But again, what would the Russians have to gain? A live American POW on trial is worth a lot more than an anonymous one. And Francis Gary Powers showed we couldn’t realistically deny one if he was taken alive.

Any Democratic administration could have done the same (plus really slammed the GOP) by bringing up the case. They would have no incentive to cover this up. And it still remains to be seen what the Cambodians and the Laotians would have to gain by holding these guys. A hostage is worthless if no one knows you have him.

I don’t doubt these people are perfectly capable of holding POWs indefinitely if they could be used to some advantage, but I’m having trouble seeing just what they would have to gain by doing so. Once their propaganda value was gone, they would become a liability, not an asset. They would just have had them shot so they couldn’t escape or some journalist find them.

I’m just not convinced. It makes no sense. You
can blackmail the American people if you hold their boys hostage, but that can’t work if nobody knows you have them. I don’t trust these POW/MIA activists. I think its a racket, a racket you can’t criticize or they will accuse you of “forgetting our boys.”

Just google “John McCain Manchurian Candidate”
and you turn up stuff like this.

http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm

Don’t forget to buy a t-shirt while you’re there.

Supposedly, all the POWs were resolved. I also know that political enemies of McCain’s tried to swiftboat him on this issue, accusing him of being a Manchurian Candidate (1962 movie reference, nothing to do with the 2004 film of the same name) and attempting to sabotage his campaign against Bush for the GOP nomination..

Could any of this be connected? I know that extorting cash from POW/MIA families has become a cottage industry among certain “vet groups” and McCain wound up on their shit list when he exposed them as frauds.

It only stands to reason, if any POWs survived from that era, the Vietnamese would have liquidated them a long time ago to avoid the embarassment of having them surface alive sometime in the future. They would not be worth anything to them alive today, and could really be a propaganda disaster if such a scheme ever came to light. If those Laotian POWs ever existed, and if they were being held for some aborted Nixon/Kissinger trade, they would certainly have been killed by now.

http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?9920-P-O-W-Charles-Huston-From-Ohio-quot-ALIVE-IN-LAOS-quot

In an agreement negotiated by Kissinger, they were to be repatriated when the US contributed to the reconstruction of North Vietnam. Watergate and the Nixon resignation, coupled with US weariness with the situation prevented the funds from being allocated, and the prisoners have been kept over there.

But something here doesn’t add up. How could this round-eye have escaped the notice of the local authorities? He should have been rounded up and impprisoned. He would have been catalogued. As an American, he represented a liability to the Communists, someone they would have to explain or account for if he turned up later. Also, as an English speaker who presumably learned Vietnamese, he would have been valuable to his village and his adopted country as a translator and a teacher. English is spoken by many Vietnamese, particularly those with any education or who may have lived in US-controlled areas during the war. It just doesn’t make sense he forgot how to speak his native tongue.

He trained a man in 1960 (when our involvement in Nam was insignificant), but wasn’t lost until 1969. Does this mean he served 9 years there before he was reported missing? This story just doesn’t add up.

And of course, the “conspiracy” angle sent up warning flags for me. Why is the US so keen on covering this up, after 44 years? How convenient. If you can’t come up with a plausible story, its because there’s a cover-up.

Sorry. I don’t buy it.

PS, Welcome back, Buck. Ready to rejoin the vaunted, daunting, taunting Liberal Horde?