Clinton Envoy Cites Doubts on POW Report : Vietnam: The named author tells retired Gen. Vessey that he wrote no such document.

An emissary from President Clinton said Monday that two days of talks with the Vietnamese government have raised new doubts about the authenticity of a report discovered in Moscow that appears to show that Hanoi lied about the number of American prisoners it held at the end of the war.

John W. Vessey Jr., a retired army general who serves as special presidential envoy on POW matters, made the comment after meeting with a retired Vietnamese general who was named as the author of the disputed report.

The Vietnamese officer, Tran Van Quang, categorically denied writing any report about American prisoners and said that at the time the report was alleged to have been issued, he was in South Vietnam directing combat units around the city of Hue.

The disputed report was found in the archives of the defunct Central Committee of the Soviet Communist party by a Harvard University researcher. The Russian-language document purports to be a translation of a report given to the Vietnamese Politburo on Sept. 15, 1972, stating that the number of POWs held by North Vietnam was 1,205 instead of the 368 it acknowledged holding at the time.

Because of the implicit suggestion that the Vietnamese held back or killed hundreds of American POWs, the disclosure of the report’s contents has kindled a heated controversy at a time when the Clinton Administration was apparently on the verge of easing an 18-year U.S. economic embargo against Hanoi.

Meanwhile, a separate furor has erupted over reports that thousands of eyewitness records collected by U.S. investigators looking for American POWs in Indochina had been shredded at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. The files were reportedly stored in the archives of the Joint Task Force Full Accounting, the Defense Department office responsible for investigating POW matters.

Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Needham, the commander of the Joint Task Force, told The Times that an investigation has been ordered into the reported shredding. When asked if he had ordered the destruction of the documents, Needham said, “It would be premature to comment while an investigation is being conducted.”

Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam reiterated to a news conference Monday that Hanoi believes that the report found in Moscow is a fabrication designed to derail an improvement in bilateral relations between Vietnam and the United States.

Cam said that in addition to the report being wrong in describing Quang as a deputy chief of staff in 1972, a review of records of the Vietnamese Communist Party showed that no meeting of the Politburo had taken place Sept. 15, 1972, as the report suggested.

Additionally, he noted that the report’s contention that the prisoners included three former astronauts has been denied by the Pentagon itself. He said that the number of high-ranking prisoners given in the report “was far higher than in reality.”

He also disputed the report’s contention that prisoners were classified by the Vietnamese according to their attitudes toward the war, saying POWs were categorized solely on the basis of how long they had been prisoners.

Cam said he was suspicious of the motives of Stephen Morris, the researcher who found the document. He said Morris had taken part in anti-Vietnamese activities in Australia and the United States.

Asked at the news conference if he now had more doubts about the report’s authenticity than when he arrived Sunday, Vessey answered, “Yes.” He said that after hearing the 76-year-old Vietnamese general’s account of his career and comparing that information with what the Pentagon already knew about him, “I have no reason to disbelieve Gen. Quang.”

Quang, who now heads the Vietnamese Veterans’ Assn., told reporters he never had any responsibility for U.S. prisoners. He said that from 1964 until 1973, he was in charge of the so-called B4 front in central Vietnam. The only time he spent in Hanoi during 1972, he said, was four days in late December.

The report found by Morris described Quang as a deputy chief of staff, a post he didn’t take until 1974, two years after the report was allegedly written.

“I told John Vessey that never in my life had I made such a report,” Quang said. “It was beyond my responsibility.”

During his talks with the Vietnamese, Vessey was given seven documents designed to clarify both the number of prisoners Hanoi held and the number of prisoners who died in captivity.

“The U.S. side indicated these documents will assist in its efforts to account for U.S. servicemen,” Vessey said. “They also appear to shed light on the Russian document but further analysis is required.”