and Kontum.  Mrs.  Birchim said  the 
     Vietnamese  told  her they knew she had the leaflets and  had  not 
     distributed them, but told her the group had broken Vietnamese law 
     by passing out the currency.
       "They  said Law 81 forbids using money for your own purposes and 
     forbids  spreading propaganda and we could be taken before a judge 
     and sentenced to 3-12 years in prison," Mrs. Birchim said.
       "I  told them we didn't know we were breaking the law because it 
     was not illegal in the United States to place stickers on money or 
     offer rewards for missing people," the MIA wife said.
       The Vietnamese officials finally agreed to let the Americans go, 
     but  not  before the group once again signed a document  promising 
     not to distribute any more currency with the reward message.
       "They  told us to have a nice life ...  that we were welcomed to 
     return  to  their  country  and then found us  four  seats  on  an 
     overbooked plane to Thailand," Mrs. Birchim said.
       Asked  if  distributing  the reward message had been  worth  the 
     risk,  Mrs.  Birchim said,  "You bet it was.  We plastered Vietnam 
     with reward messages - from the south to the north."
       Mrs.  Birchim said the only regret she had was that she had been 
     unable  to travel to Kontum,  the last place her husband had  been 
     stationed.
       "I made a promise 20 years ago,"  Mrs.  Birchim said,  and after 
     pausing  a  moment  added,  "I  may just take  them  up  on  their 
     invitation to visit their country again."
     
       Donna Long is a POW/MIA activist and free lance journalist.  Ms. 
     Long  and Vietnam Veteran Jim Copp were arrested in Laos on Oct.3, 
     1988, for passing out currency stamped with the reward message and 
     spent  41  days in prison.  Long and Copp were part of  a  program 
     sponsored  by  the  National Steering Committee for  American  War 
     Veterans  to  advertise  the  reward  inside  Vietnam,   Laos  and 
     Cambodia.  Another supporter,  Lynn Hampton (a Vietnam vet nurse), 
     distributed  over 3000 bills marked with the reward notice  inside 
     of Vietnam in early 1988.
     

     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 26
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

                        NATIONAL LEAGUE OF FAMILIES
            OF AMERICAN PRISONERS AND MISSING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
       1068 K Street, N. W., Washington D. C. 20006  (202) 223- 6846 
                           Input by: Joyce Flory
               NamVet's Incarcerated Veterans Section Editor
                    Desert Dolphin BBS - Las Cruces, NM
                              (505) 523-2811
     
                               YOU CAN HELP
     
     Write Letters: To Members of Congress urging them to help in 
     making the American people aware of the POW/MIA issue and to offer 
     bipartisan support for the U. S. government's current high 
     priority on accounting for over 2,400 missing Americans.
     
     (Name of Representative)             (Name of Senator)
     House of Representatives             US Senate
     Washington D. C. 20515               Washington D. C. 20510
     
      To editors of local papers in an effort to draw responsible 
     public attention to the missing men.
      To the Vietnamese, thanking them for increased efforts and urging 
     fulfillment of their commitment to cooperate fully with the US 
     government to resolve the POW/MIA issue within two years. Send 
     your letters to:
              SRV Mission to the United Nations
                 20 Waterside Plaza
              New York, New York 10010
     
     PUBLIC AWARENESS: Distribute factual POW/MIA information to 
     friends, co-workers and at meetings of civic, fraternal, business 
     and veterans groups.
      
     Request update articles from the League to include in national and 
     local organization publications. Obtain engagements for POW/MIA 
     speakers, particularly at national and state conventions and other 
     large gatherings.
     
     Remember POW/MIAs in appropriate ceremonies - including Veterans 
     Day, Memorial Day, Christmas services and National POW/MIA 
     Recognition Day. Public Awareness Overviews are available for 
     advance planning.
     
     SUPPORT THE LEAGUE: Help raise funds to continue this important 
     work. As suggestions: 1) Participate in the Adoption Program. 
     Individuals or organizations can adopt a missing man for $5 a 
     month. 2) Wear a POW/MIA logo lapel pin ($3 each or two for $5). 
     3) Fly a POW/MIA Flag, available from the League office at $40 
     each, prepaid.
     
     For more information and assistance in implementing programs, 
     contact the League's National Public Awareness Coordinator:
          Kathi Neal Parsels
          108 N. 26th St.,W.
          Bradenton, Fl 33505
          813-749-0398
     
     Fund raising note: Those who sponsor projects to raise funds for 
     the National League of POW/MIA Families, should convert any cash 
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 27
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

     to checks before sending to the office. The League is a non-profit 
     organization, tax exempt #23-7071242, incorporated in the District 
     of Columbia.
     
     IMPORTANT NOTE: Call the League update line: 202-659-0133, for 
     current information, 24 hours a day."
     
     VETERANS CAN HELP (Joyce's note: Backside of the leaflet)
      Along with the " YOU CAN HELP" information on the reverse side, 
     the following are suggestions particularly appropriate for use by 
     veterans groups in support of the POW/MIA issue:
     
     APPOINT A POW/MIA CHAIRMAN FOR THE CHAPTER OR POST: Request this 
     person be put on the League's mailing list to keep the membership 
     updated and coordinate POW/MIA activities.
     
     POW/MIA ADOPTION PROGRAM: For a donation of $ 5 a month or more, a 
     group can " adopt" a POW/MIA. Responsibility for the adopted man 
     includes: praying frequently for the man and his family; writing 
     letters to Congress and the Vietnamese in his behalf; and telling 
     others about him. Following are some other ideas:
     
       - Re-name the post, chapter, or unit for the POW/MIA.
       - Have an empty chair at all meetings to symbolize the missing
         man
       - Send cards on appropriate occasions (birthdays, Christmas, 
         etc.) to the missing man through the SRV Ambassador
         to the United Nations. Urge people in the community to do the 
         same.
      
     SPEAKERS: Obtain a knowledgeable speaker about the POW/MIA issue 
     for district meetings, state conventions and national events. 
     Appoint someone in the group to study the POW/MIA issue in detail 
     and to be available to speak to clubs and organizations in the 
     area. (A speakers bureau guide and speech outline are available.)
     
     COMMUNITY PARADES: Participate in local parades. Floats can be 
     made depicting POWs in captivity and using posters and other 
     material available from the League offices.
     
     SILENT PARADE: An ideal way to graphically focus on the issue is a 
     "Silent Parade." It consists of flag bearers, men in chains to 
     depict Americans in captivity, a lone drummer and columns of 
     concerned friends. A rough sketch of this type of event can be 
     provided through the League's national and special projects 
     offices.
     
     BOOTHS AT MEETINGS: Attempt to set up a table or booth at 
     district, state or national meetings where POW/MIA information can 
     be made available. (Brochures, POW/MIA decals, flyers and posters 
     can be obtained cost free from the League office.) Also, items 
     such as logo pins can be sold as a fundraiser for the League. A 
     group may also want to have items made locally such as t-shirts, 
     buttons, key chains, etc. A vendor's list is available from the 
     League office.
     
     AND 
       ... Ask for proof of POW's from those who claim to have it and 
           turn it over to responsible government authorities.
     
     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 28
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

       ... Adopt resolutions that encourage further Vietnamese/ Laos 
           Cooperation.
       ... Counter Misinformation.
     
     REMEMBER: Americans still missing in Indochina need a string, 
     unified voice from Veterans that they support the President's 
     priority and the POW/MIA Families.
                                                                   1/86 
     


















































     NAM VET Newsletter                                        Page 29
     Volume  5, Number  1                             January 21, 1991

-- 
#L.W. Jewell Moderator at the Veterans Information Site (veteran@cc.purdue.edu)#
#& WWII-L Listowner: "Sunday's horoscope is note worthy because of its strange,#
#sudden and wholly unpredictable and inexplicable occurrences, affecting all   #
#phases of life." "Your Horoscope" L.A. Evening Herald Express, Sat, 12/06/41  #