The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs was a special committee convened by the United States Senate during the George H. W. Bush administration (1989 to 1993) to investigate the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, that is, the fate of United States service personnel listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. The committee was in existence from August 2, 1991 to January 2, 1993.
Origins
Following the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973, U.S. prisoners of war were returned during Operation Homecoming from February through April 1973.
During the late 1970s and 1980s, the friends and relatives of unaccounted-for American personnel became politically active, requesting the United States government reveal what steps were taken to follow up on intelligence regarding last-known-alive MIAs and POWs. When initial inquiries revealed important information had not been pursued, many families and their supporters asked for the public release of POW/MIA records and called for an investigation. A spate of films, mostly notably Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), popularized the idea that American POWs had been left behind after the war. Serious charges were leveled at the Bush administration (1989 to 1993) regarding the POW/MIA issue. The United States Department of Defense, headed by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, had been accused of covering up information and failing to properly pursue intelligence about American POW/MIAs. A July 1991 Newsweek cover photograph purported to show three American POWs still being held against their will, which increased general public interest in the issue (but the photograph itself would turn out to be a hoax). Polls showed that a majority of Americans believed that alive POWs were indeed captive; a July 1991 Wall Street Journal poll showed 70 percent of Americans believing this, and that three-fourths of them believed the U.S. government was not doing what needed to be done to gain their release. p. 224.
Another motivation of the committee became establishing the framework for normalization of relations with Vietnam, and congressional approval of same. pp. 149–150.
Members
Shortly thereafter in 1991, Senator and Vietnam veteran Bob Smith introduced a resolution to create a Senate Select POW/MIA Committee. pp. 242–243. The fate of possible missing or captured Americans in Vietnam had been Smith's major issue since coming to Congress in 1985, partly spurred on by his growing up without knowing how his own father died in World War II. This was the third congressional investigation into the POW/MIA issue, but had a mandate to be more skeptical and ask harder questions of government officials than before. Formation of the committee was passed unanimously by the Senate. By October 1991, ten members had been selected for the committee.Keating, Prisoners of Hope, p. 225.
Senator and also Vietnam veteran John Kerry was eventually named chairman of the committee by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole chose Smith vice-chairman, after Senator and former Vietnam POW John McCain initially declined the vice-chair position.
The full committee consisted of twelve senators, likewise selected by the majority and minority leaders: John Kerry, chairman and Vietnam veteran Bob Smith, vice-chairman and Vietnam veteran John McCain, seriously wounded Vietnam veteran and POW in North Vietnam Bob Kerrey, seriously wounded Vietnam veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Chuck Robb, Vietnam veteran Hank Brown, Vietnam veteran Chuck Grassley Nancy Landon Kassebaum Herb Kohl Tom Daschle Harry Reid Jesse Helms
Kohl replaced Dennis DeConcini, who was initially selected but then asked to be removed. Al Gore was the only Vietnam-era veteran who declined to participate.
Running the committee was seen as politically risky for Kerry, and one that his advisors recommended he not do. p. 504. Indeed, as Bob Kerrey later said, "Nobody wanted to be on that damn committee. It was an absolute loser. Everyone knew that the POW stories were fabrications, but no one wanted to offend the vet community."
Hearings and investigations Hearings began on November 5, 1991, and were conducted in five blocks: Hearings on the U.S. Government's Efforts to Learn the Fate of America's Missing Servicemen (November 1991) Hearings on the U.S. Government's Efforts to Learn the Fate of America's Missing Servicemen (June 1992) Hearings on U.S. Government's Post-War POW/MIA Efforts (August 1992) Hearings on the Paris Peace Accords (September 1992) Hearings on Cold War, Korea, World War II POWs (November 1992)
Going into the hearings, Smith was convinced that prisoners had been left behind after the war. Kerry suspected that some prisoners had been left behind by the Nixon and Ford administrations in their eagerness to disengage from the war; however, he doubted that there were secret camps in operation, as had been touted by POW/MIA activists and some media reports. McCain was skeptical that any prisoners had been left behind, partly because he and the other POWs had gone to great lengths at the time to keep track of everyone who was a prisoner in North Vietnam, and partly because he could see no motivation with evidence behind it for the Hanoi government to have kept any.McCain, Worth the Fighting For, p. 240.
The first day of hearings featured the testimony of then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and retired General, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and current head of the American POW/MIA delegation in Hanoi, John Vessey.McCain, Worth the Fighting For, pp. 245–247. Both defended the administration's and the military's role in trying to get the Vietnamese to improve their efforts in ascertaining the fate of missing personnel. Vessey rejected the notion of a government conspiracy, saying that he had never seen evidence of one at any time in his military career, and adding that, "American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are not conspirators."Keating, Prisoners of Hope, pp. 93–95. Cheney said that Vietnamese cooperation was improved but still needed much more improvement. The second day featured Garnett "Bill" Bell, head of the U.S. Office for P.O.W.-M.I.A. Affairs in Hanoi, saying that he believed that up to ten American servicemen had been left behind after the war, but that there was no evidence they were still alive. Other Defense Department witnesses testifying that day expressed surprise at Bell's testimony, saying they were unaware of any evidence behind it; their statements were met with hisses from POW/MIA activists and family members in the hearing room. The third day saw the testimony of former Vietnam People's Army Colonel Bui Tin, who had likely observed McCain in prison once and, years later and dissatisfied with the course of post-war Vietnam, had left the country to live in exile in France in 1990. Tin stated that there were no American prisoners alive and that only a few Americans who had switched sides had remained after the war. After his testimony, he and McCain embraced, which produced a flurry of "Former Enemies Embrace"-style headlines.
Thus at times the hearings became heated and contentious. McCain was criticized by some of his fellow POWs for wanting to find a path to normalization. pp. 188–189. He was also being vilified by some POW/MIA activists as a traitor or a brainwashed "Manchurian Candidate",Keating, Prisoners of Hope, pp. 197–201. which the embrace with Tin only exacerbated. Occasionally his famous temper flared during hearings and Kerry had to calm him down, for which McCain later said he was grateful. McCain had an emotionally charged exchange with Dolores Alfond, Chair of the National Alliance Of Families For the Return of America's Missing Servicemen. McCain said he was tired of Alfond denigrating the efforts of himself, Vessey, and others involved in investigating the POW/MIA issue, while a tearful Alfond pleaded for the committee to not shut down its work.
The committee was responsible for getting the Department of Defense to declassify over one million pages of documents. Kerry and McCain and others were able to get the Vietnamese government to give full access to their records. The committee had full-time investigators or delegations stationed in Moscow and other parts of Russia, North Korea, and Southeast Asia. In all, the committee would conduct over 1000 interviews, take over 200 sworn depositions, and hold over 200 hours of public hearings.Keating, Prisoners of Hope, p. 239. Some of the hearings were telecast on C-SPAN.
The senators' work was often hands-on. Smith would get leads about possible whereabouts of a POW, and then Kerry would follow up on them. pp. 768–769. Because of Kerry's activities with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the North Vietnamese deemed him honorable and opened their facilities to him. There had been persistent reports of U.S. prisoners held under the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi or in nearby tunnels; Smith had stated in hearings that the Vietnamese Defense Ministry had an underground prison in its compound near the mausoleum, which a Vietnamese official called "a myth and an affront to the people of Vietnam." Kerry and Smith were personally led through a patchwork of tunnels and catacombs under Hanoi, until Smith was satisfied that no Americans were being held there. The number of live-sighting searches, include those on short notice, sometimes led to Vietnamese officials accusing the whole process of being a cloak for espionage.
The question of testimony by businessman and POW/MIA advocate Ross Perot before the committee in June 1992 also led to conflict, with Perot fearing a "circus"-like atmosphere due to his candidacy in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. Perot believed that hundreds of American servicemen were left behind in Southeast Asia at the end of the U.S. involvement in the war, and that government officials were covering up POW/MIA investigations in order to not reveal a drug smuggling operation used to finance a secret war in Laos. But much of any testimony was expected to concern Perot's own actions: committee members wanted to question Perot about his unauthorized back-channel discussions with Vietnamese officials in the late 1980s, which led to fractured relations between Perot and the Reagan and Bush administrations, about Perot's 1990 agreement with Vietnam's Foreign Ministry to become its business agent after relations were normalized, and about Perot's private investigations of and attacks upon Department of Defense official Richard Armitage. The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, one of the leading POW/MIA groups, objected to Perot's decision not to testify. McCain urged Perot to testify, saying, "I have heard he is very convinced that there are still numbers of Americans being held against their will in Southeast Asia, and I am very interested in knowing what leads him to hold that view." Perot did finally testify in August 1992, after (temporarily) dropping out of the presidential race. He did not present new evidence of live prisoners, but did denounce U.S. behavior towards Vietnam after the war: "What we have done for 20 years is treat them rudely and punch them around." He also criticized the Central Intelligence Agency for running a secret war in Laos. There were several exchanges between McCain and Perot, who had a complex relationship going back to when Perot had paid for McCain's wife Carol's medical care after she was severely injured in an automobile accident while he was a POW. Perot denied McCain's suggestion that he was a conspiracy theorist, while McCain disputed Perot's notion that the U.S. had "ransomed our prisoners out of Hanoi" at the close of the war.