EFFORTS TOWARD SOLUTION

On several occasions, President Nixon has publicly recognized the United States' obligation to the men who are missing and captured in Southeast Asia. He has also recognized the country's responsibilities to the families of these men and he has met personally with some of the families. The United States has given the prisoner issue high priority in the Paris talks, and the United States has proposed immediate negotiations concerning the repatriation of all prisoners held by both sides and has even offered to release immediately all communist prisoners of war in exchange for all American and South Vietnamese prisoners held by the other side. Moreover, Secretary of Defense Laird has made it clear that "until the prisoners are released there will be no total and complete withdrawal of the American presence in Viet Nam...."

The Congress of the United States also has recognized its obligations to the men and their families. The House of Representatives held a special order session dedicated to these men in September 1969. The proceedings covered more than 70 pages in the Congressional Record. On September 22, 1970, there was un unprecedented joint meeting of Congress devoted exclusively to the prisoner of war problem. Several resolutions expressing concern and outrage over the other side's intransigence on the prisoner issue have been introduced and passed, and a number of proposals have been considered to provide indemnification for missing or captive servicemen and to provide benefits for their dependents. On December 10, 1970 Congress cleared a bill authorizing educational benefits and home loan assistance for dependents of missing or captive servicemen. 1/

Most recently, in early December 1970, the United Nations General Assembly recognized that the treatment accorded to prisoners of war was properly its concern and adopted a resolution which calls upon all parties to any armed conflict to comply with terms and provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war in order to insure humane treatment of all persons entitled to the protection of the convention and to permit regular inspection in accordance with the convention of all places of detention of prisoners of war by a protecting power or humanitarian organization such as the ICRC.

1/ See S. 3785, 91st Congress, 2nd Session (1970). See also P.L. 91-289.

This resolution endorses the continuing efforts of the ICRC to secure effective application of the convention and it requests the secretary general to exert all efforts to obtain humane treatment for prisoners of war especially for the victims of armed aggression and colonial suppression.

It also urges compliance with Article 109 of the convention, which requires repatriation of seriously wounded and seriously sick prisoners of war and which provides for agreements with a view to direct repatriation or internment in a neutral country of ablebodied prisoners of war who have undergone a long period of captivity. The families of men who may be prisoners have even organized as the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, to ensure that the plight of their men is not forgotten and that all possible efforts to resolve the prisoner of war problem are vigorously pursued.

Despite these undertakings, there has been little progress toward a solution of the prisoner of war problem. The position of North Vietnam is that it will not discuss the release of prisoners of war unless the United States announces a plan for withdrawal of "all its troops and those of the other foreign countries" by June 30, 1971. But President Nixon has pointed out that "indicating when the Vietnamization will be concluded would completely destroy any reason to continue the Paris negotiations" and that we will continue the negotiations in an effort to end the war and solve the prisoner of war problem before the Vietnamization process is completed.

Obviously, any settlement of the Vietnam conflict must take into account the prisoner of war problem. Moreover, the timing of the resolution of the problem is important as the duration of captivity for all prisoners increases and time runs out for a growing number of them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ball, Col. Harry P., "Prisoners of War Negotiations, The Korean Experience and Lesson," Naval War College Review.

Department of Defense, Commanders Digest, Washington, D.C., 19
July 1969.

Department of Defense Memoranda, Policy for Processing of Returned U.S. Prisoners of War and Other Detained Military Personnel, 8 June 1968, 27 November 1968, 18 January 1969.

Department of Defense, "The U.S. Fighting Man's Code," Government Printing Office, 1967, No. 0 256-598

Haughney, Col. E.W., "Human Rights in Time of Armed Conflict,"
Regional Meeting of American Society of International Law,
University of Southern California, 18 May 1968.

Holt, Commander Philip R., "Prisoners of War: Prescriptive Conduct and Compliance in Captive Situations," Naval War College Review, December 1968, p. 29.

House of Representatives, Special Order Session sponsored by Congressman William L. Dickinson, 9/17/69, concerning U.S. Servicemen who are prisoners of war or missing in action in Southeast Asia. Congressional Record, September 17, 1969, pp. H8019H8087.

Kennedy, Alexander "The Scientific Lessons of Interrogation," The Royal Institution of Great Britain, Vol. 38 (No. 170) (1960). Korea: A Summary of Further Developments in the Military Situation Armistice Negotiations and Prisoner of War Camps up to January 1953, presented by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, March 1953.

Kutner, Luis, "Due Process of War: An Ad Hoc War Crimes Tribunal: A Proposal" 43 Notre Dame Lawyer 481 (April 1968)

The

Kutner, Luis, "International Due Process for Prisoners of War: Need for A Special Tribunal of World Habeas Corpus," 21 Univ. of Miami Law Review 721 (1967).

Levie, Howard S., "Maltreatment of Prisoners of War in Vietnam," 48 Boston University Law Review 323 (1968)

McCloskey, Paul N., Jr., Remarks re Agreement of the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam, July 20, 1954, Congressional Record, December 4, 1959, p. E10208.

News Release, Escape and Evasion of Lt. (JG) Dieter Dengler, USNR, Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C., September 13, 1966.

Note "Geneva Convention and the Treatment of Prisoners of War," 80 Harvard Law Review 851 (1967).

Nutter, G. Warren "There Are No Forgotten American Servicemen-Prisoners of War" Speech, Indianapolis, September 30, 1969. Pictet, Jean S., "Commentary, III Geneva Convention, Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva International Committee of the Red Cross (1960).

"Prisoners of War," Viet-Nam Information Notes, No. 9, August 1957, Department of State Publication 8275.

Sieverts, F.A., "Prisoners of War," Department of State Memorandum, 6 May 1968.

Stockstill, Louis R., "The Forgotten American of the Vietnam War," Air Force and Space Digest, October 1969, p. 38.

Treaties Governing Land Warfare, Department of Army Pamphlet No. 27-1, December 1956.

U.S. Congress, House. Subcommittee on National Security Policy and Scientific Developments of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings on American Prisoners of War in Vietnam 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 1969.

U.S. Defense Advisory Committee on Prisoners of War, POW, The Fight Continues After the Battle, The Report of the Secretary of Defense's Advisory Committee on Prisoners of War, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1955.

United Nations, General Assembly. Respect for Human Rights in Armed Conflicts, Reports of the Secretary General, 18 September 1970, pp. 38-39, 111-113 and 20 November 1969.

Warnke, Paul C., "Our Captured Military Men. New and Old Problems." Speech, Judge Advocate's Association, American Bar Association Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 August 1968.

Your Rights and Obligations Under the Geneva Convention, Department of Defense Paper, 16 December 1968.

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY HON. WALTER B. JONES

Mr. Chairman, I enclose a statement from my constituent, Mr. Joseph M. Salmon, Chairman of Social Sciences Division, College of the Albemarle, Elizabeth City, N.C., and I respectfully request it be made a part of your committee Report covering POW House Resolutions and Concurrent Resolutions recently considered by your committee.

I am sure you will find that the attached statement is a product of much research and concentration on the part of Mr. Salmon, who is vitally concerned over the POW's currently being held by the North Vietnamese.

Hon. CLEMENT J. ZABLOCKI,

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C., April 4, 1971.

National Security Policy and Scientific Developments,
House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN ZABLOCKI: At the outset I would like to express my appreciation for the opportunity of submitting a statement on the P.O.W. problem to the sub-committee. While the central concern of the hearings is that of the fate of the P.O.W.'s, the following analysis recognizes the fact that this problem is interrelated with many other questions of national concern, specifically those dealing with national security policy and scientific developments.

Perhaps the most basic principle in warfare for a nation to adopt is to be prepared to escalate the conflict beyond the ability of the enemy to respond, thus forcing a termination of the conflict on the basis of terms favorable to its own interests. Such a termination of the conflict does not require the unconditional surrender of the enemy, but simply involves the imposition of costs on the enemy that are greater than he can hope to offset by continuation of the conflict. In the Indo-China conflict the United States has violated this principle: it has refrained from escalating the conflict, for a variety of reasons, beyond the ability of North Vietnam to respond. The result has been the longest war in our history, and the continued existence of an enemy whose goals and capabilities may still result in the take-over of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In addition, the enemy remains arrogantly indifferent to its obligation to abide by the Geneva Accords in its prosecution of the war and its treatment of prisoners.

The stated purpose for "controlled" war in Indo-China has been that to escalate would result in war with China, and perhaps nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Given the current balance of strategic power this appears to be a reasonable argument. However, it should be recognized that it has been the policy of the United States toward strategic weapons development that is responsible for the present strategic balance. The result is the commitment of American men in a war we dare not terminate because of a lack of power, while at the same time we pursue a policy toward strategic weapons research and development calculated to insure that we will never acquire sufficient power to terminate the conflict. In short, the fifty thousand American dead in the Indo-China war, together with the prisoners and wounded, are the victims of the American disarmament policy; for without that policy, and the thinking that produced it, the Americans fighting in Indo-China would have possessed the means to terminate the conflict long ago, thereby holding casualties to a small fraction of those we have suffered.

Unfortunately the recognition by us today of the intimate connection between strategic parity and interminable war will not bring back the dead but, I submit, it will bring back the prisoners. The keys to the prisons of North Vietnam are to be found in Moscow, not Hanoi. There can be no question that the Soviet Union is delighted with the American predicament in Indo-China. The war diverts enormous quantities of our resources that would otherwise be available for strategic weapons research and development, a modern naval force, and other purposes. The casualties we have suffered through an interminable war have produced widespread demoralization and cynicism, not only among the young, but also in an increasingly large segment of the general population as well as in the military itself. By all odds the Soviet investment in Indo-China has reaped rich rewards, both physical and psychological, for its purposes in the world. Unless we are prepared to go on indefinitely in Indo-China to prevent the eventual subjugation of South Vietnam or, alternatively, abandon the