Bio, Fecteau, Richard

Name: Richard Fecteau Branch/Rank: CIV Unit: Date of Birth: Home City of Record: Date of Loss: 29 November 1952 Country of Loss: China Loss Coordinates: Status (in 1973): Returnee Category: Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Acft Missions: Other Personnel in Incident: John T. Downey, returnee - see updates Refno:

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action Combat Casualty File. Notes below are sourced and clipped from various articles. Updated 2011.

... Americans were also held in China after the Korean War, as bargaining chips to gain political favors. Joseph King and Walter Enbom were returned in 1957. Steve Kiba, a 1955 returnee, stated "While a prisoner of the Red Chinese after the Korean War, I saw over fifteen Caucasian prisoners. These fifteen men are in addition to John T. Downey and Richard Fecteau, with whom our B-29 crew spent three weeks. (December 7 to 28, 1954). I reported these sightings to our Air Force Intelligence, the CIA and the State Department upon my return to freedom. Their reaction was one of indifference and I was admonished to forget not only the fifteen, but also, Downey and Fecteau. It was suggested that perhaps I had imagined that i had seen these men."

...The government's idea of "good politics" is playing a game with the lives of captive U.S. servicemen and the emotions of family members. What is frightening is a conspiracy of this nature among governmental offices would have had to originate from the top. Five U.S. Presidents, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush, knew that American citizens had been left behind in communist captivity. President Bush, having been in charge of the CIA, would have been most knowledgeable. Consider the following: CIA agents Richard Fecteau and John Downey were seen in a Chinese prison camp by Steve Kiba, and airman shot down during the Korean War. When Kiba was released by the Chinese in 1955, he told the CIA, the State Department and Air Force Intelligence about Fecteau, Downey and many other Americans he had seen in the nine prison camps he had been held captive in, in China. Kiba said their reaction was one of indifference and he was admonished to forget the many he had seen, especially Fecteau and Downey.

Fecteau was released to freedom in 1971 and Downey in 1973. Downey secretly appeared from his captivity in China with the second to last group of American POWs who were returned from captivity in Viet Nam on March 12, 1973. Secret negotiations between China and the U.S. had surely taken place to accomplish this release. The DIA and State Department could not have been part of the negotiations without Presidential knowledge. Their success in gaining the release of U.S. government agents is to be applauded. But are the many other soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen of no consequence?...

... 10. On 10/15/90 Insight Magazine published a story by Susan Katz Keating, about the Korean war downing on 1/12/53 of Air Force radio operator Steve Kiba who was not released until August 1955, along with 10 others held in China. The story also shows a photo of Fecteau who was not freed until 1971....

... The CIA were also dealing in drugs to fund some of their operations in Laos, but the corruption involved in running that war might run so deep that the CIA and others might be determined that the truth never comes out. And that means leaving the American PoWs, many of whom knew what was going on, where they are. Many CIA men are among the missing and the Agency often seems quite content to leave their agents in enemy hands when their return might be inconvenient. CIA agents John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau languished in a Chinese jail for nearly 20 years after being shot down while dropping guerrilla units into the country in November, 1952. Fecteau was released in December, 1971, in the run-up to Richard Nixon's historic trip to China. Downey was held until March, 1973, when Nixon finally admitted publicly that Fecteau worked for the CIA. (3)...

My Nineteen Years in a Chinese Prison Thirty years ago this month, Richard Fecteau of Lynn, Massachusetts, along with John Downey of Wallingford, Connecticut, began an incredible ordeal. Neither has talked or written much about it, but in this article Dick tells exactly what happened and how it was. . .

It WAS A COLD NOVEMBER night in 1952 as the unmarked C-47 swooped in over the snow-blanketed landscape of Manchuria, China. Suddenly, as the plane reached 50 feet, large white sheets were pulled aside on the ground to reveal two 50-caliber antiaircraft guns. At point-blank range the guns began to fire and the plane plunged into it bank of trees, the wings and body torn asunder. Both pilots were killed.....

WASHINGTON - On the same day President Clinton arrived to a red carpet welcome in China last week, two men stood to applause in a banquet room at CIA headquarters and accepted awards for a very different experience in China.....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration wants China to open its Korean War-era records in search of clues to the fate of several missing Americans, including two pilots apparently killed when their unmarked plane was shot down on a CIA covert mission in Manchuria in November 1952.....

U.S. military investigators analyzing materials from the site of a plane crash in China that killed a Louisville pilot on a CIA mission in 1952 have identified remains found there as those of his co-pilot...... ===========================

June 2010
This first link is an article about Richard Fecteau's

over 19 years in a red Chinese prison.

Lynn man, former CIA agent, recalls captivity in China
http://www.thedailyitemoflynn.com/articles/2010/06/19/news/news01.txt

For a more detailed article about CIA agents Richard Fecteau

& John Downey, click on the following link:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol50no4/two-cia-prisoners-in-china-1952201373.html

You will find their story most interesting.

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http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/4a7a8c08add64d36ac940e56006b49fc/US--CIA-Documentary/

What a tale, now a film: 2 CIA officers captured by Chinese on secret

Jun 2, 2011 ... WASHINGTON - A CIA-produced documentary about a secret mission in China, ... The agency plans a public release of the film about two CIA officers captured ... The Associated Press obtained a copy of the film under the ...