Text File

Cooperation Clapper 12/01/92 If we are to have true resolution of these cases that so consume so many Americans, it is in the hands of the Vietnamese. Cooperation DeStatte 12/04/92 Chairman Kerry: Are we on the road to resolving this?

DeStatte: Yes, sir. I'm quite confident. As I said earlier, I think we're getting the kind of cooperation -- I think that Vietnam's top leaders have made the decision to try to solve this issue. I think they issued the instruction to their bureaucracy to do so, and I believe that at the working level, where we are, at least the people that I've been working with, I believe we're getting the kind of cooperation, we're getting good cooperation.

I do, however, believe that there's some distance to go, and I think that if there's an obstacle, that obstacle is at the mid-level. And I believe that Vietnam's leaders can solve that problem. I think that's the proper solution. Cooperation Ford 12/04/92 ...the fact is that in many cases it's clear that the Vietnamese don't always know what they have there and that they've got a lot of valuable information. We know it's valuable, but it wasn't necessarily valuable to them or they weren't quite sure what it was.

Allowing us access into that is extremely important... We are just now getting into these archives and all of us are wanting to move forward as rapidly as we can. Cooperation Ford 12/01/92 I frankly, in looking at that period, I think that I give the most credit to the Vietnamese. I think they sought us out. Cooperation Ford 12/01/92 ...I would argue that the reason that we have been is because we have won most of the battles of being fair and firm with the Vietnamese. And when they produce results, we have delivered, State has delivered, Defense has delivered, NSC has delivered. We have no history that if we give something to the Vietnamese for nothing, that we get reciprocal benefit from it. Cooperation Gadoury 11/06/91 Progress has, up to this point, however, been rather disappointing in terms of results. Despite Vietnamese claims of total freedom of travel to pursue first-hand live sightings, both captive and living free, our investigator has not yet been permitted by the Vietnamese to travel outside Hanoi to complete his investigations. Cooperation Grassley 11/06/91 ...I think they [the Vietnamese Government] ought to know that we would all welcome and would not hold past history against them at all if there was a dramatic change of practice on the part of the Vietnamese Government for total cooperation along the lines of our people could go any place that they want to go.

If the Vietnamese Government came up with an American there who they previously said was not there, that we would not look at it as an opportunity for punitive action against the Vietnamese Government, but that we would look at it as an opportunity for a further opening of relations and normalization of relations. Cooperation Griffiths 12/01/92 It was quite difficult in earlier years, and it evolved and got more effective and the priority began to be understood in the far reaches of the government. But it was not really an easy process, especially when you were building from zero. Cooperation Kerry 12/01/92 And I would lay unfortunate odds that if we were to apply that standard to ourselves at this point in time about Vietnamese MIAs, we would be sorely wanting. Cooperation Kerry 12/04/92 We kind of did a great, double-team effort here between General Vessey, the Committee, your efforts. But the distinction is that at that point in time the Politburo and the decisions had not been made.

I sat with the General Secretary of Vietnam. I was the first United States citizen to meet with the leading official of Vietnam -- and it only happened a year and a half ago - - at which point he turns to me, and I have got to tell you I was stunned and the people with me were stunned, because he could not understand in 1991, what this issue meant, why it was real, or if we were serious.

And he turned to me and he said: Senator, I do not understand this; when I was negotiating with Jimmy Carter in 1978 for normalization, nobody raised this issue with us.

It was not on the table. So he had no sense that this was anything but an American trick in the 1980s and '90s to sort of find a different way to prosecute the war against Vietnam.

So I went through this long explanation to him of what happened with the problems of Jimmy Carter's presidency and what happened in the desert in Iran and the sense of lack of power in the country, and along came Ronald Reagan and he made this a big issue, to his credit, and raised the consciousness, and then movies appeared and books appeared and Sly Stallone made a cult, and off we went, and it entered the American consciousness and body politic...

We [sent them] a whole lot of articles and sent them information and tried to give them a sense of the reality of it....

So finally they say: Hey, you know, Cooperation continued Kerry 12/04/92 with it.

So if they have admitted, and you say, yes, they have admitted, and this high visibility Senate delegation arrives in Hanoi and I say to them, you know what really is going to make a difference to our going back to America and being able to say good things about you? Remains.

And Ted Schweitzer spends 24 hours with them privately, using the respect and friendship he's built up, and he says: You know what you have got to give these guys? Remains. And as you heard him testify today under oath, he said: You know, their faces sank, and they sat in that room and they said: If the success of this mission or failure depends on remains, then it will fail. Cooperation Larson 12/04/92 Chairman Kerry: Now I ask you, Admiral, General, and General, is the process corrupt? Are these people not cooperating broadly, or do you feel there is this genuine commitment to getting this process to work? The Committee wants to know the truth, not some preordained answer.

Larson: Mr. Chairman, I think their senior leadership in their central government has made a political decision to cooperate and to try to move forward. The level of that cooperation, I think we have a system in place that will test the level of that cooperation and put pressure on them to produce and evaluate how far they are willing to go.

Right or wrong for what they've done for the last 20 years, I think they've made a political decision now, we've got to change and we've got to move forward, particularly in the archival research area. Cooperation Needham 12/04/92 Chairman Kerry: General, can you speak now to the issue of the level of cooperation that you receive? Where are we? What kind of judgment can the committee make, based on your experience now, over this year, in Vietnam?

Needham: Sir, in my opinion, in the last year the cooperation in Vietnam has been steadily improving since I assumed my position in January. Recently... there have been some dramatic improvements.

I think the Vietnamese could still do more, but right now we see cooperation getting better and better every day at the central level. In the field level, cooperation is mixed... in the provinces, it's mixed.

Chairman Kerry: ...You have provinces in Vietnam that were very heavily bombed, and their support to the United States is less than others... Cooperation Needham 12/04/92 Sir, I think it is going to produce results. I think we're starting to see a little bit in Hanoi. I think it's too early to tell exactly how much we're going to get, but I believe we're off to a positive start and I'm hoping that we can -- by the information requests that Mr. DeStatte has given them, that we can lead this archival research program a little bit more to the way we want to go, which is looking at supporting the work plan and supporting cases that we want to get answers to rather than just getting information for the sake of getting information. Cooperation Perroots 08/12/92 Vietnam can easily account for hundreds of Americans that have not yet exercised their requisite will to do so. Cooperation Quinn 12/01/92 Mr. Chairman, the vastly improved level of cooperation is a clear indication that our policy of both sides taking a series of commensurate steps is working. Cooperation Schweitzer 12/04/92 Following years of distrust among many of the parties trying to resolve this MIA issue, there have however now been new approaches which have taken place in Hanoi over the past few weeks and cooperation has reached a new level. But there still appear to me to be three basic questions which have remained unanswered up to this point.

The first question concerns just how much information we can hope to learn about the Americans still unaccounted for in Vietnam.

The second remaining question involves the source of this information. The third question concerns, it has taken 19 years for the U.S. and Vietnam to come to this starting point in addressing these questions. Cooperation Schweitzer 12/04/92 Well, the central government has made it clear to me that the key element in getting that material brought to Hanoi is in U.S. hands, not in their hands. They had -- the leadership of Vietnam cannot simply order 70 million Vietnamese citizens to bring this mountain of material to Hanoi.

It has to be something that the Vietnamese, the common Vietnamese citizen, feels in his heart he wants to do for America. If he has a souvenir, war memorabilia, something that he picked up from a crash or a war site in the highlands in '67 or from a crash up in the mountains someplace, say a piece of an airplane that he's been using as a side of his house or a little package of things he picked up somehow, maybe the man who picked it up is even dead and his children have it and have no idea what it is even.

But they're not going to make -- the common person of Vietnam just isn't going to come forward with all that mountain of information unless they really have the feeling in the heart that they want to do this for America. It can't be dictated from on high that you will bring forward everything that you possess on America. It just won't happen that way. Cooperation Schweitzer 12/04/92 Schweitzer: ...with the steps that have been taken so far, especially the last one involving AT&T, people are coming forward with more materials than they've ever come forward with before. I brought two examples with me.

Chairman Kerry: You see a significant shift now suddenly in the production of some of these documents?

Schweitzer: I certainly do. And the more steps the United States takes to ease the hardships on Vietnam, the more warmth the common Vietnamese citizens will feel towards us and will come forward with materials. Cooperation Sheetz 06/25/92 Mr. Sheetz: I'd like to underscore. There's something that Senator Smith and Senator Kerry, you could both, I think, help us with. I recognize you'll probably be making another trip to Southeast Asia before your committee completes its work. If you do, or if another opportunity presents itself -- I wish you would underscore to both the Laos Government and the Vietnamese Government the need for unfettered access on conducting live sighting investigations. Basically, not frustrating our officers when they're out there in the field trying to facilitate the process. We're making progress, it's getting better, but it's got to get a lot better before I'm going to be happy. And if there's anything this committee could do to underscore with those two governments. Cooperation Sheridan 12/02/92 ...To my way of thinking, the answers are in Hanoi and in Vientiane and in Cambodia, and it could be over with in a very short period of time if those governments would be forthcoming with the information that they have. Cooperation Vessey 12/04/92 However, when we look at the issue of Vietnamese cooperation, it would be a mistake to forget the progress in reuniting several hundred thousand separated Vietnamese family members, getting over 60,000 Amerasian children and family members out of Vietnam and getting the former South Vietnamese officers and Government officials out of the re-education camps and getting them and their families out of Vietnam if they wanted to go. Cooperation Vessey 06/25/92 My first instructions came from President Reagan in 1987... President Reagan started an effort in 1982 to bring more focus to this issue. Negotiations had been underway for about four years and they stalled in 1986, in late 1986, and I was asked to take on the job in early 1987.

I was instructed by the President to conduct negotiations with the Vietnamese Government to attempt to get cooperation on a number of humanitarian issues, and the specifics goals were as follows:

The first goal, and the number one priority, was to get the cooperation required to achieve the fullest possible accounting for all Americans missing from the war in Vietnam.

Within that goal of fullest possible accounting, as the first priority, was to go after the business of whether or not live American prisoners were continuing to be held by the Vietnamese Government. And if there were live Americans either in captivity or living freely, to seek their immediate return.

Then the third point was to get Vietnamese cooperation and an expanded effort in the return of remains that had already been recovered, and in searching for and recovering and return those remains which had not yet been recovered. Cooperation Vessey 06/25/92 It is worth remembering that those instructions were given in light of conditions which existed in 1987. Vietnam's military forces were in Cambodia. We had no relations with the Government of Vietnam other than those preliminary talks I mentioned earlier. We had consistently said that the POW/MIA issue should be settled as a humanitarian issue. We had regularly told the Vietnamese that resolution of the POW/MIA issue was not a requirement for discussing normalization, but we'd also said consistently that pace and scope of cooperation on POW/MIA matters would affect the pace and scope of our talks on normalization. Cooperation Vessey 06/25/92 ... certainly, the one area of cooperation... is the business of archival research, is diligent. Both the prime minister and the foreign minister promised a complete and diligent search of their archives for all information about missing Americans. That's difficult to do. We need to work with them to guide them to do it. But at the same time, it can only be done with their cooperation and work. They have to do it. It's just tough work. Cooperation Vessey 06/25/92 Chairman Kerry: Within the last five or six months we have gotten different signals from both state and DoD regarding how cooperative the Vietnamese have been... State basically says they are being very cooperative or more cooperative and DoD says they are not being as cooperative as they should be, we need more information. Where do you see it?

Vessey: The cooperation is far greater today. One of the problems with evaluating Vietnamese cooperation is we don't know how capable they are of cooperating. Cooperation Vessey 06/25/92 In the area of POW/MIA, a lot of work has been done but the resolution of individual cases has been slow and plodding... We've had some preliminary talks trying to get investigations underway for cases of individuals lost in the border areas of Cambodia and Laos, that were then under the control of Vietnamese forces. In 1988 we agreed to joint field investigations in Vietnam with American and Vietnamese investigators participating. We are entering now into our 18th set of joint field investigations. Declassificatio n Grassley 06/24/92 Until these documents become declassified and tell the story themselves without the debunkers, without the conspirators, and the spin doctors, it is incumbent upon us, those of us on this committee and, of course, the media as well, to counter the misrepresentations that there is no evidence. Declassificatio n Kerrey 09/21/92 ...As said, it does not surprise me that the North Vietnamese would either lie to their people and to us, or withhold information from their people or from us.

But it seems to me that it is reasonable for me to conclude that I should have a higher standard for our own government. And thus, the release of the information, redacted and carefully examined -- the decision by President Bush to release that information, pressured by this committee to do so, I think has performed a very valuable service even though we may never get, as I said, to the bottom of it...I must say that had that information been provided in 1973 -- had we just said to the American people, here are the facts, here is what we know and what we do not know, I think the outcome also would have been much different over the next 19 years. Deserters Trowbridge 06/24/92 Deserters are excluded from the official DoD Southeast Asia casualty files. Deserters Trowbridge 06/24/92 Chairman Kerry: Mr. Trowbridge, are you saying that the Defense Intelligence Agency carries only 15 people as deserters in country?

Trowbridge: Based on what we have been able to obtain from the services, that is correct, sir.

Chairman Kerry: Can you tell me why, then, this committee got a list from the Defense Department, the National Archives, which we were about to submit to the FBI of 1,284 deserter names last known with their units in Vietnam?

Trowbridge: Sir, I cannot answer that. As I said, we had an analyst that went through the records ourselves in 1988. Again, if you have got a list -- you know, I do not know where these lists come and what the criteria was to make these lists.

Chairman Kerry: Does that not say something to you? You are supposed to be analyzing live sighting reports. You have got a potential base of some 1,200 people who supposedly deserted in country. I am not suggesting -- this committee, incidentally, is not focusing on deserters. This committee is focused on POW's, military people who had been taken prisoner. But obviously there is a possibility that someone who is a deserter could be the source of a live sighting report.

Trowbridge: That is absolutely correct. Deserters Vessey 11/05/91 It is my understanding that none were classified as deserters. Now, there is some evidence in some very few cases that some might have been there under their own free will. Later on there was some evidence that came up, but the evidence is pretty scanty... I would not want to accuse any of these guys of being deserters... there is just not evidence to do that. DIA - Clusters Brooks 12/01/92 Sen. McCain: ...General Perroots has previously testified that they did, and have used, this so-called cluster theory in part of their analysis on many occasions. Are you aware of that, Admiral?

Brooks: No, I was not aware, Senator. DIA - Critics Brooks 12/01/92 I was disappointed with the lack of rigor in the analytic process, I was disappointed, for example, with the way in which files were kept, I was disappointed with the lack of disciplined analytic techniques which I would anticipate to be used in any analytic process... DIA - Critics Brooks 12/01/92 Senator, I would comment that when I first arrived there -- I was there for a period of almost four months, from June of 1985 until September of 1985, perhaps the beginning of October of 1985 -- I was surprised to see how few people were dedicated to analysis of the POW/MIA issue... DIA - Critics Brooks 12/01/92 There was not adequate management of the analytic process to assure that the mindset to debunk did not color potentially valid reports as well as those which were apparently invalid. DIA - Critics Brooks 12/01/92 ...a certain degree of cynicism, I think, crept into our intelligence analysis. And it is human nature. We had been confronted with so many reports that were either deliberate fabrications or were grossly inaccurate that I think the analyst becomes cynical... there also is a category of people at work surrounding the POW/MIA issue which I will categorize as professional predators... DIA - Critics Brooks 12/01/92 Bureaucratic ineptitude certainly characterized the situation in 1985. DIA - Critics Brooks 12/01/92 ...yes, indeed, there were cases that I thought should have been reopened and should have been looked into in much more depth. DIA - Critics Brooks 12/01/92 I think probably the desire to believe that we had accounted for the POWs perhaps accounted for some of the attitude. Also, of course, the fact that the returned POWs did in fact state that all of the POWs known to be in captivity to them, to them known to be in the official prison system, were accounted for perhaps led to the mindset that this was not as important a problem as it should have been...

The case files had not been maintained properly, leads had not been followed up, the normal things that you would...do in trying to maintain continuity on a problem had not been done during that period 1973 to 1983. DIA Brooks 12/01/92 My own experience with the analysts is that they were a very dedicated and very frustrated lot. There were too few of them... your observation about paucity of assets is accurate. DIA - Critics Childress 12/01/92 ...I know exactly what you're doing, you're really following it up -- by using such words you give the impression that you don't believe it's true at the outset, alleged or alleged with three other adjectives and this sort of thing. I got the impression in the period before the Reagan Administration that there was almost a fear to put in a report that wasn't hedged and guarded by enough adjectives.

What we were trying to bring to them is don't fear it, say it objectively, drop the kind of adjectives, and so forth. Don't overdo it but be objective and we'll handle it, everybody will handle it when they get back. DIA - Critics Childress 12/01/92 By the time the Tighe Report had come out, the Vietnamese had released the largest number of remains in 1985 than at any time since the end of the war, and I think it was 26 at the time. They had also agreed that they wanted to work with us on a 2-year plan to try to resolve these major core issues of the POW/MIA issue within a 2-year plan. And we were -- had been negotiating and had several high-level trips.

The Tighe Report popped in the middle of this, and they were obviously not up to date on negotiations, but that wasn't why they were there anyway, it was to look to DIA. So they were filling this document up with presumptions that I felt were years old that they had brought to the table. And I went over and briefed them on policy and, you know, our 10- point plan and the rest, on one occasion, but that was just to give them background. So I felt that they -- you know, they were good people and well committed and had their experience, but I wanted them to stay with the knitting that they were hired for. DIA - Critics Childress 12/01/92 Chairman Kerry: What you said in your letter, and let me quote you: "There are several flat untruths in it, many distortions and inaccuracies, an abundance of speculation with no basis in fact, an obvious lack of understanding of the overall issue and judgments or perceptions of the Vietnamese mystery combined with popular mythology." Did all of those criticisms get addressed?

Childress: Well, I was not in a position to -- I wasn't on the report. I was giving my impressions to General Perroots.

Chairman Kerry: I understand. But when the final report came out, did you hold those same conclusions about the report?

Childress: Not as strongly, but I still saw some popular mythology in it. DIA - Critics Childress 12/01/92 Chairman Kerry: Mr. Childress, you made some criticisms of the Tighe Report which were really very strong...

Childress: This was a first draft that they had done and it was full of policy things, not intelligence things. So General Perroots sent it over to me and said take a look at this, they're making policy recommendations. I was, needless to say, from reading that outraged that they were into policy things. And I also took the opportunity to make what I felt was the case that if you're going to talk about live prisoners, we're talking about last known alive, that's where I had put my focus. And a look of 16 or 18 reports, or 32 case files could not lead to those kinds of conclusions that I felt that they were heading towards. DIA Clapper 12/01/92 I have to say one other thing, Senator Kerry, in all due respect. We talked about who has been responsible for this over the years. The Congress, in all fairness, bears a certain amount of responsibility for this. Every year we, in intelligence, and the director of DIA as the manager of the General Defense Intelligence Program, gets very specific and very intrusive guidance from the Congress on what authorizations we will have and for what purpose. DIA - Critics Clapper 12/01/92 ...the criticisms arise from the simple and abundant frustration at our inability to resolve the ultimate fate of the POW/MIAs. And the reason is, and again Colonel Schlatter alluded to it, is that because intelligence, given its inherent limitations, simply on its own cannot resolve these issues. DIA Clapper 08/04/92 ...I have always been deeply concerned about accounting for the missing and will ensure that DIA's efforts to achieve the fullest possible accounting will not waiver during my tenure as director...POW/MIA intelligence investigations, collection, and analysis comprise one of DIA's highest priorities... DIA - Critics Gaines 12/01/92 The DIA analysts had no buffer between themselves and anybody else. In other words, they had no buffer between themselves and members of Congress. There is no buffer between themselves and outside interests... unofficial but powerful members, personnel such as Ann Mills Griffiths... had direct access, in fact, had direct access not only to files and intelligence information, but was allowed to task the analysts on her behest. DIA - Critics Gaines 12/01/92 They were beset by so many outside tasks and so many outside similar- dissimilar influences, that they were constantly running from one crisis to another, and they did not have time to do the kind of hard, pick and spade work such as something like this, studies on, say, the prison system... DIA Grassley 10/15/92 Let me conclude, Mr. Chairman, by stating that this issue is too important for us to rely on DIA's analysis exclusively for our judgment. This may be the only evidence that we find that possibly points to specific men. We need an independent assessment, not just a DIA assessment. Five different reports have raised the issue of DIA's mind set to debunk. The public is skeptical of DIA's continued debunking of evidence. No matter what DIA says, we need an independent evaluation of the evidence, as well. These photos may, in fact, show shadows. But I want an independent analysis to tell me that, not just DIA. DIA - Critics Hargis 12/01/92 The conclusion or finding. DIA did release names and addresses of witnesses under the Freedom of Information Act, but the information released was mostly a compilation of documents which originated outside DIA. Not one of the names or addresses released was of a person who had had direct contact with DIA or had requested confidentiality. DIA - Critics Hargis 12/01/92 The Office of the Inspector General, DIA, conducted an investigation in the Office of the Prisoners of War/Missing in Action, PW/MIA Division in the Directorate of Collection Management, between 20 November 1984 and 2 February 1985, at the direction of General Williams, who was the Director of DIA at that time...

The next conclusion; these allegations of mistreatment were judged to be responses from individuals who had attempted to use the PW/MIA issue for their own purposes...

There was no indication that DIA interviewers used any procedures that intentionally downgraded, humiliated, embarrassed or abused the witness.

There was no evidence to suggest that any truly knowledgeable witness could be discouraged by DIA methods for making information known. DIA - Critics Hargis 12/01/92 Next conclusion; there can be no improvement to the worsening situation until the policy and public relations interface is inserted between the DIA and the rest of the world. DIA - Critics Hargis 12/01/92 We had one other finding and one other recommendation. There was evidence that DIA had been and continued to be manipulated on the PW/MIA issue by entities outside the U.S. Government. DIA - Critics Hrdlicka 12/03/92 ...I would add that if you want to talk about fraud I would call the DIA one of the biggest perpetrators. I have spent 2 years trying to get answers out of those people on specifics. I had a meeting in July with Mr. Sheetz and Mr. Gray and they were going to get right back to me. Well I sit here today, and they have not gotten right back to me.

I file a Freedom of Information; reports that I have don't even come through on the Freedom of Information. Now you want to call fraud, I call that fraud, and I feel like I've been the person that's had the fraud perpetrated on me. I can appreciate these other scams, but I have to tell you that if our Government had done their job in the first place, I wouldn't be in the situation where I could be a victim or Carol Collins be a victim. DIA Kerry 06/25/92 ...on 4 January of 1974, in fact, significant personnel reductions were proposed to take place in the POW/MIA section of DIA. And literally, the personnel within that section had to go to bat to explain to superiors why they were important to the resolution of the accountability process. DIA - Critics Knecht 12/01/92 In defense of the senior management of DIA, I could not find any case where somebody had said we need to do this to fix this and they said don't do that. DIA - Critics Knecht 12/01/92 Mindset to debunk: everybody's discussed it. I absolutely could not find anything on it. I absolutely disagree with it. DIA - Critics Knecht 12/01/92 I agree with Colonel Peck where he criticized the fact that the special office was being used for tasks that were not appropriate for an intelligence activity. DIA - Critics Knecht 12/01/92 I am also saying that Colonel Peck basically recycled... the Gaines report to us, as if there had been no intervening change. And then when pressed for the details of those criticisms that he made, I could not find any specifics to support them. When I looked at those specific criticisms which I was then aware of in the intervening period, then I could not find those. DIA - Clusters Maguire 08/04/92 Senate investigators called Dak Chung a cluster because of six hearsay reports that recounted the same story...But in depth analysis showed that all the reports were similar because one of the six sources had told the same story to the other five. What we are left with is not a cluster of six, but a cluster of one. And that one source admitted lying about his original story, so now we have no cluster...So DIA has concluded that Dak Chung is not a cluster, but we could only reach that conclusion by carefully reading and investigating each report. DIA - Clusters Maguire 08/04/92 ...there were some areas where the reporting tends to be heavier and gives a clustered appearance. Some members of the Senate Committee staff believe that the reports within some of these areas prove that a U.S. POW was held past Operation Homecoming. Our understanding is that Senate staffers used three criteria to reach that conclusion.

These three criteria are shown here. However, to reach these conclusions about clusters, other types of intelligence were ignored and only a handful of the over 1,500 source reports were used. DIA - Clusters Nagy 12/01/92 It was not with the process or the procedure of mapping reporting. That process is underway in DIA, has been underway in DIA, and is being used today in support of General Vessey and his activities. So I certainly cannot let the comment lie that it is not being done. That is not true. DIA - Critics Nagy 12/01/92 I was asked to address circumstances of an early 1985 internal DIA examination of the analytic and collection tasking activities of DIA's POW/MIA office. The examination was somewhat unusual in that it was an analyst's critique of other analysts' activities. DIA - Critics Nagy 12/01/92 I have reviewed the study group's report. In summary, it concluded that: One, the analytic effort was of high quality; two, analyst retention was likely to be a future problem unless the division's grade structure was increased; three, access to the DIA online ADP system should be improved, and additional terminals provided; four, the POW/MIA analysts should travel to both Hawaii and Thailand to meet and interact with counterpart analysts and collectors; five, a senior executive should be appointed to speak for the organization; six, the POW/MIA analysts should receive greater recognition.

The details of the report included other comments... the suspicion that the analytic activities of the division were diminished by the need to respond to numerous outside requests... the implicit view that inordinate time was spent on a somewhat legalistic approach to evidence and analysis that was probably necessary, given the importance of and outside interest in the issue... it was felt that if this were a normal intelligence activity, some of the cases that were being held open could be closed... the possibility that human intelligence in the field could be improved by adding additional collectors... DIA Nagy 12/01/92 In the wake of the end of the Vietnamese conflict, in 1973 the intelligence community underwent a very severe contraction, 35 to 40 percent of the personnel, and this can be easily documented, were let go, moved out of the business... The POW/MIA analytic effort was certainly caught up in that set of reductions beginning in 1973. DIA - Critics Nagy 12/01/92 Chairman Kerry: The themes are repetitive that there was a diffusion of the mission, there was a lack of management, lack of guidance, not a direction of effort, and so forth. The politics that entered into it from outside influences, the analysis, itself.

Nagy: It is my view that from 1973 until the issue from an administration's standpoint was revived in the early 1980's, that for all practical purposes you had three organizations struggling in the dark, without a great deal of policy support, that were working this issue for the Untied States Government. Those were the two that were based in Hawaii, the Joint Casualty Resolution Center in CILHI, and the office in DIA...

Beginning in 1983...DIA has added personnel to the effort, expanded the effort of the office, expanded the operations, as you are well aware, in Southeast Asia that were under DIA's direct control... DIA Perot 08/11/92 You need an organization who goes in every morning and says, here is a new shred of evidence. Let's really look at it objectively. Let's not try to debunk it. Let's not discredit the person who brought it in. Let's not spend all of our energy discrediting the person who brought it in. DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 Another criticism that I believe invalid, at least during my tenure, was that the DIA only responded to sanitized or selected queries...I remember coming under criticism from circles that I was paying too much attention to the Rambo faction. I can tell you that I responded to any query that was deemed appropriate. DIA - Critics Perroots 08/12/92 No one ever approached me to take on General Tighe. It was solely and exclusively my idea for good and honorable reasons... now, as to what influence I had over [the Tighe Commission Report] conclusions and recommendations. Well, the answer is absolutely none. DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 Another valid criticism was the lack of adequate and follow up effort within the intelligence community. The National Collection Priority for POW/MIA prior to 1985 ranged from priority 7 to priority 3. We raised it to priority l... DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 Chairman Kerry: ...there is just ample evidence of occasions where the Government just stumbles over itself in kind of defensiveness or inefficiency or something which has -- I think you would agree -- significantly contributed to people's anger and frustration. Is that correct?

Perroots: Therein lies the problem. DIA - Critics Perroots 08/12/92 I repeatedly asked General Tighe and the review group if they were getting the support they needed and never received anything but a positive answer. DIA - Critics Perroots 08/12/92 Never, never did he or any task force member mention that they had even a suspicion of any bugging of their facility...Also the statement by General Tighe that it was unanimous conclusion of all the task force members that the room was bugged is false...All of the comments implicitly accept the allegation that there was a bugging. Gentlemen, I do not believe there was. There is no evidence there was. DIA Perroots 08/12/92 President Reagan assumed office with a personal commitment to resolving the issue... the Administration was determined to pursue the issue as a matter of highest national priority....Frankly, a mess was inherited. DIA - Clusters Perroots 12/01/92 In terms of that big evidence to support the existence of Americans being held against their will, it is nonsense. You have to take each report, factor the credibility of that report, determine what other reports you have... That is a rather simplistic approach to the analytical effort required to determine whether Americans are held against their will in Southeast Asia. DIA - Clusters Perroots 12/01/92 Sen. McCain: General Perroots, let us get back again to the famous cluster theory. Now, this has been portrayed by the staff -- or some members of the staff of this committee -- as some kind of earth-shaking brand new idea, something that no one ever thought of before... What is your view of this cluster theory? Have you ever used it? What do you view the validity of it?

Perroots: Well, let me first say that trend analyses, the clustering of reports is not only not new, but it has been done. I directly was involved as part of the preliminary for the Stony Beach operation. I said listen, I not only want to have a capability but I want to be able to move even on the basis of a lack of sufficient evidence, but if I say well, if we are going to do something, if we are going to put a team in, where would be the best place to put them in on the basis simply of where the most reports are, even if you assume that all of them are true. So we clustered and we clustered and we clustered. It was a continuing process. DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 Another valid criticism, in my judgment, is that we not always adequately conducted timely follow up of reports. DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 I believe we implemented virtually all of the 30 or more recommendations of the Gaines Report and virtually all of the recommendations of the Tighe Report, save for one, as I recall, or perhaps two. DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 Another valid criticism that we ultimately fixed was the criticism that there was insufficient coordination among the intelligence agencies to ensure an effective database and integrated collection and analysis effort. DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 Of course, a major criticism that for the most part was invalid, from my view, was the alleged mindset to debunk. It is very easy for me to say that there was very little to debunk. There was no debunking. There was no calculated effort to debunk. I took whatever steps possible to make sure that there could be no debunking, as much as you can humanly possibly do that... We did that by establishing review boards.

In retrospect, Mr. Chairman, I don't believe there was any calculated effort to debunk. DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 Another valid criticism: DIA was too involved in activities which detracted from its primary mission... DIA - Critics Perroots 12/01/92 A major valid criticism was that insufficient resources were being expended to adequately do the collecting, analysis, and follow up mission...Now, this was especially true from '73 to '85... DIA - Critics Schlatter 12/01/92 In the case of the Tighe Report, we implemented every one of those that we could implement... There were certain of the Tighe recommendations that simply really did not apply to DIA... DIA - Critics Schlatter 12/01/92 ...I do not believe the mindset to debunk exists... in terms of the Gaines Report, we adopted virtually every one of the recommendations. DIA - Critics Schlatter 12/01/92 I was to find, and it took me a year to wake up and realize this, that the answers are simply not that simple and the answers were not that available... DIA - Critics Schlatter 12/01/92 Another problem I found was one of confusion of management and analytic resources. DIA - Critics Schlatter 12/01/92 There are two criticisms that I consider particularly invalid... I came into that office feeling that, number one, what we had was essentially an intelligence analytic problem. DIA Sheetz 12/04/92 ...we at DIA recognize that the answers to the haunting questions surrounding our unaccounted for men are to be found in Southeast Asia. We clearly understand that our duty as intelligence officers is to provide timely support to those assigned the POW/MIA operational mission in Southeast Asia. DIA Sheetz 12/04/92 ...DIA and the entire intelligence community recently collaborated in the development of a collection posture statement and overall collection strategy for the POW/MIA issue. This effort was a major undertaking which we believe goes a long way toward ensuring that all appropriate capabilities of the U.S. intelligence system continue to be brought to bear. DIA Shields 06/25/92 DIA as an intelligence gathering and interpreting body should be free and unconstrained in its own internal efforts to develop information about missing and captured Americans. I believe that [standard] provided a more effective and complete intelligence effort than forcing DIA to conform to service decisions about what happened to a man.