April 3, 1973:
Pathet Lao (Laotian Communist) forces declare they are holding more than 100 American POW's   declaring they are all dead -- without ever talking to the Laotians about the POWs they admit holding!

1970-1976:
After the French pay an unspecified sum of money to the Vietnamese, the communists release POWs captured in 1954! The North Vietnamese had claimed all of them had died.

June 25, 1981:
Defense Intelligence Agency Director Eugene Tighe testifies before the House Subcommittee on Asian/Pacific Affairs that live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.

December 7, 1984:
The Washington Times reports that Bobby Garwood, released by Vietnam 1979, saw up to 70 live captive Americans long after the war ended.

June 28, 1985:
The Washington Times reports DIA Director Lieutenant General Eugene Tighe testified Hanoi is still holding at least 50-60 live American POWs.

October 15, 1985:
The Wall Street Journal reports that at National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane says live American POWs remain in Southeast Asia.

August 19, 1986:
The Wall Street Journal reports the White House knew in 1981 Vietnam wanted to sell an unspecified number of live POWs for $4 billion. The White House decided the offer was genuine --

September 30, 1986:
The New York Times reports a Pentagon panel estimates up to 100 live American POWs are held in Vietnam alone.

October 7, 1986:
CIA Director William Casey says: "Look, the nation knows they (the POWs) are there, EVERYBODY knows they ARE there, but there's no ground swell of support for getting them out. Certainly, you are not suggesting we pay for them, surely not saying we could do anything like that with no public support."

January 1988:
A cable from the Joint Casualty Resolution Center states that during General Vessey's visit to Hanoi, "The Vietnamese people were prepared to turn over 7 or 8 live American POWs if Vessey told then what they wanted to hear. All the prospective returnees were allegedly held in a location on the Lao side of the border."

June 10 1989:
The Washington Post reports a Japanese monk released after 13 years in a Vietnamese prison had American POW cellmates who nursed him to health.

September 1990:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Interim Report on POW/MIAs in Southeast Asia concluded that despite public assurances in 1973 that no POWs remained in the region, the Defense Department " . . . in April 1974 concluded beyond a doubt that several hundred American POWs remained in captivity in Southeast Asia."

October 1990:
Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach admits Vietnam still holds American POWs but is willing to release "as many as 10 live American POWs." His offer, like others before it, is ignored by Secretary of State James Baker III.

February 1991:
Colonel Millard Peck, Chief of the Pentagon's Special Office for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, resigns in protest of being ordered by policy makers in the POW/MIA Inter-Agency Group not to investigate live sighting reports of American POWs!

April 25, 1991:
Senator Bob Smith addresses the Senate and reveals that, of more than 1,400 eyewitness sightings of live POWs, NONE has ever received an on-site investigation!

May 23, 1991:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Examination of U.S. Policy toward POW/MIAs concludes that the U.S. has ignored thousands of American POWs, and left them to rot in Soviet slave labor camps and North Korean and Vietnamese prisons. "Any evidence that suggested an MIA might be alive was uniformly and arbitrarily rejected."

Summer 1991:
A flood of new evidence of live POWs pours from Southeast Asia: pictures, handwriting samples, hair samples, blood samples, fingerprints, foot-prints, maps and other physical proof. The Bush administration disregards the evidence and attempts to discredit it by rumor and innuendo. Some of the photos are scientifically validated -- and have never been scientifically disproved!

December 1, 1992:
Senator Bob Smith, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs publishes a letter;  U.S. POW/MIA's Who May Have Survived In Captivity

February 1993:
A Harvard University Russian Research Center scholar, Steve Morris (Ph.D.. Columbia University), who was in Moscow researching a book on Soviet North Vietnamese relations during the Vietnam War, discovered an important document concerning American POWs from that war. In this document from General Quang to the North Vietnamese Politburo, was information pertaining to the status of hundreds of American POWs in North Vietnam as of September 15, 1972. Operation Homecoming, started five months after this date. North Vietnam had acknowledged holding 368 American POWs, but this document stated that there were 1205 American POWs being held. During Operation Homecoming, 591 American POWs were released, so what happened to the other 614 POWs? This document is called the 1205 Documents/Quang Tri Documents

October 1997:
Reuters (WASHINGTON) reports President Nixon ordered the Pentagon to "play it very tough" in attempting to secure the release of American prisoners of war in Laos days before the U.S. left South Vietnam, newly released tapes showed on Monday. "I have always said that until all of our prisoners are withdrawn, there will be American forces in South Vietnam, " Nixon told Brent Scowcroft. "That's the line. Play it very tough," Nixon said ". . . See that the Pentagon understands that and the State Department. . ." The previously secret tapes are important because they shed light on Nixon's thinking before March 29, 1973, when on this date Nixon told the nation "For the first time in 12 years, no American military forces are in Vietnam. All of our American POWs are on their way home." Release of POWs and withdrawal of U.S. troops were to be completed within sixty days of the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973. Nixon feared that communist guerrillas in Laos known as the Pathet Lao would hold back Americans suspected to be in their custody, despite North Vietnam's informal promise to arrange their release. Only nine Americans captured in Laos, all of them seized in areas controlled by North Vietnamese forces, were among the final March 28, 1975 planeload of POWs from Hanoi.

November 9th, 1998:
The Washington Times reports Kremlin withholds report on POWs. According to the news report, "Moscow is refusing to turn over a secret KGB document suggesting captured Americans were taken to the Soviet Union in the late 1960s for 'intelligence gathering purposes'.

January 12, 1999:
The Washington Times reports State Department accused of stifling POW-MIA probe. Weldon says Russian lawmaker told him of U.S. effort. To read this report, visit updates on this issue.

November 4, 1999:
Michael D. Benge, ex-POW, testified about the Cuban Project before the House International Relations Committee Chaired by the Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman. The Cuban Project was a program that had been sanctioned by the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. According to POW debriefings, supported by CIA and other reports, the "Cuba Program" was part of a Hanoi medical university's "psychological study." It was conducted to obtain full compliance from the American POWs, and to force them to make propaganda statements against the American government and the war in Vietnam. In his testimony, Michael Benge stated that only through full disclosure by the US government agencies, which were gathering information on the depth of Cuban involvement in the Vietnam war and with American POWs, will we know the truth. From his document you can see the Cubans were heavily involved in the Vietnam War. They were in charge of building and maintaining a good portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He further states that he was invited as a representative of the National Alliance of Families to a briefing at DPMO by its head, Bob Jones. He stated that among things Bob Jones discussed was his proposal for DPMO to sponsor a meeting between the US, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to discuss American Servicemen lost along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Michael Benge stated that he suggested to Mr. Jones that he should also invite Cuba to the conference,for they were heavily involved, but Jones replied that the Cubans weren't involved in Vietnam. Michael Benge stated he then recommended to Jones that he read both the material presented to Congress on the Cuban Program and Raul Valdes Vivo's book.

We as AMERICANS cannot allow this farce to continue. The Need to get specific answers is more important now than ever before. Some of our MIA's are now in their 70's and their time grows short. We have to demand answers from our bureaucrats and keep standing on their necks (figuratively speaking) until they get the message that THEY work for US and that WE are serious about getting these long overdue responses. Diplomatic considerations aside... We can NO LONGER tolerate questionable protocols by pseudo-aristocratic armchair strategists to determine or influence the fate of the men who were in the trenches while the diplomats were sharing sherry and canapes and talking about "THEIR" plans for S.E. Asia.