Two stories have us back from vacation early, but first,
The National Alliance of Families extends our deepest sympathy to POW activist Joe Jordan, on the passing of his mother.
Yesterday the Vietnamese announced a general amnesty for some 5219 "criminals" held in Vietnam. Included in that number, according to the Associated Press, is "an unspecified number of American expatriates."
Based on phone calls and e-mails, speculation is rising as to who the "American expatriates" might be. At this point, We Simply Do Not Know. The "American Expatriates" may be American citizens, born in Vietnam, or American's of Vietnamese decent, arrested for protesting Vietnamese religious or political oppression. They could also truly be criminals, such as drug traffickers or smugglers. For now, no one should assume the "American Expatriates" are anything more than what Hanoi says they are.
All we know, is what appeared in the AP article, as reported by Paul Alexander of the AP, in Hanoi. - "....Officials gave no details about the Americans on the list. Vietnam has said it repatriated all POWs at the end of the war, so it appears the Americans were imprisoned on criminal charges."
"The U.S. Embassy said it could not divulge who was being released or even how many, citing American privacy laws."
"The Americans had been working with the Vietnamese on releasing prisoners held for political or religious crimes and were pleased with the outcome, an embassy official said on condition of anonymity."
"Dinh reiterated Vietnam's claim that it holds no political or religious prisoners, only people who have broken the law...."
"... To qualify for the amnesty, Dinh said inmates must have served at least a third of their sentences, or 12 years in the case of a life sentence. He said he did not know the longest period that had been spent in prison. People sentenced to death were not eligible unless their sentences already had been commuted to life imprisonment."
"The group being released includes 5,166 who are being given complete amnesty and another 53 who effectively are being paroled."
"Vietnam has made two other amnesties since 1990, in 1993 and 1995, but the number involved this time is much larger, Dinh said."
Comments and Questions - First, U.S. Embassy officials need a refresher course in U.S. Privacy Laws. The name of the "American Expatriates" are protected by privacy laws. The number being released is not. Releasing the total number would not infringe on any one's privacy.
The article mentions other amnesties in 1993, and 1995. Were "American Expatriates" involved in those releases?
Just how many "American Expatriates" are held in Vietnamese jails and why are they held?
What is an Expatriate - according to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary an expatriate is an "exile."
We all hope and pray that the "American Expatriates" to be released are more than the criminals Hanoi says they are. Should they turn out to be what we hope for, we will welcome Hanoi's courage in releasing these men. If they turn out to be exactly what Hanoi says they are, criminals, we will continue our fight. Somewhere in Southeast Asia, American servicemen still wait.
The "National Intelligence Estimate" - Declassified portions of the "National Intelligence Estimate" on "Vietnamese Intentions, Capabilities, and Performance Concerning The POW/MIA Issue" was released yesterday (August 28th, 1998) [Note: Portions of the NIE in Bold type highlighted by the National Alliance of Families.]
The declassified portions of the report states, in part: "Since the early 1990s, we have seen evidence for increased Vietnamese cooperation on the POW/MIA issue in the strengthened staffing, increased responsiveness, and growing professionalization of the Vietnamese organizations that deal with this issue.
In our view, Hanoi judges that closer ties to the United States are in Vietnam' s own security and economic development interests, and that normalization requires progress on the POW/MIA issue.
US financial support for cooperative action and willingness to agree to reciprocity on Vietnamese humanitarian concerns also encourage cooperation.
Consequently, we judge that Vietnam has become more helpful in assisting US efforts to achieve the fullest possible accounting of American personnel missing in action during the Vietnam conflict. On the issue of recovering and repatriating remains of US personnel, we rate Vietnamese cooperation as excellent. Cooperation also has been good on assisting with trilateral investigations and providing documents (see table).
We think the decision to be more cooperative with the United States on POW/MIA accounting has not come easily to the Vietnamese leaders. Longstanding ideological distrust, lingering animosity from the war, suspicion of American motives and fear of intelligence exploitation all have operated at times to limit Vietnam's willingness to cooperate on recovering or accounting for US MIAs. But our reporting suggests that the POW/MIA issue no longer has the political sensitivity it once had.
Incidents of outright refusal to cooperate with US investigators have decreased, but instances in which the Vietnamese raise objections to POW, MIA activities still remain. In most cases, the Vietnamese cite considerations of sovereignty -- for example, in refusing to make internal Politburo documents accessible to US investigators; security, such as not allowing US officials to enter classified locations and facilities; or technical problems, such as difficulty in locating documents or records. Occasionally the Vietnamese state that local villagers are concerned about the intrusive nature of investigations and recovery activities.
Summary Evaluation: Vietnamese Cooperation With the United States on POW/MIA Accounting
| ELEMENT | EXCELLENT | COMMENTS |
| Joint Field Activities; Recovery Prpatriation of Remains | Excellent | Has been improving since early 1990s; increasing professionalism on part of Vietnamese |
| Assisting with trilateral investigations | Good | Vietnmese working hard to obtain Laotian cooperation in recovery efforts |
| Providing documents, personal artifacts, and equipment | Good | Vietnamese have provided numerous documents but probably are holding out on thsoe that would embarrass the government |
| Making officials available for interviews | Fair to Good | Some retired officials resent interviews |
| Live Sightings | Reluctant, but cooperation still reasonably good | Vietnamese resent live sighting investigations and questions their utility |
| Transfer of POWs to the Soviet Union | Uncertain | Vietnamese say none were transferred but issue remains open |
Moreover, although Vietnam's performance generally has improved with respect to the US POW/MIA issue, we think Hanoi has not been completely forthcoming on certain POW/MIA matters:
* In some instances, we believe full disclosure would prove embarrassing to the regime. For example, Hanoi continues to deny that US POWs were mistreated while in captivity in the North.
* We think Vietnam still has records it could make available to US investigators but which would discredit its denials of mistreatment.
* A few reports of transfers of US POWs to Russia and other countries are unexplained, and the books remain open.
Although 120 live-sighting investigations have been carried out by US teams, none has generated any credible evidence of American POWs left in Vietnam. Hanoi protests having to investigate such cases, but reports appear regularly - most recently on five POWs possibly being held in Laos - and established procedures for resolving them continue to be in effect. Although Vietnam's overall performance in dealing with the POW/MIA problem has been good in recent years, the unresolved issues noted above suggest the need for continued close attention by the US Government.
We assess continued progress in POW/MIA accounting will require overcoming two types of obstacles:
* Technical problems, such as difficulty in retrieving archival materials, contacting leads, and conducting field activities by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA), are more amenable to resolution than political obstacles. Not all can be overcome -- the passage of time and geographic change increase the difficulty of recovery operations but some can be resolved through improving technology, maintaining US financial support, and continued professionalization on the part of the Vietnamese.
* Overcoming political obstacles -- such as Vietnam's sensitivities about infringements on its sovereignty and obstructionist tendencies on archival research and live-sighting reports will be more difficult. In the past, Vietnam has reacted best to straightforwardness combined with respect and US acknowledgment of Hanoi's own MIA accounting efforts.
We have reviewed the so-called 1205 and 735 documents, which purport- falsely in our view to be reports to the party leadership containing statements that Hanoi held large numbers of US POWs above those acknowledged to the United States. We believe the judgments in the 1993 Department of Defense (DOD) assessment remain valid: that the documents are probably authentic GRU-collected documents (Soviet Military Intelligence). But many of the details of the documents, including dates and other facts, are implausible or inconsistent with reliable evidence. In particular, the numbers of POWs allegedly held by Hanoi at the times mentioned are inconsistent with reliable US Government statistics and far outnumber the actual total of open cases. We believe that neither document provides a factual foundation upon which to judge Vietnamese performance on the POW/MIA question.
What we read here is Vietnam is cooperating, but they are not fully cooperating. Duh! Read Bits 'N' Pieces, we've been saying this for years.
In a statement released August 27th, Senator Bob Smith [Note: Bolding Ours] stated: "President Clinton has certified to Congress that Vietnam is fully cooperating in good faith on the POW/MIA issue based on all information available to the U.S. Government. The declassified portion of the estimate released this week contradicts the President. There has not been good faith full disclosure by Hanoi.
While I welcome the estimate's judgment in that regard, I must say that I still have very serious concerns with the rest of the estimate. After I convinced National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to order this estimate last year, I received subsequent assurances from CIA Director George Tenet and DIA Director Lt. Gen. Pat Hughes that they would conduct "the most thorough and objective review possible." Instead, in many areas, the final product is not thorough, is not objective, and contains serious analytical flaws.
I have already conveyed some of my concerns personally to John Gannon, the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, in a closed-door meeting earlier this summer. Currently, I am preparing my own review of this estimate which will further illustrate its many inaccuracies and shortcomings, and provide additional evidence of Vietnam's continued stonewalling on key POW/MIA issues, such as the documents uncovered in former Soviet archives in 1993. It is my hope that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will step up its own review of this estimate in the coming weeks, in view of the Bipartisan concerns raised by that committee last year."
How could President Clinton certify Vietnamese cooperation "in good faith" when the National Intelligence Estimate shows otherwise? Would President Clinton.... lie?
The more things change, the more they stay the same - from Reuters August 19th - "Vietnam on Wednesday attacked the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine for the second time in two weeks, this time over an article that alleges Hanoi's security officials have classified almost every country as a foe."
"The brief article in the latest edition of the Hong Kong based weekly said a report presented by Vietnamese military generals at a Communist Party gathering last month regarded the United States as the top enemy...." According to the article, Hanoi strongly denied the charges.
Are we Hanoi's "top enemy?" What do we believe, the report in the Far Eastern Economic Review or Hanoi's denial? Obviously, no one in Washington cares. They just keep throwing more money at Vietnam, without determining if we are, in fact, considered Hanoi's "top enemy."
From Reuters, August 21st - "The U.S. Agriculture Department has for the first time extended loan guarantees to Vietnam to help it finance purchases of U.S. farm goods. The action adds Vietnam to a $90 million export credit guarantee programme already in place for five other Southeast Asian markets...."
"Under the export credit programme, the Agriculture Department guarantees loans made by commercial lenders against the possibility of default by importers..."
Servicemen Declared Identified - The Department of Defense has declared identified the following servicemen Air Force Maj. William H. Condit Jr., of Worthington, Ohio; Air Force 1st Lt. Terry M. Reed, of Randolph AFB, Texas; Navy Cmdr. Danforth E. White, of State College, Pa.; and Navy Lt. Ramey L. Carpenter, of Norman, Okla. Also declared identified was a missionary who died in South Vietnam in 1968. DoD withheld the name of this civilian, at the request of the family.
According to the American Forces Press Service "...Condit and Reed were crew members aboard a C-130B Hercules aircraft hit by enemy fire while on a resupply mission to Tay Ninh and Katum, South Vietnam on June 23, 1969...." " Remains of the four other aircraft crew members were identified in 1969."
"White and Carpenter were crew members of a RA-5C Vigilante reconnaissance aircraft that exploded in midair and crashed on March 31, 1969, while on a mission over Laos."
To their families, we hold you in our hearts and prayers during this difficult time and hope you now have the answers you waited so long for.
None of the reports issued by DoD mentions the use of mtDNA testing in the identification procedure.
