DeepBlackLies
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Bringing in-depth reporting of crime and corruption in high places |
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KISS THE BOYS GOODBYE By
David
Guyatt American
Air Force pilot, Lt. Colonel David L. Hrdlicka, flew the lead plane
in a flight of four F105 fighter/bombers that departed Takhli Air
Base on the morning of 18 May 1965.
The aircraft has been ordered to interdict and bomb a segment
of road at Sam Neua, Laos.
Hrdlicka's aircraft was hit by groundfire during his bombing
attack forcing him to eject.
He parachuted safely to the ground where he was captured by
communist Pathet Lao forces. Colonel
Hrdlicka's flight into captivity has become a remarkable story for
a number of reasons.
Not least is the fact that he has been officially reported
as "Killed in Action," but has also died in captivity on
a number of distinct and separate occasions.
But each time Hrdlicka manages to survive - embarrassing certain
"elements" in his government who wish he would have the
grace to stay dead.
Today, the US Government says the doughty airman definitely
died in 1966, or 1967 - but also thinks it might have been 1968.
They believe his death resulted from illness, malnutrition,
shooting or possibly a combination of all three. Despite
this, Hrdlicka was seen alive in 1989.
A letter on America's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) letterhead
in my possession states that Hrdlicka - identified as "D. Herlicka"
was seen in the "tri-border" area of Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia.
Moreover, a US State Department cable dated April 1991, says
Hrdlicka was being held in captivity by Brigadier General Chaeng Chaiwong,
Commander of the 11th Lao Army Regiment stationed in Kham
Moname Province.
The cable goes on to identify General Chaeng as "involved
in narcotics trafficking." David
Hrdlicka is one of dozens, perhaps hundreds of Americans who have
been officially abandoned by their government to a fate worse than
death.
They are known by their captors as "Pearls."
This stems from France's military involvement in Southeast
Asia, where upwards of 20,000 French prisoners were held prisoner
after the French left the region in retreat.
Over the next twenty years, these prisoners were secretly sold
back to France piecemeal.
The
US, however, appears to be playing another sort of game entirely.
Rather than trying to rescue their prisoners, they were planning
to forget them hoping they'd die.
More disturbing still, elite Special Forces troops were tasked
with locating and assassinating some American prisoners of war.
The soldiers were part of the US Army's Intelligence Support
Activity - or ISA for short - and had been commandeered by a very
secretive arm of the CIA known simply as "The Activity. One
American target of assassination was Marine Private Bobby Garwood.
On 28 September 1965, Garwood was ambushed and captured near
Marble Mountain at China Beach - a short distance from Da Nang.
Garwood, aged nineteen at the time, had only 12 days left of
his tour in Vietnam, but was to spend a further fourteen years in
captivity.
The Marine eventually managed to escape by passing a message
to a neutral diplomat that was later broadcast, world-wide, by the
BBC.
Subsequent embarrassment forced the Vietnamese government to
release Garwood who, instead of being brought home to a heroes welcome,
was charged with desertion, for aiding and abetting the enemy and
striking a fellow American prisoner.
These were later found to be trumped up charges but for years
Garwood was shunned at home.
Investigators
learned that Garwood was one of the prisoners who had been ordered
to be killed in captivity.
The order was given to a former member of the US Army's super
secret Special Operations Group (SOG).
SOG was assigned elite Special Forces to engage in a variety
of special warfare operations throughout the Vietnam war and included
Search, Locate & Annihilate Missions (SLAM).
Fortunately for Garwood, his would be executioners were unable
to find where he was being held.
The
reason why so many American POWs like Bobby Garwood were left behind
in the first place is also disturbing.
For years rumours persisted that a secret clause of the Paris
Peace accord negotiated by Henry Kissinger on behalf of President
Nixon, concerned an agreement where the United States promised to
pay North Vietnam $4 billion in reparations.
Insiders say this agreement was immediately reneged upon by
America and a decision reached making official US policy of the lie
that there were no live POW's remaining in the region. The
story of the $4 billion deal received a powerful boost when Richard
V. Allen, former National Security Adviser to President Reagan, gave
evidence in 1992, before a US Senate Select Committee investigating
the POW/MIA issue.
Allen told Senators of an offer made in 1981 by "Vietnam,
through a third country, to free live Americans held since the end
of the Vietnam War."
In return, Allen said, the US government should pay Hanoi the
$4 billion due them under the agreement reached in 1973.
Asked how many servicemen were still being held prisoner, Allen
responded "Dozens, hundreds."
He added that the consensus in the White House was against
agreeing to such a move.
This included then Vice President George Bush who said it was
"a lost cause," according to a report published by the Washington
Times.
The newspaper also reported that CIA Director, Bill Casey typified
the Vietnamese suggestion as "blackmail." Richard
Allen's testimony was supported by an unnamed Secret Service agent
on duty in the White House at the time the discussion took place.
The agent was subpoenaed to testify before Congress to corroborate
Allen's testimony, but the move was blocked at a high level.
Then, two weeks after his own testimony was given, Richard
Allen issued a statement saying "it appears… there never was
a 1981 meeting about the return of POW/MIAs for $4 billion." Allen's
surprise retraction and the political blocking of the Secret Service
agent's corroborating testimony caused shockwaves throughout the nation.
Investigators and families with a missing relative began to
ask what was really going on.
Their efforts were impeded at every turn, but they persisted.
Assistance arrived in the form of a seminal book called "Kiss
the Boys Goodbye" published in 1990 by Bloomsbury.
The book, jointly-authored by husband and wife team Monika
Jensen-Stevenson and William Stevenson, broke the grip of secrecy
that had surrounded the POW issue for the previous twenty years.
What
they revealed was shocking.
Despite signing the 1973 peace accord the US continued to engage
in a secret war in Southeast Asia.
In fact, the US government had intensified its activity in
Cambodia and Laos by using local "proxy" forces and others
including mercenaries and US servicemen.
This secret war continued right up to the early 1990's.
In
order to keep its continuing military role in the region totally secret,
a decision was taken to seek unofficial sources of funding for the
conflict.
This would avoid the requirement to approach the US Senate
Oversight Committee for money.
Instead, the region's traditional opium growing and harvesting
ability was tapped.
Intense efforts were made to vastly increase opium production
and to use this to make heroin.
This, in turn, was shipped from the Golden Triangle region
of Laos, Thailand and Burma to Australia, Europe and, of course, the
US - the biggest drug market of them all. Once
the narcotic money had been laundered by CIA banks including the notorious
Australian based Nugan Hand bank, it could be used to pay mercenaries
and purchase the necessary stocks of weapons needed to keep fighting.
The only problem was that this "activity" was directed
and controlled by a shadowy group of American military, intelligence
and government bureaucrats who possessed no legal authority from the
President or the Senate to conduct their secret war.
In effect, they were a "parallel government" - a
rogue group who believed they knew best and who possessed sufficient
power to conduct a war which they believed should never have been
lost.
For them, Nixon's peace with Vietnam was one of the biggest
betrayals of American history.
Wholly distrustful of politicians and the democratic process,
the group effected a secret partial coup d'etat of America behind
the scenes.
The
existence of live American POW's threatened to blow their secret war
wide open by revealing the group's deep involvement in the drugs and
weapons trade.
This, in turn, would have also revealed their very presence
as manipulators behind the political scenes.
Despite
the wide publicity given to this story, US POWs continue to be held
against their will and the US government continues to profess that
there are no "live" prisoners from the Vietnam era. Drugs
and "Human Garbage The
use of drugs to finance a secret war in Southeast Asia was not an
invention of the United States.
Years earlier, the French were dependent on the revenue earned
from the Opium trade to keep their military control over Indochina
intact.
"Operation X," remained one of France's most sensitive
state secrets for decades and was sanctioned by French Military Intelligence
arm, SDECE.
On the ground, the drug traffick was organised and controlled
by Corsican, Captain Antoine Savani, head of the 2eme Bureau
of Military Intelligence, located in Saigon.
The rationale was that the drugs trade would save the dignity
of France by helping to keep her far-flung territories.
This, as one knowledgeable former intelligence agent revealed
was that to "Save France, you had to destroy the human garbage.
If the garbage sustained its drug addiction by spending huge
amounts of money, and if that money financed the wars in Indochina
against communism - well, then you get some benefit from the human
garbage!" Ross
Perot and the POW issue Multi-billionaire
and one-time presidential hopeful, Ross Perot continues to have a
deep rooted interest in the POW story.
Perot is famous for planning a successful and daring commando
type raid to rescue his staff held hostage in Tehran.
A close friend of Nancy Reagan, he had been given special presidential
authority to act as a "special investigator" on the POW/MIA
issue.
But as Perot soon discovered, great wealth and special access
to the most powerful man in the world was not enough.
His efforts to learn the truth about American POW's was blocked
at every turn.
Perot also strongly suspected that Vice President George Bush
was working to inhibit his access and involvement.
Asked one day by VP Bush how his investigation was going, Perot
snapped " Well, George, I go in looking for prisoners, but I
spend all my time discovering the government has been moving drugs
around the world and is involved in arms deals… I can't get at the
prisoners because of the corruption among our own covert people." The
Secret US Prison Facility For Repatriated POWs Father
Charles Shelton, a USAF Catholic chaplain was accused of homosexuality
by another airman.
The charge was believed to be malicious and designed to stop
the chaplain from talking about Vietnam POWs.
Shelton had been asked to counsel a sergeant based in the Philippines.
The sergeant revealed his involvement in a special medical
evacuation mission that had taken place in early 1986.
A C-130 transport plane had flown in great secrecy to Haiphong,
Vietnam.
Two other aircraft had flown to Hanoi.
The aircraft had their USAF markings removed and replaced by
Red Crosses.
The planes returned to the Philippines carrying a total of
86 men.
They were taken to a USAF hospital and placed in a "classified"
ward.
All were Caucasian and all weighed below one hundred pounds.
A few died soon after their evacuation, due to sickness.
Another witness who briefly worked in the ward said some of
the inmates told her they were "prisoners-of-war from Vietnam."
One of them said "he'd never see civilisation again."
They had been prisoners of the Vietnamese government and now
were prisoners of the American government. Edwin
Wilson, the "Group" and making money CIA
agent, Edwin Wilson was sentenced to life for selling C-4 plastic
explosive and weapons to Libya for use by terrorists.
Many observers feel his arrest was contrived to get him out
the way and to keep him silent.
Wilson was one of the insiders of what he called the "Group."
Interviewed by Monika Jensen-Stevenson at Marion Penitentiary,
Illinois, Wilson explained he would tell the whole story on the drug
connection providing he received a guarantee of immunity.
This had to come from a foreign government as "They'd
wipe me out otherwise."
Wilson explained how the group was formed.
All believed in covert warfare and felt betrayed by Nixon's
1973 peace accords.
Thereafter, they formulated "unofficial policy that said
that sentiment must never again get in the way of fighting communism."
The group soon formed a "second tier" of government,
they enacted policy as they saw fit.
Along the way, however, personal enrichment began to take precedence.
"It's time we made some money," Wilson recalled other
members of the group saying.
After that POWs were viewed as dangerous to "U.S. national
security" and were to be abandoned or killed to ensure their
silence. |
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