Cover-Up on POWs in Asia Denied by U.S.
A Pentagon official today strongly denied that the government is covering up the existence of live American prisoners in Southeast Asia, but he acknowledged there is a public perception that the truth is being suppressed and the belief won’t go away.
“Allegations of a cover-up are absurd and insulting,” Richard Armitage, an assistant secretary of defense, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
More than a decade after the end of the Vietnam War, 2,441 Americans are still unaccounted for.
Armitage said the cover-up charge makes no sense because “any member of this Administration who can prove that Americans are held against their will would be a hero to the President, the secretary of defense and to the American public.”
More Resources Urged
Rep. Bill Hendon (R-N.C.) has charged that the government is covering up the existence of information about prisoners. And a suit filed in Fayetteville, N.C., charges that the government has not devoted enough resources to finding out about prisoners.
The panel was holding the last of a series of hearings into the question of prisoners in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. All three nations have denied they hold any prisoners.
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