‘Compelling’ Evidence of POWs Told

The Republican vice chairman of a Senate panel investigating the fate of American POWs said Tuesday there is “compelling” evidence, despite official assertions to the contrary, that U.S. prisoners of war were held in Vietnam and Laos “as late as 1989.”

At the same time, complaining that information about the fate of POWs is not being declassified quickly enough, Sen. Robert Smith (R-N.H.) also released the names of 125 missing servicemen who apparently were captured during the Korean War and interrogated by Soviet officials before being sent off to prison camps in China, where they disappeared.

The names came from a list provided by Russian officials, which some congressional sources said the Russians had provided to the State Department and the Pentagon months ago. Smith, addressing an afternoon news conference, said he could not elaborate on most of the evidence about the Vietnam POWs because it was contained in intelligence assessments and POW sighting reports that were still classified.

The Senate POW/MIA Committee has been poring over thousands of classified documents containing information about reports that American POWs were detained in Vietnam and Laos long after the last prisoners were supposed to have been returned.

Other members of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, including its chairman, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), agreed that the evidence is intriguing, although still not conclusive.

Kerry said the documents, many of them “records that have been kept hidden from the American people for more than 20 years,” include lists of POWs held in North Vietnam and memorandums showing that the Pentagon at first tried to cover up U.S. losses in Cambodia and Laos.

“I have not made a judgment yet,” Kerry said when asked whether he believed the evidence proved that American POWs were held in Vietnam long after the war’s end. “There is a lot that still needs to be examined and vetted by the committee before we make a judgment on that.”

Another source familiar with the evidence described it as “convincing and compelling stuff.” But he also said it “does not prove definitely” that POWs were held as late as 1989.

The source added that further investigations would have to be conducted before the committee can reach its conclusions.

The committee is pressing the Administration to turn over more information on missing American servicemen. About 70 newly declassified documents are to be released during several days of hearings that the committee will hold beginning today.

Smith said his list of the 125 missing Korean War servicemen was compiled from a larger list--identical to that given the Pentagon--obtained independently from Russian officials during a visit to Moscow in February.

Subsequent cross-checking with Pentagon records revealed that of the 536 names on the Russian list, 265 were those of POWs later returned to the United States, while 146 remain unidentified, appearing on no Pentagon list of American POWs, MIAs or war casualties.

The remaining 125, who include at least six servicemen from California, “match perfectly” with the names of those already in Pentagon files as prisoners of war or servicemen missing in action and now presumed dead, Smith said.

“We have been told by the Russians that these people were alive and were interrogated by the Soviets in North Korea and that some were then sent to China,” he added.

Smith said the Russian list contained only names, with no reference to rank or branch of service and that the committee’s effort to identify the POWs listed was being frustrated by the Pentagon’s delay in providing more information.

However, a committee source said that the sketchy information so far compiled by Senate investigators identified at least six of the POWs as Californians: Charles Bamford, George R. Halbert, Wayne B. Macomber, Raymond M. Moreno, Henry D. Weese and William H. Wilner. No hometowns were given.

Committee sources said that, despite having been in possession of the list for at least several months, neither the Pentagon nor the State Department apparently had made any effort to locate and inform relatives.