n 9 October 1984, JCRC officials in Bangkok informed the Special Office that a Vietnamese refugee had recently told JCRC interviewers he and a group of friends had been on a fishing trip in Long Khanh (postwar Dong Nai) Province in 1983 ("Postwar Indochina"; DMA SRV Postwar Province Map.) and that while fishing they had seen four to five "foreign prisoners" and their Vietnamese guards walking toward them along a trail. The refugee had said the foreign prisoners appeared to be returning to a nearby camp from field labor, and that upon seeing them and their guards he and his friends had become frightened and had run away. 128

Background: At the time the fisherman’s sighting was received at the Special Office on 9 October 1984, the following other reports of Americans held captive in Long Khanh (postwar Dong Nai) Province — all of which were discussed above in the analysis of Case #2395 - were on the books at the Special Office: (1) the MOI Lieutenant’s sighting of the 20-30 American POWs getting off the bus inside Xuan Loc K-4 in December 1979; (2) the sighting of the 5-6 American prisoners at Xuan Loc K-4 in June 1975; (3) the sighting of the 20-30 American POWs illuminated by "electric torches" at the old Blackhorse camp south of Xuan Loc in late summer 1976; (4) the Northerner’s three sightings during late 1977 of the more than 20 "foreigners who flew airplanes" in a prison near Cam My village just southeast of the Blackhorse camp and (5) the reported sighting of the 80 American POWs at a Xuan Loc prison camp in 1979 shortly after their arrival from Lang Son near the Chinese border.

Disposition of Case: The fisherman’s 1983 sighting was logged in as Case #2690 and assigned to Vietnam Desk Analyst Sedgwick Tourison for investigation.

Just as Tourison began his investigation, JCRC officials dispatched a supplementary report to the Special Office that provided additional and more precise information about Source 2690’s sighting of the group of "foreign prisoners" in Long Khanh. This report, written by a refugee official who had initially interviewed the source in Thailand, read in part as follows:

ABOUT IN JANUARY/1983, IN THE ONE TIME OF SOURCE’S FISHING WITH FIVE OTHERS AT AN AREA WHICH IS NEAR LONG-KHANH’S FOREST (SOURCE DOES NOT KNOW THE NAME OF THIS AREA, AND ONLY KNOWN THAT IS A RESTRICTED AREA). AT WHERE SOURCE AND FIVE OTHERS HIS GROUP SAW A GROUP OF RE-EDUCATED PRISONERS, AMONG THOSE, THERE WERE A NUMBER OF AMERICAN PRISONERS WENT IN THE HEAD (illegible) OF LINE AND VIETNAMESE PRISONERS FOLLOWED BEHIND.

IN THIS AFFAIR SOURCE TOLD THAT, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN SOURCE AND THE AMERICANS IS ABOUT 100 METERS. SOURCE ALSO TOLD THAT, WHILE SOURCE LOOKED AT THESE AMERICANS AND ON THE OTHER HAND THESE AMERICANS HAD ALSO LOOKED AT IN THE DIRECTION OF SOURCE’S STANDING, THEREFORE SOURCE IS SURE, THOSE ARE AMERICANS.

SOURCE SAID THAT, PERSONS WHO CONDUCTED THIS GROUP WAS NOT PAVNS NOR PUBLIC-SECURITIES BUT SOURCE … TOLD THAT, THESE PERSONS WORE CIVIL CLOTHES, BUT SHORTS AND CARRIED M.16 AND AS SEEING SOURCE AND PEOPLE IN HIS GROUP, THESE PERSONS (THE CONDUCTORS WHO CARRIED M.16 TO GUIDE THE PRISONERS) ORDER TO DRIVE OUT SOURCE AND HIS GROUP TO KEEP OFF THAT PLACE. SOURCE SAID THAT, AMONG THE FISHERS … ON THAT DAY AT THAT LOCATION, THERE WERE MISS. [name redacted], (SOURCE UNREMEMBERED THE ADDRESS OF THIS GIRL NOW IN THE SRV.).129

Months passed without any action being taken to investigate the fisherman’s sighting. Then, in mid-June 1985, Tourison contacted the fisherman — who by then had emigrated to the U.S.—and interviewed him by telephone about his sighting.

According to Tourison’s official report of the interview, the source repeated essentially the same information he had earlier provided to U.S. officials in Southeast Asia, i.e., the sighting of the American prisoners and their Vietnamese guards had taken place sometime around January 1983 in Long Khanh (Dong Nai) Province while he and some friends were on a fishing trip; he and his friends had seen what he now remembered to have been perhaps as many as eight American prisoners and their guards walking along a trail toward the spot where he and his friends were fishing; when he and his friends had seen the prisoners and their guards coming toward them they had fled. The source added that he had sent a letter to one of the members of the fishing party who lived in Saigon asking for the exact location in Long Khanh Province where the encounter with the American prisoners and their guards had taken place, but said that he had not yet received a reply. 130

Tourison, without waiting for a reply from the source’s friend in Saigon, handed down his interim findings less than a week after his telephone interview of the source. In his ruling, which was dispatched to JCRC, the CIA, the Secretaries of Defense and State and the National Security Council at the White House, Tourison began by stating that the source had exhibited "an extremely limited comprehension of both English and Vietnamese;" had spoken in "a rural Cantonese which is extremely difficult to comprehend….;" had "appeared to have considerable difficulty in accurately describing concepts associated with time and distance" and had "appeared to be unsure what he saw." Having said all that, Tourison then declared that DIA was willing to accept that the source was probably telling the truth about all aspects of his story except one. Tourison explained it this way:

DC-2 [the Special Office] ACCEPTS [Source 2690’s] CLAIM TO HAVE GONE WITH SOME CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES INTO THE AREA WHICH PROBABLY EQUATES TO DONG NAI PROVINCE, PERHAPS [in] 1983. HE PROBABLY WAS OUT FOR THE DAY AND FISHING WITH CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES IN A RESTRICTED AREA AS INITIALLY REPORTED….HE FURTHER MAY WELL HAVE BEEN APPROACHED BY A GROUP OF UNIDENTIFIED INDIVIDUALS WHOM HE AND HIS FRIENDS SAW FROM A DISTANCE AND FROM WHOM THEY FLED. DC-2 CONCLUDES THAT IF [Source 2690] SAW ANYONE, HE SAW A GROUP OF VIETNAMESE WHO CAUSED HIM SOME SEVERE MENTAL ANGUISH, SOME OF WHOM HE SPECULATED COULD HAVE BEEN FOREIGNERS. DC-2 TENTATIVELY CONCLUDES THAT [Source 2690] HAS NO PW/MIA INFORMATION. 131

A short while later Tourison issued his final, official evaluation in the case. Conveniently omitting any reference to the other postwar reports in the Special Office files that told of American POWs being seen in Long Khanh (Dong Nai) Province in 1975, 1976, three times in 1977 and twice in 1979, and the fact that the source was awaiting information from Saigon on the exact location where his sighting had taken place, Tourison declared:

The PW/MIA Division has identified all reeducation camps in Dong Nai Province, and has received reports on each of these facilities from former inmates, former residents of Dong Nai Province, and foreign visitors to some of the reeducation camps in the province. To date, the PW/MIA Division has not received any information that could corroborate [Source 2690’s] story….

[Source 2690] was … unable to describe where the sighting had taken place or how he traveled to and from the fishing spot. …

DC-2 concludes that [Source 2690] may have seen a group of individuals at considerable distance who approached him while he was fishing with casual acquaintances in a restricted area during January 1983. Their approach caused he [sic] and his friendsto [sic] flee as a Vietnamese leading the group was armed. There is nothing to suggest that the group [he] saw included anyone other than Vietnamese. His initial report that these individuals were American prison inmates was clearly his personal speculation. 132

Final evaluation: Fabrication.

[NEXT: (12) Major Kane and the Other American POWs Reportedly Seen on a Chain Gang Just South of Hoa Binh Province Town In Northern Vietnam in 1983.]