n 13 March 1984, CIA forwarded to the Special Office an intelligence report that told of American POWs being held during 1983 inside a newly built, highly secure prison facility located just west of Lien Mac (pronounced "Lean Moc"), a small village on the south bank of the Red River just outside the northwest Hanoi suburbs.
The Agency reported that the information about the Americans had recently been acquired from a diplomat stationed at a friendly foreign embassy in Hanoi. The Agency further reported that the original source of the information – an eyewitness who had seen the American prisoners and passed the information to the diplomat - was a Vietnamese man who had previously worked at the prison as a guard. According to the CIA report, the former guard had described the prison as a "holding center" for U.S. prisoners and had said that the Americans were detained in a highly secure, walled inner compound located inside the facility’s larger, secure, walled outer compound—a compound within a compound, if you will. He had further said that the inner compound wall separating it from the grounds of the outer compound was two meters high, made of concrete and topped with steel poles and barbed wire and that the inner compound itself contained more than 10 small individual confinement buildings arranged to preclude communication between occupants of the individual buildings.
The CIA report went on to describe how the friendly foreign diplomat in Hanoi, upon hearing of the guard’s story, had dispatched one of his own agents to Lien Mac to check out the report. According to the CIA report, the agent:
Disposition of the Case: The Lien Mac report was logged in as Case #2076 and assigned to Chief Vietnam analyst Robert J. Destatte.
Destatte read the CIA report and immediately knew that it represented something unique and very different; a dramatic departure from the reports of refugee interviews the Special Office received day in and day out from JCRC in Bangkok. This report of American prisoners at Lien Mac, Destatte knew, was special indeed, and for several reasons:
- The diplomat’s agent had traveled to Lien Mac in early March 1984 to conduct on-ground reconnaissance of the facility.
- During his reconnaissance mission, the agent had visually confirmed the guard’s account of the facility’s (1) location; (2) physical layout and (3) physical characteristics.
- The hand held photography of the facility taken by the agent had been of very high quality. In one photograph, the two guard towers were clearly seen on the compound’s back wall. Guard towers, Destatte knew, were a telltale signature of highly secure North Vietnamese political prisons, those that held American POWs. Another photograph showed buildings in the less-secure outer compound bristling with military type antennas, suggesting that this part of the facility might serve as a communications station of some type. *
- During his mission, the agent had personally observed guards manning the inner compound guard towers, a clear indication that prisoners were being held in the inner compound at the time he had been there in early March 1984.
- There was reason to believe that the prisoners the guards were guarding at Lien Mac in early March were American, this for at least four reasons. First, the original source of the report, the guard, had said that he had personally observed American prisoners being detained at the prison. Second, and of great import, the presence of the telltale guard towers indicated this was a prison for Americans. Third, the guard’s credibility had been significantly enhanced by the agent’s confirmation of the information he (the guard) had provided about the prison, i.e., its exact location, physical layout and physical characteristics. Fourth, the agent, after observing and photographing the prison, had stated his firm belief that the SRV would never place Vietnamese prisoners in such a new and highly secure prison.
- When received at the Special Office on 13 March, the information about the prison being active as of early March was less than two weeks old.
Gravely concerned about what he read, Destatte warned one of his analysts, "this has … potential to be a real troublesome case if we don’t pursue [it] aggressively." 67
Destatte and his team of analysts began their investigation by examining recent satellite imagery of the Lien Mac area which, unfortunately for them, showed the facility at Geo Coords 21-04-57N/105-44-53E, a location within a stone’s throw of that reported by both the former guard and the agent who had gone to the area and taken the handheld photographs.
When the satellite images of the prison itself—which DIA dubbed the "Lien Mac Special Facility"—were enlarged, one could see very clearly the outer and inner compounds, the two guard towers and the small individual detention buildings in the highly-secure inner compound where the Americans were reportedly housed. These individual buildings, which had been constructed in a pattern obviously designed to prevent communication between occupants, each had an attached, walled exercise area. The analysts knew that in addition to the guard towers, the placement of the buildings to prevent communication and the presence of attached, walled exercise areas to each building were also telltale signatures of a North Vietnamese maximum security political prison. **
The analysts next compared the current imagery of the facility with that taken during past years. This analysis showed that the outer compound and its structures had been built during the war; and had been modified and expanded during the late 1970’s; and that the new, highly secure walled inner compound where the Americans were reportedly held had been constructed between September 1982 and March 1983. 68
In mid-June 1984, the analysts received information that appeared to refute the guard’s assertion that American prisoners had been held in the facility at Lien Mac. This information was contained in a CIA report that quoted a North Vietnamese defector as saying that in 1981 he had visited the facility at Lien Mac and that it was a PAVN military intelligence station used to train clandestine radio operators. The defector added that he had returned to the area in the spring of 1982 and had been told at that time that the facility was still being used for the same purpose. 69
Though the defectors testimony initially appeared to refute the guard’s statement that the new inner compound at Lien Mac served as a prison, a quick re-check of the imagery showed that when the defector had last been at Lien Mac in the spring of 1982, construction of the prison portion of the facility—the inner compound—had not yet begun. (As previously stated, imagery showed that construction of the prison and the inner walled compound had begun some time after September 1982 and had essentially been completed by the following March, 1983). Thus, the defector’s testimony in no way impeached the testimony of the guard that the inner compound was a prison for Americans and that he had seen Americans being held inside that compound in 1983.***
Unable to discredit the guard’s story with the testimony of the defector, the analysts, as they would often do in the future when attempting to discredit important sightings, turned to their trusted counterparts at DIA’s imagery analysis branch and asked for a little help in "interpreting" the most recent imagery. In August, the imagery analysts provided the requested help in the form of an official analysis of the recent imagery of the Lien Mac facility. In their report, the imagery analysts first described in detail the facility’s newly constructed, highly secure walled inner compound, which they described as L-shaped and containing 12 individual house type buildings with individual courtyards and two guard towers. They then declared that:
… The initial impression of this installation is that it is a probable prison or detention facility; however on closer examination and analysis this does not appear to be the case.
… At first glance the facility gives the impression of a prison given the guard towers and high wall. But a close examination of the buildings inside the "L" shaped portion suggest another purpose for this facility. The buildings appear too well made and have individual courtyards. The craftsmanship and individual courtyards of the buildings plus an unsullied appearance of the "L" shaped compound suggest the facility was designed to billet "special or high value" personnel, perhaps this is a training center [and] the guard towers and wall/fence serve more to protect than to observe and detain….
Conclusion:
Even though this facility is walled and has guard towers, it is not a detention center. The… signatures normally associated with a detention center, e.g., dilapidated structures, internal foot paths, etc., that indicate bleak conditions for its occupants are not present. This is a new site displaying a high degree of craftsmanship and spaciousness more appropriate to a "hotel" for important (VIP or transitory) personnel. 70
Thus a maximum security prison with manned guard towers and high, barbed-wire-topped walls with American prisoners of war reportedly seen inside was determined to be a hotel for Communist VIPs.
When members of Congress got word that DIA was poised to officially declare the Lien Mac prison a hotel and close the case, the congressmen were enraged and protested loudly. Tempers cooled only after they received assurances that what they had heard was only a rumor and that no such "hotel" designation was planned and that the investigation of the case was ongoing and that Special Office management would keep them advised of future developments.
On 4 October 1985, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Operations (East Asia- Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) (DDO-EA-VLC), called the Special Office with news that the original Lien Mac source had recently provided additional POW-related information to one of the DDO’s field elements. According to the Special Office analyst’s phone notes of his conversation with the DDO, this information—though unrelated to the Lien Mac sighting—was equally explosive. The DDO explained the source had reported that three American pilots had escaped while being transported from Ba Vi to Hanoi in 1983, but that all had been recaptured in Son Tay within seven days. The source had also reported that in 1984, the Public Security Service had been placed on alert to search for other U.S. pilots who had escaped, and that these pilots had also been recaptured and had been placed in a prison in Thanh Hoa Province. The source had further reported that it was estimated that over 500 U.S. servicemen remained alive in captivity in Vietnam, and that one of them, a Colonel, was asking to be released so he could return to the U.S. to ask that two billion dollars be paid to Vietnam to gain the release of his fellow prisoners. Regarding to the Colonel’s efforts, the Lien Mac source had corrected the two billion dollar figure by declaring that "[t]he SRV is asking for 4-5 billion dollars for the release." 71 (See An Enornous Crime, Chapter 6.)
Knowing the additional intelligence provided by the Lien Mac source would create a firestorm if the activist congressmen learned of it, this new information was not made available to them. When word finally did make its way to the congressmen several months later, they demanded to know what the analysts were planning to do about it and what they had done about the original Lien Mac report as well. It was only then that the congressmen learned that the analysts had "resolved" the Lien Mac sighting by first declaring that the Lien Mac facility was, based on the defector’s testimony, a military intelligence station—period—omitting the fact that the guard’s original testimony combined with the satellite imagery and hand-held photography had proved beyond any doubt that after the defector had last been in the area in the spring of 1982, the PAVN had built a small, walled maximum security prison inside the existing compound. Destatte then declared that because the facility was a military intelligence station and not a prison, the guard could not possibly have seen American POWs being held there and therefore had lied when he said he had. Official ruling: because the facility at Lien Mac was a military intelligence station and not a prison as the guard had "claimed," the guard’s sighting was a fabrication. 72
On 5 September 1986, some six months after the analysts’ final ruling in the original Lien Mac sighting, the Special Office received a report from JCRC in Bangkok stating that one of their interviewers had recently interviewed a North Vietnamese border guard from the Hanoi area who had recently defected. The report explained that during the interview the defector had been asked if he knew anything about SRV facilities in the Lien Mac area. JCRC reported the following exchange had then occurred:
SOURCE STATED HE WAS NOT KNOWLEDGEABLE CONCERNING ANY SRV FACILITIES IN THE LIEN MAC AREA. LATER IN THE INTERVIEW, INTERVIEWER GAVE SOURCE A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE LIEN MAC FACILITY TO INCLUDE A HAND DRAWN SKETCH OF THE CONFIGURATION OF THE INTERIOR BUILDINGS, AND FINALLY SOURCE WAS SHOWN THE GROUND PHOTOS OF THE FACILITY. … AFTER LISTENING TO THE INTERVIEWER’S DESCRIPTION AND VIEWING THE PHOTOS, INTERVIEWER ASKED SOURCE TO IDENTIFY THE TYPE OF FACILITY DEPICTED. SOURCE ANSWERED IMMEDIATELY WITH CONVICTION THAT THE ONLY THING THE FACILITY COULD BE IS A PRISON. INTERVIEWER QUESTIONED SOURCE ON THE POSSIBILITY OF THE FACILITY BEING USED AS A SIGNAL CENTER, SIGNAL TRAINING SITE OR TRAINING SITE FOR SPIES, AND SOURCE REITERATED WITH THE SAME DEGREE OF CONVICTION THAT IN HIS OPINION, THE ONLY THING IT COULD BE IS A PRISON. SOURCE BASED HIS OPINION ON THE WALLS AND ESPECIALLY THE GUARD TOWERS, STATING THAT THE SRV WOULD BUILD GUARD TOWERS ONLY ON PRISONS. 73
Not surprisingly, Destatte chose to ignore the border guard’s testimony and let stand his earlier ruling that the facility at Lien Mac was a military intelligence station and not a prison. No copy of the border guard’s testimony was sent to the House Task Force on POW/MIAs.
