U.S. Assuming Some MIAs May Be Alive

The Reagan Administration assumes that American soldiers may still be alive in Indochina as long as it cannot disprove all the reports that it has received from refugees, mercenaries and others claiming to have spotted servicemen under Communist control, a top Pentagon official said Monday.

Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage said intelligence officials have investigated more than 800 reports of live Americans in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia over the last 10 years, and in at least 95 cases, they have turned up no information that would justify dismissing the reports as unfounded.

Thus, he said in an interview on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning, America” program, “the Administration acts under the assumption that at least some Americans are held against their will.”

‘Best Scrutiny’

Assistant Secretary of State Paul D. Wolfowitz, appearing on NBC-TV’s “Today” show, used similar figures, saying “there are roughly 100 (cases) that we believe hold up under this best scrutiny we can put to them.”

In a later briefing at the Pentagon, however, Armitage acknowledged that he has no firm evidence that Americans still are living in Indochina, either willingly or as prisoners. Some of the 95 active cases date back to 1975, and no alleged sightings occurred in any of these since 1983, he said.

The remains of almost 2,500 Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War years have yet to be recovered. Defense Department officials consider almost all of these servicemen to be dead. The Administration, caught between the lack of definitive data on MIAs and the unsubstantiated conviction of many conservative supporters that Americans are still being held prisoner, sometimes has tried to play down the reports and at other times has acknowledged their potential validity.

McFarlane Remarks

Former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane appeared to break from the official indecision in October when, speaking to a private gathering of business executives in Washington, he reportedly said he believes Americans are alive and in Vietnamese hands.

But according to a transcript of the session provided by one of the audience members, McFarlane acknowledged that intelligence sources “haven’t yet found the evidence” to prove whether any Americans are alive.