LAOS:

Let me now turn to that tiny land-locked country that shares its northern border with China --Laos. Laos also wants normal trade relations with the United States right now, and the State Department has been poised to try to push it through the Congress, and some in Congress want to move ahead and give them that MFN status. I'm not convinced that this should be done this way, with no strings attached, nor is Senator Smith. And we made our position known to the our Ambassador to Laos last summer, and I want to commend The American Legion for taking a similar view.

I spent a lot of time when I spoke to your national convention in Salt Lake City in September, 1996, focusing on the POW question as it pertains to Laos, so I'm not going to dwell on it now. But let's remember the central question here --What happened to the American POWs who were captured in northern Laos and held by North Vietnamese and/or Pathet Lao communist forces? None of the American POWs captured and held in northern Laos starting in the mid-1960's have ever been returned or even accounted for. None. The evidence was convincing during the war.

How could the Vietnamese and the Lao not know what happened to these Americans? They were held in the caves in the backyard of the Pathet Lao, and several of them, according to CIA and DIA wartime intelligence reports, were subsequently moved into North Vietnam's backyard? So how could they not know what happened to these POWs under their direct control?

Remember, in 1973, President Nixon said, in a secret cable to the Communist side, that it was "inconceivable" that there were not more POWs from Laos being returned, other than the nine U.S. personnel on the list turned over in Paris. (And those 9 people had all been immediately moved to North Vietnam following their capture, and none of them had been held in northern Laos in the Pathet Lao strongholds --specifically the Sam Neua area.) so President Nixon said it was inconceivable that there were not more POWs --that's a quote.

Retired General Richard Secord, who knew this issue inside and out, since he was in laos during the war running the air war and tracking pows --he told our Senate Select Committee in 1992 that it was "absurd" to think that all the American POWs captured in Laos had been returned. That was his quote. "Absurd."

Admiral DePoix, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1973, said that the list of the nine U.S. personnel from Laos on the POW list was "ridiculously low." That was his quote --"ridiculously low."

And all of this led the Secretary of Defense to recommend in 1973 that the State Department tell the Communist side "unequivocally", and I'm quoting here, "that we still hold them responsible for the release of U.S. prisoners being held in Laos... the U.S. will no longer play games with the POW issue in Laos. The Pathet Lao should be told that we know they hold U.S. prisoners, and we demand their immediate release." End quote.

So we had words like absurd, inconceivable, ridiculous, no longer going to play games --that's what our government told the communists after the acknowledged pows were released in 1973.

But my point here is the same that I made to your convention in 1996 --we still haven't seen words like absurd, inconceivable, ridiculous, used by our government in recent years concerning the continued claim by Communist officials in Vietnam and Laos that all the POWs were released in 1973 and they can't account for any other POWs. The Communist government in Laos, and even in Hanoi, has to be held accountable for these American POWs, and that is why we will incorporate this problem into Senator Smith's forthcoming legislation --it will be a condition in the development of our economic relations with Laos, as it should be.

VIETNAM:

Here again, I'm glad the American Legion's view of Hanoi's cooperation is the same as Senator Smith's. Simply put, there has not been full disclosure by Hanoi about unaccounted for American POWs and Mias. The facts speak for themselves. We have not had access to relevant POW information in the Communist Party Central Committee, Politburo, or Secretariat level records from the war. We have not had access to prison records where our U.S. POWs were known to have been held, and even suspected to have been held, during the war. We have not had full access to Vietnamese wartime reporting on American POWs captured along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, and at other locations in Laos, such as Lima Site 85, where several U.S. personnel remain unaccounted for. And we have not had a convincing or satisfactory response from the Vietnamese Government about the documents we found in Russian archives that I mentioned earlier which indicate Hanoi held more U.S. POWs than they repatriated.

Despite all of this, the President continues to certify to Congress that Hanoi is fully cooperating in good faith. As you may recall, this Presidential certification is necessary in order for funds to be spent for diplomatic relations. So, we're really not surprised that the President keeps making this inaccurate certification in order to advance his normalization agenda with Vietnam. But it really is a sad commentary on our foreign policy toward Vietnam, and our commitment to the POW/MIA issue. Remember this when you hear the rhetoric about how this is our highest national priority with repect to Vietnam.

Some of you will remember the last time Senator Smith spoke to your mid-winter convention was two years ago when the Senate was considering whether to confirm a U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam. As a condition for letting that nomination go through the Senate, a deal was reached with the White House in which they agreed to do what's called a national intelligence estimate on the Vietnam POW/MIA issue, with special emphasis on those documents from Soviet archives.

That formal assessment, led by the CIA, was completed last year, and the full results of that assessment, which have not been declassified, raise very serious and troubling questions about the thoroughness and objectivity of the collection and analysis done by our U.S. Intelligence Community. Senator Smith wrote a classified 200-page assessment of what the Director of Central Intelligence came out with. We believe their reseach was either shoddy or reflected a predetermined effort to discredit relevant information.

I'm pleased to announce this afternoon that the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama and Senator Robert Kerrey of Nebraska, have now formally called on the Inspectors General of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense to conduct an independent investigation and to respond to the charges contained in our classified 200-page report, which I wish I could speak about in more detail, but, unfortunately, I cannot at this time.

We asked last November for all of this to be declassified, but so far, we haven't received a response to that request. So this may end up being another part of our comprehensive legislation as well, which frankly brings me to my final subject this afternoon --declassification and disclosure of U.S. Government POW/MIA reports -this is under the country -United States of America -the last nation on our world tour.

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE AND ACCESS TO U.S. POW/MIA RECORDS:

Many of you know that Senator Smith has made extensive efforts through the years, both when he was a Congressman, and since coming to the Senate, concerning release of POW/MIA reports. We passed an amendment to the Intelligence bill for 1989 requiring the release of POW/MIA reports to the families of our unaccounted for servicemen. During the Senate Select Committee investigation in 1992, we succeeded in getting an Executive Order issued mandating the review and release of POW/MIA reports that didn't involve our national security. In 1996, Senator Smith amended the so-called McCain bill to make it applicable to Korean War records as well, and to clarify how that process should work.

Despite all of these efforts, as many of you know, many POW/MIA reports collected by our intelligence agencies have yet to be processed for declassification. Over the last few years, Senator Smith and I have seen several such reports in classified form, and we are aware of several hundred other such reports that have not been released, including records held by CIA, and records that we uncovered or obtained during our Senate investigation in 1992. The reasons cited are multifold --we've been told it's a question of resources; we've been told there are sensitive sources or methods which preclude even putting out a redacted report; we've been told the reports could adversely affect our foreign policy, and they even specifically referenced normalization of relations with Vietnam at one point. Can you believe that? But what's even more amazing, is that we are told none of these still-classified reports are credible and convincing. So why are they afraid to let you see them?

Regardless of their reasons or motives, we are now convinced that the laws governing release of POW/MIA intelligence reports need to be revised, and this is going to be a major feature of our forthcoming legislation. As I said, we hope to name our bill the POW/MIA Full Disclosure and Accounting Act of 1999 --not just full disclosure by communist governments abroad, but by our own Government as well. And this should be done in such a way that it's made easier than it is now for a family member, fellow veteran, or reseacher to go to an office, and pull up a POW/MIA database on a computer, and then search it for information. The Library of Congress and the National Archives have made some efforts in this area, but we think we can do an even better job, and that legislation will help set the guidlines and the organizational structure for getting this done.

As always, the Legion's input on all of the issues I have discussed this afternoon will continue to be solicited by our office. I'm grateful for the excellent working relationship we have had through the years, and I look forward to any questions.