American Working in Hanoi Provided Key MIA Photos

The photographs that have broken a long impasse between the United States and Vietnam over the fate of servicemen missing from the Vietnam War were obtained by a longtime U.S. intelligence operative who has been living in Hanoi and writing a book about the Vietnamese army, according to intelligence officials and other sources.

Thousands of photographs taken by North Vietnamese combat photographers during the war, many of them grisly images of Americans killed in action or shot by their captors, have been given to the Defense Department in the last few weeks.

No U.S. official has said publicly where they came from, but reports from several sources said they came directly from Vietnamese military archives through the American in Hanoi, apparently with the consent of at least some factions in the Vietnamese government.

The American who obtained the photos was identified by people familiar with his history as Tim Schweitzer. He reportedly worked in Vietnam for the Defense Intelligence Agency during the war and later was stationed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Now officially retired from government service, he returned to Vietnam to direct a charitable organization that donated medical supplies and equipment, an activity permitted under the U.S. embargo on trade with Vietnam.

Accounts varied as to the exact position Schweitzer occupies in Vietnam. One source said he is under contract to the Vietnamese government to research the history of its army and assist in sorting military archives. Another source said he approached the Vietnamese and asked for access to the material for his book.

In any case, he reportedly came across the photos while working openly in Hanoi’s military museum.