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WHAT IS OPERATION SMOKING GUN? This site contains a wealth of information concerning U.S. soldiers and
civilians who either
became Missing in Action (MIA) or a Prisoner of War (POW) during the war in Indochina.
The bulk of the material consists of declassified, wartime U.S. government interrogation
reports
from captured or "rallied" enemy soldiers, captured and translated enemy
documents of the PAVN
(People's Army of Vietnam) and PLAF (People's Liberation Armed Forces more popularly known
as
the Viet Cong, or VC). Also included are unclassified Oral History interviews done in 1993
with former
communist cadre who were involved with handling U.S. POW/MIAs. Lastly, there are a series
of memos Please take a few moments to read the following information, as it will help you understand the different material presented here. The files are almost all text based, and contain much information on U.S. POW/MIAs, and communist policies towards U.S. POW/MIAs, their remains, and their personal effects. It is important to note that for anyone researching the POW/MIA issue, and while reading many of the reports here, one must address each intelligence report carefully. Each report should be regarded as part of a body of evidence, both for the validity of the source, and for the usefulness of the information. The most critical caveat to remember is that INFORMATION IS NOT INTELLIGENCE. For instance, many of the enemy soldiers will identify from a photo, from a book of pre-capture photos provided to them, the U.S. soldier they saw. Often, based on the circumstances of loss, they are incorrect. This is not to say that much of the information is not true, simply that dates can get mistaken, errors in translations can creep in, or any myriad of details may get forgotten or badly confused. The bottom line is that the researcher should exercise caution, check facts, and look for patterns. All of this information has been available to the responsible U.S. intelligence agencies since the war. It is YOUR job to take this material and develop new idea or challenge previously held beliefs. That said, the P.O.W. Network has found that the documents available under "Operation Smoking Gun" have NOT been provided to the family members by the United States Government previously. The Oral History Program documents are dated well beyond the conclusion of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, and therefore could not have been considered in the final report. These documents, taken in their entirety, show that the United States and the Republic of Vietnam have withheld VITAL information from our family members for DECADES. In our opinion, not only do these documents show a meticulous method of record keeping by Communist Vietnam, but they spell out intent to capture, hold, document, trade, and lie to the United States on the subject of LIVE captured American Servicemen. We are constantly hearing of full cooperation, enhanced endeavors, and joint projects with the Communist Vietnamese. The P.O.W. NETWORK believes this is but another manipulative propaganda ploy for the purposes of receiving full diplomatic and economic recognition, as well as most favored nation trading status. The Clinton administration has blinders on when it comes to the lies and deceit spewing from the mouths of the War Criminals in Vietnam. Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam deserve neither special recognition nor treatment until answers are provided the families of the men mentioned in these reports. The interrogation reports are from the Combined Military Interrogation Center (CMIC) and with sightings by enemy soldiers of U.S. soldiers in captivity, communist POW camps or prisons, or U.S. deserters. There was a standing requirement for all U.S. interrogators to question those captured or rallied enemy soldiers concerning their potential knowledge on the whereabouts or fate of U.S. soldiers who had become either Missing in Action (MIA) or Prisoner of War (POW). Information on U.S. POW/MIAs was given an unclassified code-name called "Brightlight." Other scanned interrogation reports deal with the communist bureaucracy, or on PAVN Air Defenses. Please read the section on the Combined Military Interrogation Center for a more complete description of the CMIC unit and it's role. The captured documents included here are from the Combined Document Exploitation Center (CDEC) and deal mainly with communist Vietnamese POW policies for American servicemen and their views on using the POW/MIA issue to their political and economic benefit. Other documents provide information on the communist political infrastructure. Please see the section entitled Combined Document Exploitation Center (CDEC) for further information. The Oral History Program (OHP) was developed to gather information on missing Americans by interviewing former communist cadre who U.S. intelligence believed might have knowledge on the fate of missing Americans, or who had been involved with Vietnamese POW policies or organizations. Before delving into the the pages of history laid out before you, we suggest that you read an excellent document presented here in two parts. POWs and Politics: How much does Hanoi Really Know? is a lengthy piece (we suggest downloading to read it off-line), by Garnett "Bill" Bell and George J. Veith. It will give you an overview of Vietnamese policies and unit responsibilities for handling U.S. POW/MIAs. The conclusions of the authors are enlightening, and frightening, in view of our ever increasing cooperation with Vietnam. Jay Veith has provided the P.O.W. NETWORK with the definitions and historical background to make this material more easily understood. "Operation Smoking Gun" has been a cooperative effort in both research and family notification between the P.O.W. NETWORK and the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen, World War II - Korea - Cold War - Vietnam. Author and Researcher Jay Veith provided us with the more than 1400 pages of documents reproduced here. Without these documents, there would have not been a Operation Smoking Gun.
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THE OPINIONS STATED ON THIS PAGE ARE SOLELY THE OPINION OF THE P.O.W. NETWORK.