This letter is Ted Sampley's response to Bob Destatte's letter on the
issue of American's being abandoned in SE Asia:
Bob Destatte,
In reference to your demands for answers to the following questions:
". . . (a) Specifically, why you chose the word "abandoned?"
(b) Specifically, what do you understand the word "abandoned" to mean?
(c) Specifically, who "abandoned" Americans in Southeast Asia?
(d) Specifically, when did these persons "abandon" their countrymen and fellow
servicemen?"
The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs before which you testified
concluded in its January 1993 final report (page 6) that American servicemen
were left behind alive and in captivity. That published statement from the
United States Senate admits that American servicemen were left behind alive.
So, if the U. S. government left American POWs behind as the Select Committee
concluded, then U.S. prisoners of war were obviously abandoned, weren't they?
The Select Committee, in order to soft pedal this abandonment, also concluded:
"We acknowledge that there is no proof that U.S. POWs survived."
That "no proof" assertion, is an outright lie. It was an effort by the pro-Hanoi
Senators who controlled the Select Committee to cleans their conscience.
After all, the objective of leading Select Committee members Senators John
Kerry and John McCain was to get the U.S. imposed trade embargo against Vietnam
lifted so that their friends in corporate America (including Kerry's cousin
Stewart Forbes and McCain's beer baroness wife) could tap into Vietnam's
slave labor market.
The woman responsible for editing the Select Committe final report (Frances
Zwenig), gravitated over to become Vice President of the U.S.-Vietnam Trade
Council after the report was issued (a six figure job). That organization
had led the way lobbying Congress to normalize trade and diplomatic relations
with Vietnam.
Mr. Destatte, you're the so-called expert here. The Senate Select Committee
says the United States left prisoners of war behind alive but there's no
evidence to prove they're still alive.
Produce the evidence proving these men are dead.
Why did they die?
Who is responsible for their deaths?
Where are their remains?
Why have they not been returned?
By the way, during a break in one of the Senate Select Committee hearings,
I happened to be standing close enough to you to hear your remarks to a
delegation of Communist Vietnamese who were there to observe the hearings.
You were groveling, trying to apologize for not doing a better job of defending
their interests in your testimony.
It was a sickening experience and the way I shall always remember you.
