Yeltsin Raises POW Hopes in County : Vietnam War: His remarks that servicemen were moved to Russia encourage activists, some of whom are critical of Bush.

News that U.S. prisoners of war captured in Vietnam might still be alive in Russia has boosted the hopes of Ventura County activists in a flagging nationwide movement to account for servicemen missing in action.

“It’s like we kind of knew this was happening, but nobody wanted to believe us in the past,” said Richard Camacho, president of Vietnam Veterans of Ventura County Inc. “It’s just one of those things, we don’t want to give up hope.”

Gary Parker, head of the group’s committee on missing soldiers, described Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s disclosure Monday as the most exciting breakthrough since a photo turned up last year of three men believed to have been photographed recently at a Vietnamese prison camp.

Yeltsin said some prisoners held during the Vietnam War were moved to labor camps in the Soviet Union, and speculated that some may still be alive.

“This is the break that we’ve really been looking for all these years--someone of repute who would come forward and say something like this,” said Parker, who served with the U.S. Navy Seabees in Da Nang 1968 and 1969.

As a result of Yeltsin’s comments, the photo--purportedly of American soldiers Larry Stevens, John Leighton Robertson and Albro Lundy Jr., wearing Russian uniforms--will be published in two Russian newspapers, according to Stevens’ mother, Gladys Fleckenstein.

Fleckenstein said a U.S. Navy official telephoned her Tuesday morning to inform her that she would get translated copies of the stories accompanying the photo.

“I honestly believe in my heart that we have men in Russia,” Fleckenstein said. “I hope and pray that we see somebody come out of there alive whether it’s my son or (not). . . . If we could just get one out, it would break the whole thing open.”

Larry Stevens’ brother, Garry Stevens, 47, of Camarillo, said he had been listening to news reports all day and felt emotionally overwhelmed.

“We’ve been told we’re crazy, ‘You people are nuts, there couldn’t possibly be any Americans left anywhere in the world as POWs,’ ” said Stevens, whose brother was shot down 23 years ago over Laos. “I can’t imagine (Yeltsin) saying these things and not being able to back them up.”

Leaders of the county’s Vietnam veterans group have spent years hoping for a missing soldier to return to the United States as living proof that their theories are justified.

“It would throw things into chaos, but I’d like to see it happen,” Camacho said.

Yeltsin’s remarks also provided encouragement to such activists as Virginia Nasmyth Loy of Ojai, whose brother was held in Hanoi from 1966 to 1973 and was freed after she and her family fought for years to bring him home.

“I want to bring a guy home real bad,” said Loy, 42, who has continued to work on what she calls the “POW pipeline” even after her brother, Spike, came back to America.

Loy was among those in the veterans group who criticized the Bush and Reagan administrations for ignoring the POW issue.

“I’m personally deeply ashamed, down to the bone marrow, of President Bush and his utter lack of leadership in this matter,” Loy said.

“If it was the highest national priority, this should have been put to bed by now,” said Jean Ray, 65, of Santa Maria, whose stepson, James Michael Ray, was captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and is still missing.

“I know that he was a prisoner, so he should be accounted for one way or another,” said Ray, who attends the county veterans group meetings. “Naturally, our hopes are that he is alive.”

Camacho reiterated accusations that the Reagan and Bush administrations have done little or nothing to find the missing POWs. He suggested that locating a live POW would only be an embarrassment to Bush, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“We’ve left them there for this long, we haven’t really looked for them,” said Camacho. “People say they don’t really want to come back. Well, I’d like to hear it from them.”

Parker voiced a clear opinion on what Bush’s agenda should be. “I think Bush ought to get on a plane, go over, and pick them up and bring them home,” he said. “That’s it. Real simple.”

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), a member of the POW-MIA Congressional Task Force, said he was encouraged by Yeltsin’s announcement because it signals that information may be released in the form of KGB files.

Gallegly also defended Bush’s actions so far in continuing the search for the missing prisoners. “I am absolutely convinced that George Bush has been every bit of concerned about POWs and MIAs as anyone else in this country,” he said.

MAIN STORY: A7