This Site last updated: May 23, 2006

The Evidence Is Clear

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April 3, 1973: Pathet Lao (Laotian Communist) forces declare they are holding more than 100 American POWs and are prepared to give a full accounting of them The U.S. government responds 9 days later declaring they are all dead -- without ever talking to the Laotians about the POWs they admit holding!

1970-1976: After the French pay an unspecified sum of money to the Vietnamese, the communists release POWs captured in 1954! The North Vietnamese had claimed all of them had died.

June 25, 1981: Defense Intelligence Agency Director Eugene Tighe testifies before the House Subcommittee on Asian/Pacific Affairs that live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.

December 7, 1984: The Washington Times reports that Bobby Garwood, released by Vietnam 1979, saw up to 70 live captive Americans long after the war ended.

June 28, 1985: The Washington Times reports DIA Director Lieutenant General Eugene Tighe testified Hanoi is still holding at least 50-60 live American POWs.

October 15, 1985: The Wall Street Journal reports that National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane says live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.

August 19, 1986: The Wall Street Journal reports the White House knew in 1981 Vietnam wanted to sell an unspecified number of live POWs for $4 billion. The White House decided the offer was genuine -- and ignored it!

September 30, 1986: The New York Times reports a Pentagon panel estimates up to 100 live American POWs are held in Vietnam alone.

October 7, 1986: CIA Director William Casey says: "Look, the nation knows they (the POWs) are there, everybody knows they are there, but there's no grounds well of support for getting them out. Certainly, you are not suggesting we pay for them, surely not saying we could do anything like that with no public support."

January 1988: A cable from the Joint Casualty Resolution Center states that during General Vessey's visit to Hanoi, "The Vietnamese people were prepared to turn over 7 or 8 live American POWs if Vessey told them what they wanted to hear. All the prospective returnees were allegedly held in a location on the Lao side of the border."

June 10 1989: The Washington Post reports a Japanese monk released after 13 years in a Vietnamese prison had American POW cellmates who nursed him to health.

September 1990: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Interim Report on POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia concluded that despite public assurances in 1973 that no POWs remained in the region, the Defense Department " . . . in April 1974 concluded beyond a doubt that several hundred American POWs remained in captivity in Southeast Asia."

October 1990: Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach admits Vietnam still holds American POWs but is willing to release "as many as 10 live American POWs." His offer, like others before it, is ignored by Secretary of State James Baker III.

February 1991: Colonel Millard Peck, Chief of the Pentagon's Special Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, resigns in protest of being ordered by policy makers in the POW/MIA Inter-Agency Group not to investigate live-sighting reports of American POWs!

April 25, 1991: Senator Bob Smith addresses the Senate and reveals that, of more than 1,400 eyewitness sightings of live POWs, NONE has ever received an on-site investigation!

May 23, 1991: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Examination of U.S. Policy Toward POW/MIAs concludes that the U.S. has ignored thousands of American POWs, and left them to rot in Soviet slave labor camps and North Korean and Vietnamese prisons. "Any evidence that suggested an MIA might be alive was uniformly and arbitrarily rejected."

Summer 1991: A flood of new evidence of live POWs pours from Southeast Asia: pictures, handwriting samples, hair samples, blood samples, fingerprints, foot-prints, maps and other physical proof. The Bush administration disregards the evidence and attempts to discredit it by rumor and innuendo. Some of the photos are scientifically validated -- and have never been scientifically disproven!

December 1, 1992: Senator Bob Smith, Vice-Chairman, Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs publishes a letter U.S. POW/MIA's Who May Have Survived In Captivity

February 1993:A Harvard University Russian Research Center scholar, Steve Morris (PhD. Columbia University), who was in Moscow researching a book on Soviet-North Vietnamese relations during the Vietnam War, discovered an important document concerning American POWs from that war. In this document from General Quang to the North Vietnamese Politiburo, was information pertaining to the status of hundreds of American POWs in North Vietnam as of September 15, 1972. Operation Homecoming, started five months after this date. North Vietnam had acknowledged holding 368 American POWs, but this document stated that there were 1205 American POWs being held. During Operation Homecoming, 591 American POWs were released, so what happened to the other 614 POWs? This document is called the 1205 Documents/Quang Documents

POW/MIA Returns from Death (Source: Statistics on the POW Issue) - Army MSgt. Mateo Sabog served 24 years. On 25 February 1970, he completed his second tour of duty in Vietnam. Army records indicate "there is no evidence that Sabog used his plane ticket, or that his personal effects were claimed in Vietnam." In 1979, Sabog's brother wrote then-President Carter seeking assistance in finding information about his brother and challenging the Army's determination that he had deserted. The Army convened a board of officers to review all available evidence and to determine an appropriate status for MSgt. Sabog. The board recommended Sabog's status be changed to "Missing - Presumptive Finding of Death." This change in status was made retroactive effective 26 March 1970, the date he was to report to Fort Bragg. Sabog's family was notified that this recommendation was approved in December 1979. In July 1993 the Pentagon's office in charge of POW/MIA affairs told the Army that Sabog's name would be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as having died in the war. On 11 April 1995 the same POW/MIA office in the Pentagon informed Sabog's brothers that remains that the Vietnamese government had indicated were Sabog's had been recovered. These remains included 22 teeth (5 showing possible restorations) along with some bones. The Vietnamese also turned over some personal effects and clothing to the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CILHI) for examination. "CILHI did indicate that the bones might belong to Sabog. "In late February 1996, Mateo Sabog used his correct name and social security number to apply for veteran's benefits. When computer records indicated the application was being made in the name of a man who was officially classified as dead, fingerprints were compared and they proved Sabog was who he claimed to be. In early March 1996, Mateo Sabog was returned to active duty so he could be admitted to the Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia for evaluation and any needed medical treatment. According to an Army spokesman he's been somewhere for the last 26 years. But he served his country honorably. We will treat him with dignity."

**Ex-POW Bulletin, February 1998 - WASHINGTON--Somali "entrepreneurs" are holding several US soldiers in Mogadishu and are prepared to "sell them to the highest bidder," senior US officials say...But at least 6 others are unaccounted for since the raid, in which 12 US personnel were killed and 75 wounded. Administration officials told UPI today that as many as 5 of the missing are "believed to be held" by Somalis with no real connection Aidid. "We now believe that these entrepreneurs are holding some Americans in hopes they can sell them to te highest bidder, a senior US official monitoring the situation closely said under contidion of anonymity. (PRODIGY October 08, 93) Source: Statistics on the POW Issue

November 9, 1998: The Washington Times reports Kremlin withholds report on POWs. According to the news report, "Moscow is refusing to turn over a secret KGB document suggesting captured Americans were taken to the Soviet Union in the late 1960s for 'intelligence-gathering purposes'."

January 12, 1999: The Washington Times reports State Department accused of stifling POW-MIA probe. Weldon says Russian lawmaker told him of U.S. effort. To read this report, visit the updates on this issue.

Novmeber 4, 1999: Michael D. Benge, ex-POW, testified about the *Cuban Project* before the House International Relations Committee Chaired by the Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman. The *Cuban Project* was a program that had been sanctioned by the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. According to POW debriefings, supported by CIA and other reports, the "Cuba Program" was part of a Hanoi medical university's "psychological study." It was conducted to obtain full compliance from the American POWs, and to force them to make propaganda statements against the American government and the war in Vietnam. In his testimony, Michael Benge stated that only through full disclosure by the US government agencies, which were gathering information on the depth of Cuban involvement in the Vietnam war and with American POWs, will we know the truth. From his document you can see the Cubans were heavily involved in the Vietnam War. They were in charge of building and maintaining a good portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He further states that he was invited as a representative of the National Alliance of Families to a briefing at DPMO by its head, Bob Jones. He stated that among things Bob Jones discussed was his proposal for DPMO to sponsor a meeting between the US, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to discuss American Servicemen lost along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Michael Benge stated that he suggested to Mr. Jones that he should also invite Cuba to the conference, for they were heavily involved, but Jones replied that the Cubans weren't involved in Vietnam. Michael Benge stated he then recommended to Jones that he read both the material presented to Congress on the Cuban Program and Raul Valdes Vivo's book.

March 31, 2000: New DPMO Ruling Sets Aside Even the Army’s Own Analysts in Landmark Korean War Case: http://www.ink-slinger.com/dumaspow.htm

May 2000: The First Casualty - CBS 60 Minutes reports that on January 17, 1991, the first night of the Gulf War, Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher was shot down over Iraq. He became the conflict's first American casualty. But there's one problem: There is no evidence that he is dead. Bob Simon reports.

January 11, 2001: Michael Speicher is reclassified from Killed in Action to Missing in Action - Michael Scott Speicher's headstone lies in Arlington National Cemetery, though the government now concedes that it doesn't know what happened to him.

March 11, 2002: Pilot believed alive, held in Iraq By Bill Gertz, THE WASHINGTON TIMES - U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained new information indicating Iraq is holding captive a U.S. Navy pilot shot down during the Persian Gulf war, The Washington Times has learned.

March 12, 2002: Senator suspects pilot alive in Iraq By Bill Gertz, THE WASHINGTON TIMES- A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee said yesterday he suspects a Navy pilot shot down over Iraq in 1991 is alive and being held captive as the State Department said Baghdad has ignored U.S. requests for information about the pilot's fate.

Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, said in an interview that he has asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to classify Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher as a prisoner of war, instead of missing in action. The Pentagon changed Cmdr. Speicher's status last year from killed to missing in action.

"The bottom line is there is no evidence he was killed when his aircraft was shot down in 1991," Mr. Roberts said. "On the contrary, there are numerous reports that indicate he could be alive."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Iraqi government has not replied to U.S. diplomatic appeals asking for information about the fate of Cmdr. Speicher.

May 14, 2003: Scott Speicher left in Iraq to save face?By Timothy W. Maier, © 2003 News World Communications Inc. - ...Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, now chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, says that there is no question in his mind that Speicher survived the shootdown.

Much of the evidence supporting Roberts' claim has been around for years, including reports from a falcon hunter who found Speicher's F-18 Hornet intact in the desert, which conflicted with the Navy's story that the plane was blown to pieces. The International Committee of the Red Cross visited the crash site and found the ejection seat, canopy and flight suit near the plane. This physical evidence, combined with numerous credible Speicher sightings and Iraqi medical records suggesting the Navy pilot was treated in a Baghdad hospital, have convinced a sea of supporters that he survived.

More compelling may be what a military satellite picked up in 1994. It appears to be a ground-to-air signal found near Speicher's crash site. The Clinton administration's imagery analysts claimed it was not a distress signal, but there was sharp disagreement within the ranks.

The Navy lied when it claimed rescue missions were launched, Roberts says. No rescue mission ever was launched.

It took the capture of Iraq by U.S. forces before an official search was begun. The search team, composed of both CIA and military-intelligence agents, has been combing through prison cells and underground tunnels in search of clues to Speicher's fate. So far the team has uncovered Speicher's initials in a prison cell where an Iraqi defector claimed the pilot had been held.

They also found another set of initials - M.J.M. - which investigators believe represent his two children, Meghan and Michael, and his former wife, Joanne, who remarried after being told her husband was killed in action, or KIA. She has declined all media requests for interviews.

But plenty more has been found that has yet to be reported. U.S. intelligence agents have discovered coded messages Speicher left behind in nearly every place he was held, according to Amy Waters Yarsinske, a former Naval Reserve intelligence officer who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a piece she co-authored for the Virginian-Pilot on the fate of Speicher. She since has completed a book about the case, No One Left Behind.

August 22, 2003:POWs in Pyongyang by By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, THE WASHINGTON TIMES - "We have obtained a Defense Intelligence Agency report that states four American prisoners of war from the Korean War were sighted in North Korea in 1993."

"A North Korean defector reported seeing the four POWs at the Changkwangsan Hotel coffee shop in Pyongyang in August or September of 1993.

"The POWs were described as being in their 50s or 60s and were under the control of the North Korean military's reconnaissance bureau. They were in the North Korean capital to give a lecture on American 'armed power.'

"The POWs were being transported in a Mercedes-Benz."

..."The defector stated that he estimates that as many 60 American POWs are in North Korea."

October 23, 2003:Korean War - 7 U.S. and British War Prisoners are Under Arrest - "On October 22, a North Korean asylum seeker, Kim Yong (53), a former executive of the North Korea Integrity Department, insisted that there are westerners held captive from the Korean War along with a Japanese woman in the North Korea political prisoner camp.

"I saw seven westerners in 1996 when I went for a street-widening construction, where a work foreman said they were known as the U.S. and British army prisoners who had been captivated in Jangjin lake side Hangyungnam-do during the Korean War,Kim said. "

April 3, 2006:Lone Soldier Remains Missing - http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060403-125558-2820r.htm - April 3, 2006 - Sunday will mark the second anniversary of the capture near Baghdad of Army Reserve Sgt. Keith Matthew "Matt" Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, the only U.S. soldier not accounted for in the three years of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

April 4, 2006:DoD Identifies Marine, Sailor Casualties - Story Number NNS060406-18 Release Date 4/6/2006 30600 PM - Special release from the U.S. Department of Defense - WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Department of Defense announced April 6 the identity of a Marine and a Sailor supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, who have been listed as Duty Status - Whereabouts Unknown (DUSTWUN) after the seven-ton truck in which they were riding rolled over in a flash flood near Al Asad, Iraq on April 2. The incident was not a result of enemy action. - Marine Lance Cpl. Eric A. Palmisano, 27, of Milwaukee, Wis., is assigned to the 1st Transportation Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine - Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; Petty Officer 3rd Class Marcques J. Nettles, 22, of Beaverton, Ore., is assigned to Force Service Regiment 1 Fleet Marine Forces Pacific.

To Date: We are still waiting for these abandoned men and women to come home................

All these facts are a matter of public record and clearly indicate that we have some serious problems in the POW/MIA arena that our elected officials refuse to acknowledge.

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