By Some Miracle, Are They Alive? : Shocking MIA document opens old wounds

For two decades the Hanoi government has steadfastly maintained that it repatriated all the American prisoners of war it held in 1973, when U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam under terms of the Paris peace agreement, and that it had absolutely no information about the fate of other servicemen either missing in action or known to have been captured. A top-secret document found by Harvard researcher Stephen Morris in the archives of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union now appears to expose that claim as a lie.

The White House says the new information will be a top issue when President Clinton’s special envoy on the prisoner-of-war issue, retired Army Gen. John W. Vessey, meets with Vietnamese officials in Hanoi this weekend. Spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers said that “we need to know that the Vietnamese are doing all they can on the . . . issue” before efforts to normalize relations proceed. The problem is that the officials Vessey will ask to do “all they can” are to a great extent the same officials who all along have denied knowing anything about the missing men.

Vietnam says the explosive document is a fabrication, but American experts believe that--although it may not be accurate in every particular--it is authentic. The urgent question now is not whether Hanoi hid the truth but what happened to the captives who are now believed to have been held in prison camps just a few months before repatriation began. Vessey must demand a full accounting: names, whether--by some miracle--any are still alive, and the date and circumstances of death for those who perished.

The document now in U.S. hands was purportedly written by a North Vietnamese general in September, 1972, when Hanoi was publicly saying that it was holding only 368 U.S. POWs. The true figure, wrote Gen. Tran Van Quang to North Vietnam’s top leadership, was 1,205, held in 11 different prison camps. Seven months later, 591 Americans were set free, with North Vietnam claiming it had emptied the camps. By Quang’s own count 614 men were kept behind, their very existence denied by Hanoi. Why? Was this part of a larger political calculation, or simply an act of vengeful cruelty?

For 18 years, since the communist victory in the Indochina war, the United States has maintained a trade embargo against Vietnam. As Hanoi moves to adjust to post-Cold War economic and political realities, American business and governmental interest in dropping the sanctions has increased. Now, suddenly and emphatically, the whole POW-MIA issue has again been brought to the forefront of U.S.-Vietnam relations. The new evidence of Hanoi’s apparent deceit must be confronted. With all the force at its command, Washington must insist on getting the full facts and the terrible truths about the missing servicemen.