Official Denies U.S. Cover-up on Live MIAs

BANGKOK, Thailand —  Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage denied Tuesday that the U.S. government has covered up reports that Americans are still being held prisoner in Indochina.

Such allegations, he told a news conference, harm official efforts to determine the fate of about 2,400 Americans still listed as missing in action in the Vietnam War.

Armitage headed a U.S. delegation to Hanoi that concluded talks Tuesday with Vietnamese officials on the American MIAs. The group, which included Assistant Secretary of State Paul D. Wolfowitz and National Security Council staff member Richard Childress, is the highest-ranking American delegation to go to Hanoi since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. It conferred with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach before returning to Bangkok.

U.S. officials said the two sides agreed to intensify efforts to resolve within two years the issue of missing American servicemen and investigate reports that living Americans have remained in Vietnam since the war.

On its return to Bangkok, the delegation was greeted by reports from the United States that half a dozen former military and intelligence personnel have filed affidavits alleging that the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok have suppressed reports of U.S. prisoners of war still alive in Vietnam and Laos. Armitage dismissed as “specious” and “absurd” the allegations contained in affidavits filed Monday in Fayetteville, N.C., in support of a suit by two retired Green Berets.

“We are serious people, and we are involved in a serious effort,” Armitage said. “I don’t take kindly to those allegations or even those affidavits.

“We have people who work on this issue day in and day out who themselves were prisoners of war, and I find it absolutely unbelievable that one could then accuse them of not having the highest possible regard for the fate of their comrades.

‘Harm Our Ability’

“I think those reports are specious,” Armitage added. “The allegations of a cover-up are absurd. Overall, the allegations harm our ability to prosecute this issue to the fullest possible accounting.”

Among those who filed affidavits were Jack Bailey, a former Air Force officer active in fund-raising efforts to mount rescue operations for American prisoners he believes are still held in Laos.

Others who filed affidavits, according to news agency reports, were Scott Barnes, a former Army member; Thomas Ashworth, a former Marine pilot; A.L. Shinkle, who has served in Air Force intelligence; Jerry Mooney, a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst, and an Indochinese businessman who did not give his real name.

The businessman claimed to have personally seen as recently as October heavily guarded men in Laos whom he “very strongly” believes to be Americans.

Asked about the prospect that living POWs are still being held, Armitage said, “Thus far we have not been able to prove that Americans are held against their will in Indochina. But information in our possession precludes our ruling out that possibility. So we act under the assumption that there are at least some Americans held against their will, and live sighting reports have received and will continue to receive the highest national priority in an attempt to resolve this issue.”

Hanoi Would Help

He said that in response to the U.S. team’s questions, “the Vietnamese said there are no Americans held against their will under their authority. But if we had information to the contrary, to the extent we provided it, they would investigate.”

Armitage said that Foreign Minister Thach expressed the hope that the question of missing Americans can be resolved in the shortest possible time, “even sooner than Vietnam’s goal of two years.”

He said the two sides agreed to hold a technical meeting in Hanoi next month, at which the Vietnamese will supply information on 50 Americans whose bodies have not been recovered. The U.S. side is to provide the Vietnamese with further information on crash sites of American warplanes, Armitage said.

He said Thach agreed that “multiple crash site excavations” will be carried out in the future as part of U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on the MIA issue.

Armitage said the two sides discussed the possibility of establishing a U.S. technical office in Hanoi to promote the search for missing Americans but agreed that it is unnecessary at this point.

He said there was no discussion of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries or of other issues unrelated to the MIA question.