Hanoi Gives U.S. Papers Disputing Report on POWs

The Vietnamese government Sunday turned over to a special emissary of President Clinton documents it said prove that a disputed wartime report on American prisoners of war is a fake.

The six documents were handed to retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., here for two days of talks with the Vietnamese about prisoner issues. Vessey, a special presidential adviser on POW matters, said the recently discovered report, which has threatened to derail progress in normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam, was his “first priority.”

The controversial document, unearthed in Russian government archives by a Harvard University researcher in January, purports to be a Russian-language translation of a Vietnamese army report that 1,205 American POWs were alive in North Vietnam in 1972 while the government admitted to holding only 368 American prisoners.

Ho Xuan Dich, director of the Vietnamese office that handles POW matters, said the documents turned over Sunday included a contemporary census of the prisoner population from April, 1964, to February, 1972, when the number of POWs was put at 368.

Dich said the census, which he asserted had been unearthed in Defense Ministry archives only last week, was evidence that the Russian-language document “was fabricated.”

After the signing of the Paris peace accords in January, 1973, the Vietnamese released 591 American POWs in exchange for Vietnamese prisoners. The Pentagon has said that 2,200 American servicemen are still listed as missing in action.

Vessey asked Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Le Mai for a copy of the original report, the Russian translation of which was later found in the Russian archives. But Le Mai said such a document never existed.

“It is something fabricated completely, based on nothing,” Le Mai told reporters. He added that he believes the document was “fabricated” either in the United States or Russia.

In addition to the prisoner census, Le Mai gave Vessey hospital reports and air defense information, but it was not clear how they were related to the current controversy. The documents were taken to the U.S. POW-MIA Affairs Office in Hanoi for analysis by Defense Department experts.

In addition to the prisoner list, Vessey is also believed to be seeking the minutes of a Sept. 15, 1973, Vietnamese party Politburo meeting at which the Vietnamese army report was supposedly read. It was not clear whether the Vietnamese would comply with this request, which is considered highly sensitive.

Le Mai reminded reporters about a controversy last year that followed a statement by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin that American POWs had been moved to Russia from Vietnam. The allegation was later shown to have no foundation.

Vessey said he had spoken last week with Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, a Russian army officer who is Moscow’s representative on Russian-American committee on prisoner matters. Vessey said Volkogonov had verified the authenticity of the Russian-language document.

Vessey is scheduled to meet today with retired Vietnamese army Gen. Tran Van Quang, who was identified as the author of the document found in the Russian archives. Quang was described in the report as deputy chief of staff of the North Vietnamese Army, but the Hanoi government said that at the time the report was allegedly written--September, 1972--Quang was a field commander in central Vietnam and not attached to army headquarters as suggested.

Vessey answered “yes” when he was asked if the Vietnamese had been forthcoming during the talks, which included a private one-hour meeting between Vessey and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam.

“We’ve had an important and very useful meeting,” Vessey said. “We’ve made some progress.”

Le Mai promised that Vietnam would continue “our humanitarian cooperation” with the United States on the prisoner issue despite the current furor.

“We should not take this as a political issue,” the Vietnamese official said. “If we tie it to political issues, the situation will go up and down along with the political climate.”

Nonetheless, a quick resolution of the political controversy following the appearance of the document is considered crucial to Vietnam’s hopes of winning relaxation of the U.S.-led economic embargo against the country.

Last year, Vietnam released thousands of photographs and documents aimed at resolving lingering questions about the fate of servicemen listed as missing in action in the Vietnam conflict. That action was seen as a breakthrough in the POW impasse and led Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), head of a Senate committee on the POW issue, to call for a relaxation of the embargo.

A key test of U.S. resolve will come at the end of this month, when Japan and France are expected to press the International Monetary Fund to consider new loans for Vietnam’s development. The United States has consistently vetoed lending to Vietnam, which has had the effect of keeping international organizations from providing assistance other than humanitarian aid.

Before the existence of the Russian document was disclosed, President Clinton reportedly was leaning toward a relaxation of the ban on international loans in appreciation for Vietnam’s cooperation.

But conservatives in the United States and relatives of American servicemen missing in action have seized on the document as justification for their continued opposition to easing the embargo.