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DoD Plots Final Abandonment of the POW/MIA Issue

June/July1996 Issue
By Charles Knight
U.S. Veteran Dispatch


A yellow flag of caution was raised when the U.S. Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Theater, Admiral Charles Larson, created an infantry type task force, designated Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA), to deal with the issue of a postwar POW/MIA accounting.
There was considerable concern expressed by both sides of Congress when Larson disbanded the highly respected Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) and placed the new Task Force under the command of a U.S. Army Major General from the infantry branch.
A red flag of warning was subsequently raised when this new commander, MG Thomas "Shredder" Needham, destroyed thousands of crucial POW/MIA documents previously maintained by the JCRC at its Liaison Office in Bangkok, Thailand.
After destroying the documents (evidence), rather than thoroughness and openness in pursuing the POW/MIA case investigations, Needham felt at ease in setting a course that emphasized speed in the accounting process and secrecy.
He dismantled, piece by piece, the accounting apparatus already in place at the time with the complicity of both Larson and the communist leadership in Hanoi.
As a part of their long range strategy, Larson and Needham worked behind the scenes to completely remove every experienced investigator working on the POW/MIA cases. After the document shredding incident became public, Needham was assigned out of sight to frigid Alaska where he maintained a low profile until earlier this year. Satisfied that he had been removed from the POW/MIA scene for a "decent interval," three months ago the DoD reassigned Needham as the Deputy Commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
In a similar fashion, the DoD upgraded the position of Commandant at the U.S. Naval Academy from two stars to four stars in order to provide shelter for an embarrassed Larson.
Thus far, the DoD strategy for abandonment of the POW/MIA issue has been complex. During 1994, on behalf of Needham's JTF-FA, the USCINCPAC in Hawaii coordinated with the Defense Prisoner of War and Missing-in-Action Office (DPMO) to gain support from both Senators Daniel K. Inouye (D, HI) and Daniel K. Akaka (D, HI) to lobby with the Veterans Administration to provide funding for the "psychological counseling" of POW/MIA family members. The idea was for both the JTF-FA and DPMO to begin refusing phone calls from family members, with the calls being transferred to psychologists of the VA. Most family members would feel insulted by this callous referral in the belief that their attempts to obtain honest answers from their government caused them to be perceived as being "crazies."
To increase the chances for the success of this diabolical scheme, the DPMO began subtle moves to divide the family member organizations by sending Washington bureaucrats across the country to brief the family members locally on a quarterly basis. For many years now, family members of Americans missing from the Vietnam War have been provided free "space available" air transportation by the U.S. Air Force from their homes to attend their annual conventions held in the nation's capitol.
During the conventions, family members have been briefed on U.S. Government efforts to account for their loved ones and in most cases they have been provided "updates" of their files. They now fear that the new regional briefings may only be a ruse by the DPMO to be used as a basis for canceling the government sponsored air transportation and participation by Washington-level officials in the annual briefings.
Family members have pointed to a recent change in the long standing procedure dictating for the first time that during their annual meetings held in 1996, commercial air service, rather than military aircraft, will be used as transportation to the annual conventions. The fear is that this change is merely another "decent interval" during which the military air units will "stand down."
On the other side of the coin, however, some supporters of the Clinton Administration have labeled such skeptics as "conspiracy theorists." They maintain that although President Clinton elected not to serve in Vietnam, he has considerable compassion for the plight of the MIA families and, therefore, will not allow any moves designed to break up the annual gatherings in Washington, D.C.
Any move to "divide and conquer" by DoD strategists will be postponed until after the 1996 election. If Clinton is in, the MIA family members are out, plain and simple.
If Senator Dole, a wounded veteran of World War II, wins the election it will depend on just how much character he really has. Only time will tell.

WHY SO LATE?

During America's long and controversial war in Vietnam, hundreds of unsuccessful "raids" were conducted by theater-level forces of the U.S. Pacific Command to "rescue" U.S. POWs held by communist forces.
Prior to the signing of the Paris Agreements, which according to U.S. negotiators ended the war and restored "peace with honor" in Vietnam, 47 Americans died while held in remote jungle prison camps of the Viet Cong, 24 Americans died while held in more permanent concrete and steel prison facilities of the North Vietnamese, and a few more fortunate individuals were "swapped" during secret exchanges arranged between Hanoi's ruling Politburo and the National Security Council/CIA in Washington, D.C.
Combined with the 591 U.S. POWs released alive during "Operation Homecoming," a possible field of approximately 700 men could have been rescued prior to the cessation of hostilities. Amazingly, not one American prisoner was successfully rescued during the war. The futile wartime rescue missions were conducted by a relatively small organization of American personnel working jointly with indigenous forces. This organization, designated the Joint Personnel Recovery Center (JPRC), was headed by a military officer with the rank of Colonel. During the critical latter stages of the war, this position was downgraded to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Although almost 600 men were lost in the neighboring Laos, missions into that country were rare. The American Ambassador to Laos at the time, William H. Sullivan, routinely denied access to rescue teams due to his concern that the missions might be perceived as violating the neutrality of Laos or possibly lead to an international incident. Many MIA family members have placed the blame for the lack of an aggressive rescue effort in Laos squarely on Ambassador Sullivan's shoulders. After the conclusion of "Operation Homecoming" in early 1973, reports of sightings of Americans still held captive continued to be received by the U.S. Government up until late 1974.
Tragically, no effort was made to pursue the reports and POW/MIA family members are frustrated by the fact that during the time the fighting was ongoing in Indochina only a small number of personnel headed by a relatively junior officer was deployed to undertake the accounting mission.
On the other hand, now that "peace" has come to Indochina, literally hundreds of young infantry personnel headed by a general officer have been deployed into Indochina to look for bone fragments.
POW/MIA family members and Vietnam veterans alike are asking: "Why didn't our government send in large numbers of infantry during the war when so many of our men were known to have been held? After the fighting ended why didn't our government send in seasoned professional investigators to determine what happened to the thousands of men who never returned?"

THE MONEY LOBBY

Recent information has surfaced which reveals that Sullivan is now Chairman of the Board of the U.S./Vietnam Trade Council, a business lobby group organized and funded by powerful corporations to pressure the Clinton Administration to fully normalize diplomatic and trade relations with Vietnam.
During efforts by the U.S./Vietnam Trade Council to rapidly increase trade ties with communist Vietnam, Sen. Charles Robb (D-VA), himself a former U.S. Marine, travelled to Southeast Asia on a private jet of Mobil Oil Corporation.
While there, Robb and Larson discussed at length the problem of the 7th U.S. Fleet providing security for drilling rigs and oil tankers in the South China Sea. Concerning the drilling concessions, former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown initially led the effort in Washington, D.C. to lift the trade embargo against Vietnam so that America's oil companies could drill for Vietnam's oil.
Brown was later embroiled in a controversy involving illegal allegations that he negotiated and accepted a $700,000 bribe from Communist Vietnam to influence the Clinton administration to drop the embargo. Although such contacts were illegal due to the trade embargo in place at that time, the Justice Department dropped the case against Brown due to his considerable clout in Congress.
After receiving a letter encouraging him to normalize relations with Vietnam written by former prisoner of war Pete Peterson, a U.S. congressman from Florida, in June of 1995, Clinton announced the normalization of diplomatic relations with Vietnam on July 12, 1995. Clinton later announced that he was appointing Peterson as U.S. Ambassador to Vietna, and A. Vernon Weaver as the Ambassador to the European Union. Weaver currently serves in the Clinton administration as a member of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Naval Academy. He also served as president of Overseas Services, supervising international operations in Europe and the Pacific rim for Stephens Group and Stephens Inc., an investment banking firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. Weaver was administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) from 1977 to 1981. While at the SBA, he initiated the Certified Bank Program, which transferred administration of government guaranteed small business loans from the SBA to private banks. Some of these banks have more recently been implicated in the White Water scandal. Insiders say that Weaver will continue to press the White House to retain Larson at the U.S. Naval Academy and he will also instruct Sens. Dale Bumpers and David Pryor of Arkansas to support the appointment of Peterson as Ambassador to Vietnam.

CULTURE OF HYPOCRISY

Since Needham assumed command at Fort Bragg there has been a rash of disciplinary problems unheard of in previous years. Larson's quality of leadership has also been called to question since his arrival there has led to a host of problems including a car-theft ring, sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse, cheating and drug-dealing. Also at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, 11 Navy Corpsman were arrested and charged with alleged use of cocaine, LSD, and ecstasy. Twenty-one American sailors were also recruited by a Nigerian drug cartel smuggling cocaine and heroin into Italy from Turkey and other countries.
The first 14 arrests were announced by American naval officials in Italy on May 16, the day of the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jerry Boorda's suicide. According to ABC, the group was headed by a Lieutenant Commander and at least two of those arrested had the highest clearance because they worked on decoding equipment used by the National Security Agency.
Under Needham, U.S. Marine Corps personnel in the JTF-FA were court martialed for smuggling drugs from Pattaya, Thailand back to Hawaii. Under Larson, the United States Marine Corps graduates of the academy have not fared much better. Chief Warrant Officer Bill Wright, spokesman at the Marine training base at Quantico, has recently stated publicly that nine newly commissioned officers cheated on a map reading exercise, an offense that could lead to their possible expulsion from the corps.
During the time that he was in charge at CINCPAC, one of the USMC's most senior generals, a close personal friend to Larson, was court martialed and discharged from military service for falsifying his flight hours.
The U.S. Veteran Dispatch has learned that the court martial was nothing more than a coverup of a far more serious incident which would have shaken the foundation of the U.S. Military had it been revealed and that Larson was the key to the coverup.
Leadership traits exhibited by Needham and Larson have resulted in calls for their dismissal to the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose membership includes stalwart veterans of wartime naval service such as Senator Bob Smith (R, NH).
In addition to forwarding a detailed memo calling for criminal investigation of Needham and Larson to Attorney General Janet Reno, Sen. Smith has pledged to veterans and MIA family members that any future career development actions by DoD to reward Needham or Larson will be closely scrutinized by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In apparent reference to the current problems at the Naval Academy and the shredding of POW/MIA documents, Dr. James Barry, a Naval Academy professor of ethics and leadership pinioned that "there is a culture of hypocrisy at the academy and throughout the Navy that tolerates misbehavior and encourages covering up problems".
Larson and Needham may find that "covering up problems" might not be such an easy task because several independent researchers have risen to the challenge of archival research in order to reconstruct the important files shredded by Needham under Larson's tutelage.





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