Center Welcomes Congressional Counterpoint to Presidential Delegation’s Visit To Hanoi

(Washington, D.C.): On Friday, 2 July — the eve of the Fourth of July holiday weekend — President Clinton announced his decision to grant communist Vietnam renewed access to the resources of the International Monetary Fund. In a transparent effort to appease the comrades and loved ones of Americans unaccounted for at war’s end who are deeply opposed to this concession to Hanoi, the President dispatched a delegation to Vietnam which includes representatives of veterans’ organizations.

At approximately the same time as the presidential delegation begins its meetings in Hanoi, an event likely to prove much more illuminating than that umpteenth dog-and-pony show will be taking place in Washington: At 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 14 July, four of the most knowledgeable experts on Vietnam — and the status of U.S. POW/MIAs from the conflict there — will give potentially explosive testimony before the Asia and Pacific Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The hearing, presided over by Chairman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Ranking Member Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), will occur in Room 2200 of the Rayburn House Office Building and will feature:

• Dr. Stephen Morris of the Harvard Russian Research Center, who earlier this year discovered in Moscow a secret 1972 transcript of a report to the Vietnamese leadership that called into serious doubt past official statements about U.S. POW/MIAs. This will be Dr. Morris’ first congressional appearance since his discovery and he will be providing the Committee with important new findings.

 

• Jim Sanders — co-author of the rivetting new book The Men We Left Behind: The Abandonment and Betrayal of American POWs After the Vietnam War. Mr. Sanders, a retired police investigator, will testify concerning information recently obtained from State Department files.

 

• George Carver — who from 1966 to 1973 was Special Assistant for Vietnamese Affairs to three successive Directors of Central Intelligence, will describe his serious reservations about Vietnamese, and others’, efforts to denigrate the Moscow document that Dr. Morris unearthed.

 

• Al Santoli — a former congressional investigator on POW/MIA matters and author of three major histories of the Vietnam war and its aftermath including Everything We Had. Mr. Santoli will give the Committee recently declassified documents on the transfer of American prisoners from Vietnam to China as well as explosive new information documenting Vietnam’s control of U.S. prisoners in Laos and the duplicity of U.S. officials on that score.