Bittersweet Homecoming of Three Pilots

IT might have been an occasion of unambiguous joy: three American prisoners of war returning to their families after long months of imprisonment in North Viet Nam. Instead, the route home last week assumed the quality of an international morality play, an occasionally bitter and tearful business that caught the three pilots in a propaganda tug-of-war involving the North Vietnamese, the Pentagon and the American peace movement. All three sides were using the flyers as pawns in a larger drama of image and diplomacy.

Thus the welcome-home at New York's Kennedy International Airport was clouded by recriminations. Understandably, the Pentagon insisted that the released pilots were still U.S. officers and should immediately enter military hospitals for medical checkups and debriefings. But its handling of the matter was often clumsy. Even before the men had left their SAS jet, the counterclaims of family and military produced an unpleasant scene. Mrs. Minnie Lee Gartley, mother of Navy Lieut, (j.g.) Markham L. Gartley, cried emotionally: "We just want him to ourselves, free of the Government, free of the Navy, free of the press, free of the North Vietnamese." Dr. Roger E. Shields, chief Pentagon specialist for prisoner affairs, replied: "He's an officer in the United States Navy." Mrs. Gartley began to sob. "I haven't cried since the day you called me and said my son was shot down," she told Shields. Afterward Mrs. Cora Weiss, a member of the peace delegation that escorted the prisoners from Hanoi, said in angry hyperbole: "We have just witnessed a recapture scene, replacing one incarceration with another--a hell of a thank you!"

The release had been a long, peculiar and occasionally bungled process. It began on Aug. 30, when longtime Antiwar Activist Cora Weiss received a transatlantic call from a member of the North Vietnamese delegation to the Paris peace talks. Almost three weeks later, Hanoi released Gartley, who was shot down, Aug. 17, 1968, Air Force Major Edward Elias, a prisoner since April 20, 1972, and Navy Lieut, (j.g.) Norris Charles, a captive since Dec. 30, 1971. All three were placed in the custody of Mrs. Weiss and Antiwar Activists David Dellinger, Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr. and Princeton International Law Professor Richard Falk. Charles' wife Olga and Mrs. Gartley were also part of the American escort. Even though they were released from prison, the flyers were not immediately allowed to leave Hanoi; instead they spent eight days relaxing, shopping and touring bombed areas in the North.

Mercy. The publicity surrounding these tours incensed the Administration. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird unjudiciously speculated about whether the released prisoners could be court-martialed for permitting themselves to be used for propaganda purposes by North Viet Nam. But he quickly added that while he was Secretary of Defense any judicial action against the three "will be tempered with a great, great deal of mercy."

Although the pilots said that they were told of no preconditions for their release, the antiwar escorts said they had agreed with North Viet Nam authorities that the return would be made via civilian airlines--thus avoiding possible U.S. military interference. Accordingly, when the party finally left Hanoi it headed for Peking and Moscow instead of Laos, where the flyers could be ordered aboard Government planes for the rest of the trip. Despite the outcries from Mrs. Weiss and the others, in fact, American officials treated the pilots with gingerly care all the way home. In Moscow, the American charge d'affaires, Adolph Dubs, met the flyers, issued them new passports and offered overnight accommodations at the ambassador's residence, a medical checkup and free transportation home. He could scarcely have done any less. The pilots declined, explaining that they did not wish to jeopardize the possible release of other prisoners by violating Hanoi's conditions.

TIME Associate Editor Frederic Golden met the pilots and their escorts in Copenhagen and flew with them aboard their SAS flight to New York. During the eight-hour flight, Gartley said that a North Vietnamese Army officer had been the first to tell him of his impending release. "At first I didn't believe it," Gartley recalled. "But since the officer was a stranger and began talking very seriously, I knew something was up." A P.O.W. for four years, Gartley described the treatment he received as "quite good."

About an hour before the plane landed in New York, two U.S. embassy officials from Moscow gave the pilots new uniforms, complete with decorations and name tags. The change caused some dismay among the antiwar escorts, who accused the embassy men of coercion. Major Elias, who plans to continue his Air Force career, denied the charge and angrily retorted: "I wasn't forced to put on my uniform." He sat back in his chair and smiled when the big jet finally touched down at J.F.K. When they emerged from the plane, all three men were back in military garb.

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