n 23 November 1983, DIA received a report from CIA that told of the sighting in late 1980-early 1981 of two "alleged American prisoners" at a prison in Thanh Hoa Province in Northern Vietnam (DMA SRV Postwar Province Map.). CIA officials initially reported that the sighting had taken place at Cam Thuy Prison, but follow-up analysis later determined it had actually occurred at the Lam Son Political Prison, located some 30 kilometers (approximately 20 statute miles) southeast of Cam Thuy near the village of Chom Lai. ("Postwar Indochina"). 48

The CIA report quoted a refugee from northern Vietnam as saying he had been held at the prison and had seen the two prisoners on the day they had been brought into the prison and several times thereafter. The report quoted the refugee as saying that both prisoners were Caucasian and that each time he saw them they were both wearing camouflage fatigues. The refugee was further quoted as saying that a former ARVN officer being held at the prison at the time told him the Caucasians were former U.S. advisors who had worked with the ARVN. 49

Some six weeks after DIA received the CIA report, a JCRC interviewer conducting routine refugee screening in a Hong Kong refugee camp interviewed a refugee who turned out to be the same man quoted in the CIA report. When asked by the JCRC interviewer if he had seen or had any information about missing Americans, the source, who identified himself as a former coal mine equipment operator from Hong Gai, repeated essentially the same account of the two Americans being held at Lam Son that had been reported by CIA. 50

In addition to providing the JCRC interviewer with the information about his sighting of the two American prisoners at Lam Son, the refugee had gone on to tell the JCRC interviewer that he had also seen the capture and subsequent killing of an American pilot near his home in Hong Gai during the war. At the interviewer’s urging, he had explained that his sighting of the single American pilot had occurred in 1967, when he was only seven years old. He said that on the day of the sighting he heard the air raid alert sound and after stepping outside to see what was going on saw a U.S. aircraft crash into a nearby vegetable cooperative. He said that as he watched, villagers captured the pilot, who had parachuted safely from the burning plane and landed nearby, and then beat him to death with gardening hoes. He said that after the villagers killed the pilot, who the source described as a "big male Caucasian," they took his body to a nearby temple where it lay for approximately one hour until militiamen picked it up and took it away in a vehicle. 51

Disposition of Case: The former coal mine equipment operator was assigned DIA source number 2006 and his sightings were passed to analyst Sedgwick Tourison for investigation.

In conducting his investigation, Tourison employed a technique Senate investigators would later discover had been employed time after time in similar cases where sources reported seeing both an American POW or group of American POWs during the war and another American POW or group of American POWs after the war. Senate investigators would find that in investigating these cases that involved both wartime and postwar sightings, the DIA analysts had first investigated the source’s wartime sighting by comparing it to known wartime events, i.e., shootdowns, bailouts, captures, etc., and in virtually every case had equated the source’s sighting to a returnee that was known or believed to have occurred during the war, thus successfully resolving the sighting. Accompanying this successful resolution of the wartime sighting, of course, was the unspoken fact that by successfully equating what the source had reported to known wartime events, the analysts had proven the source to be a credible, truthful witness of that event.

Senate investigators would then find that when the analysts had continued on and investigated the same source’s sighting of the American POW or group of American POWs that had taken place after the war, in every case the analysts had ruled that the source had lied or been "confused" about what he or she had seen after the war and had not actually seen an American prisoner in captivity. To repeat, in every case, the very same source who had been deemed a credible, truthful witness with accurate recall of his or her wartime sighting, had been deemed lying or confused about his or her postwar sighting.

And this is exactly what happened to Source 2006, the coal mine equipment operator from Hong Gai. Tourison first checked the wartime files and was able to quickly equate the source’s wartime sighting to a known wartime event – in this case the shootdown and death of LCDR Edwin B. Tucker, USN, which had been reported in similar fashion by a number of other refugee sources who had been at Hon Gai the day Tucker had been shot down. Then, using the same techniques and logic used in cases 1-4 above, Tourison "investigated" this very same former coal mine equipment operator’s sighting of the two prisoners at Lam Son and determined that he was lying about seeing the two American prisoners at Lam Son during 1980-81.

And so it was entered that DIA Source 2006, like many who would follow, was both a truthful witness and a liar:

OFFICIAL DIA EVALUATION OF THE FORMER COAL MINE EQUIPMENT OPERATOR’S WARTIME SIGHTING OF THE CAPTURE AND SUBSEQUENT DEATH OF THE AMERICAN PILOT AT HONG GAI: TRUE. 52

OFFICIAL DIA EVALUATION OF THE FORMER COAL MINE EQUIPMENT OPERATOR’S POSTWAR SIGHTING OF THE TWO AMERICAN POWS SEEN IN CAPTIVITY AT LAM SON PRISON IN THANH HOA PROVINCE: FABRICATION. 53

Senate investigators would find that though the facts of future, similar sightings varied from case to case, the ruling of the analysts always remained the same: wartime sighting true/postwar sighting false. In one case - that of a long-term political prisoner who had been held both during and after the war in a number of different prisons in the North - the source had reported to U.S. officials that he had seen American POWs at two different prisons in North Vietnam during the war and then, while still imprisoned in the North in 1988, had seen yet another group of American POWs at a third prison, this one Bang Liet/Thanh Liet (Skidrow Prison) located just outside of Hanoi. Senate investigators would find that in this case the DIA analysts, knowing that some of the returnees reported they had been held at both prisons where the source said he had seen American POWs being held during the war, had ruled that the former political prisoner had told the truth when he had described his wartime sightings. Senate investigators found, however, that these same DIA analysts had then gone on to rule that the source had lied when he said he had seen the American POWs in Skidrow prison just outside Hanoi in 1988; this in spite of the fact that at least a half dozen other sources had reported the presence of U.S. POWs in that very same Skidrow prison during the mid- to late 1980’s. 54

Senate investigators would discover that DIA analysts had acted in similar fashion when investigating reports from sources who said they had seen an American moving freely about the Yen Bai area after the war—clearly Robert Garwood—and had also seen an American POW or a group of American POWs being held after the war at another location. Senate investigators would find that this type of dual reporting had been received often, and that the DIA analysts had ruled in virtually every case that the source was telling the truth when describing his or her sighting of the single American near Yen Bai—Robert Garwood—but was lying or confused about his or her sighting of the American POW or POWs in captivity after the war at another location. Further, Senate investigators would discover one source, a former ARVN Major, who reported that while in reeducation in the North after the war he had seen a single American near Yen Bai and had also seen American POWs in captive status at two other locations in the North during 1978 — a group of American prisoners in a broken-down truck in Son La Province and a single American POW named "Jackson" inside Tan Lap-Phu Tho prison south of Yen Bai. (Both of these 1978 sightings of POWs are discussed in An Enormous Crime, Chapter 17.) Senate investigators would find that in this case the DIA analysts had ruled that the former Major was telling the truth when he said he had seen the single American near Yen Bai (Garwood), but was lying when he said he had seen the American POWs in the broken-down truck in Son La Province and the single American POW named "Jackson" in the prison just south of Yen Bai. To repeat: Garwood moving freely after the war near Yen Bai: "True." A group of American prisoners in a broken-down truck in nearby Son La Province after the war: "False." "Jackson" inside a prison near Yen Bai after the war: "False." Same ARVN Major - telling the truth once, lying twice. 55

Not surprisingly, Senate investigators would find the whole thing incredible. Might something like this happen once or twice? Of course, that was to be expected. Three or four times? Maybe, perhaps. But every time? Impossible.

[NEXT: (6) The American POWs Reportedly Being Moved Around Nghe Tinh Province in Northern Vietnam During the Late 1970’s and Early 1980’s.]