COVER-UP ON MIAS IS DENIED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504090002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 28, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified
in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504090002-5
ON PAGE 28 February 1986
Cover-up
on MIA,
is denied
By James McGregor
Inquireramwr
WASHINGTON - Reagan adminis-
tration officials asserted yesterday
that allegations of a government
cover-up on whether Americans are
still captive in Vietnam are "spe-
cious, absurd and insulting."
State and Defense Department offi-
cials told a Senate committee that
such charges are the result of activ-
ists' "drawing conclusions" from in-
adequate information while exploit-
ing the emotionally charged issue.
"There can be no cover-up; the
President would not countenance
it," Richard Armitage, assistant de-
fense secretary, told the Senate Vet
erans' Affairs Committer
Air Force Gen. Leon,
.roots director of the Defense Ii Per
Intelli-
onstrated that thDams e cover-u allega-
tions "have no in fact"
Perroots en respo to spe-
cific comments made in Senate hear-
ings in January by two retired Green
Berets - Maj. Mark. Smith and First
Sgt. Melvin C. McIntire - who sued
in federal court in Fayetteville, N.C.,
in September.
The lawsuit has drawn supporting
depositions from across the country
from people who contend that they
have information, ignored by the
government, about everything from
individual American servicemen be-
ing held captive to the existence of
slave-labor gangs working in remote
areas of Laos.
Perroots said that during inter-
views with his agency, McIntyre said
that all his information came from
Smith, and that Smith failed to pro-
vide any information to back up his
public contentions about having 200
photographs of prisoners and a vid-
eotape that shows 39 American pris-
oners.
'T ere's no cover-up in, this
a en - ce ain not now'r said
erroots, who took over the inte li
ence agency five months ago. "I'll
open up any my files for Con-
gress."
The divisiveness of the issue and
the difficulty of assessing informa-
tion about POWs was illustrated
when the panel members themselves
quarreled over the value of the testi-
mony they have received so far.
Chairman Frank Murkowski (R.,
Alaska) said that in the three hear-
ings the panel has conducted in both
open and closed sessions since re-
turning from Vietnam in January, it
has received no first-hand accounts
from people who have actually seen
American prisoners.
But the ranking Democrat, Sen.
Dennis DeConcini (D., Ariz.), said
that he believed that such testimony
had been presented.
Armitage said that two days of
talks between U.S. and Vietnamese
officials that began yesterday in Ha-
noi and were aimed at getting the
Vietnamese to increase their cooper-
ation in resolving live-sighting re-
ports and giving the United States a
full accounting for the 2,441 Ameri-
cans still listed as missing in action
in Indochina.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504090002-5