No Signs of Life

The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs is befogged by mixed political motives and overzealous staff members, but it has two perfectly plain questions to answer: Were any American prisoners unaccounted for when the U.S. pulled out of Southeast Asia in 1973? Are any alive there today? Opening two days of hearings, Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the chairman, said the committee had gathered information indicating that "some Americans remained alive in Indochina after Operation Homecoming" in 1973, when North Vietnam handed back 591 prisoners. He said an additional 133, later lowered to 80, were unaccounted for, though there was no absolute proof they were alive. Kerry added that the Pentagon routinely falsified the records of men lost in covert operations in Laos.

Roger Shields, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in 1973, insisted that there was "no current, hard evidence that Americans were still held" in Southeast Asia at the time. But he admitted that when Richard Nixon asserted in March 1973 that there were none, he was "dismayed."

Retired Army General John Vessey, who has been negotiating the question with Hanoi for five years, had what may be the last word. He told the committee that he too has a list -- of 135 unresolved cases -- but has uncovered no evidence that any Americans are being held in Indochina.