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The "1205 Document:" Authentic? Accurate? A Forgery?
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 | The document uses the term "prisoners of war." The Vietnamese never referred to American captives as "prisoners of war;" they used the phrase "captured American military personnel." |
| The claim that three of the US POWs were "cosmonauts" ( astronauts ) is not true. |
| Another untrue claim is that US POWs were segregated by rank, with colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors all being held in separate facilities. Not a single returnee indicated such segregation and not a shred of evidence that US intelligence developed during and after the war has supported such a claim. |
US intelligence has seen a large volume of Vietnamese Communist Party documents, ranging from documents produced by low-level Party organs all the way to documents from the Party's highest ranking inner circles. The "1,205 document," which purports to be a report given by a senior military officer to the highest levels of the Communist Party, simply does not fit the pattern of a Communist Party document. Here are some elements of the document that make it suspect.
It uses the name of the individual delivering the report. Senior Communist officials did not use their real names, even in official correspondence; they used aliases. The document clearly states that it is a report by Tran Van Quang. Tran Van Quang's alias was "Bay Tien" and he used this alias in his correspondence, reports, and other communications. He would have used the same alias in delivering this report to the Politburo.
The document is almost completely devoid of honorifics and titles. That is, it starts out something like "Honored Comrades," then it goes on in almost conversational style. Not so. Reports to senior officials were delivered with all sorts of honorifics and titles by the official delivering the report. No senior military officer would have addressed the Politburo in this fashion.
General John Vessey was appointed by President Reagan as Special Emissary to Vietnam on POW-MIA Affairs. His appointment was repeated by Presidents Bush and Clinton. Vessey was a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Vessey joined the Minnesota National Guard before WW II; he told me that, at the time, his goal was to be promoted to PFC. He received a battlefield commission on Anzio, was decorated in three wars, commanded a division in Vietnam, and became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He is a man of impeccable integrity. He is as gentle as your grandfather but don't let that fool you: General Vessey is tough as woodpecker lips.
When the 1,205 document appeared, Vessey jumped on it. He was ready to go to
Hanoi and rip off a few heads. In April 1993, after US intelligence had looked at
the document and after everyone had blown off steam about it, Vessey went to Hanoi.
He cut through the crap, dismissed all the formalities, and told the Vietnamese that they
had best come clean. The Vietnamese were pissed. Here is what the Vietnamese told
Vessey about the 1,205 document:
| The document is either a forgery or a piece of bad reporting. It has internal errors, factual errors, and, besides, there was not even a Politburo meeting in September 1972. ( We knew that. ) |
| Tran Van Quang came up and showed documents proving that he was Commander of the B4 Front until 1974 and was in no position to have delivered the "report." ( We knew that, too. ) |
| The document is a Russian forgery. Yeltsin is an anti-Communist and he wanted the document to show that the Vietnamese were not to be trusted. The Vietnamese claimed that Yeltsin was trying to curry favor with the US so he could stay in power. ( Their opinion. ) |
The 1,205 document, then, is not accurate as to its claims and it in no way proves that the Vietnamese did not release some large number of US POWs at the end of the war.
There are several questions about the validity and accuracy of the document. First, we must separate "authenticity" from "accuracy." The document may be authentic -- it may be a real agent report from a real agent of a real event -- but it is not accurate -- the information in it is wrong. Of course, in addition to not being accurate, it may not be authentic -- it may be a forgery.
Let's examine the various theories that have been advanced as to the true nature of
the 1,205 document.
This does not work. US intelligence had a good handle on the number of Americans who were held prisoner in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Except for a small number, there were no surprises when Operation Homecoming ended. 1,205 Americans being held prisoner is far removed from even the most exorbitant estimates. The demonstrable errors in the document also destroy this thesis. No senior military officer would deliberately give such an array of false information to the senior, inner core of the Party leadership.
The POW numbers in the 1,205 document are not for real.
This document, remember, is not a copy of a report given by a Vietnamese military officer to the Politburo. It is alleged to be a report written by a Russian intelligence case officer based on a report given to him by a Vietnamese who heard the report to the Politburo then told it all to his case officer. That is, a Vietnamese was spying on his own people and reported what he heard to his Russian case officer.
So, what we have here is a product of human intelligence reporting -- HUMINT as it is
called. When dealing with human sources, you learn one thing quickly: keep
your skepticism cranked to a high level. When evaluating information received from
human sources, you must evaluate the source and his track record as well as the
information.
 | Has the source reported in the past? Has his reporting been fully reliable? generally reliable? total bullshit? |
| Was the source in such a position to collect this information? A businessman who travels around southern China is not likely to collect the secrets of the Chinese Communist politburo but he certainly is able to tell you about the price of rice in the local markets. |
| Is the source under some pressure that would cause him to fabricate or embellish a story? Maybe the source has not been producing much of value and the case officer has raised hell with him about it -- so the source decides to produce a real zinger. |
| How does this information compare with other information that we know to be accurate? If we have confirmed that a certain situation exists, then a source reports directly the opposite, well, we may have a new situation or we may have a problem with the source. |
| What about the information itself? Confirmed by others? Plausible? Implausible? Refuted by proven data? |
While exploiting imagery and intercepted signals may seem exciting, the fact is that HUMINT is where the good stuff lies. Human sources can give you not only the facts of what is happening, but a human source can offer insights into the "Why" of an event. Human sources can give you clues as to motiviation, reaction, and all the other important elements of a puzzle that imagery and signals intelligence cannot provide. However, human sources are human and they can give you a real crock, too. A human source may inflate the story to make himself seem more important; may make up a story to keep on the good side of his case officer; may hold back part of the story to tell it later; and, a human source may be working both sides of the street and be feeding you what the other side wants you to hear. In the case of the 1,205 document, if the report is authentic -- if it really came from a Vietnamese source who had some access to Politburo reports -- it certainly is not accurate and it is the type of thing we see in HUMINT all the time: a report with some truth and lots of nonsense, probably thrown in to make it look better.
Thus, the 1,205 document may be authentic but not accurate. It may be a piece of flawed HUMINT reporting -- which is not an unusual occurrence.
Wick Tourison ( Sedgwick D. Tourison, Jr. ) has an interesting view of the document.
For those of you who do not know Wick, let me explain. He was an enlisted interrogator in Vietnam, later became a Chief Warrant Officer. Wick was, and still is, one of the top interrogators and analysts in the business. He had over five years in country, including some sort of spooky stuff in Laos. Wick worked with me in DIA for a while and he saved my butt several times by pointing out analytic conclusions and by turning up good sources. Wick was on the staff of the Senate Select Committee where he was a voice of reason and maturity in the face of assaults from Hendon and Dino.
Here is Wick's thesis.
There were, active in Indochina during the war, certain US covert operations that used indigenous personnel as operatives. The most widespread of this was the Ops Group 34-Alpha operation. When Vietnam was partitioned in 1954, a large number of northerners fled south. When war developed between the two Vietnams, some of these northerners in the south were recruited as agents to be infiltrated back into the north for sabotage and espionage missions. The problem with this operation was that it was infiltrated by the communists and the agents -- singleton and teams -- were bagged just about as soon as they arrived in their target areas. They were tried as traitors and spies and imprisoned. After their release, some of them emigrated to the US. Wick interviewed a number of these men, researched the project from both the Vietnamese and US sides, and wrote it up in a book called Project Alpha.
In addition to the 34-Alpha operation, there were other covert operations that used Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodians, Thai, and other nationalities, but not Americans.. The North Vietnamese referred to these people as "American commandos," "American spies," or "American saboteurs." ( NOTE: I recall one incident in which we interviewed some pro-American Lao who had been released from Pathet Lao captivity. They reported that, as they left the prison camp and traveled through a local village, the people asked them "Where are the Americans?" They replied that there were no Americans in the prison, only Lao. It turns out that the guards had continually told the local folks that the prisoners were American puppets, American spies, or American agents and the local folks just assumed that there were real Americans in the prison. )
Wick points out that, according to his research, the number of such indigenous folks in captivity was on the order of 600. Thus, this number of "American commandos, spies, or saboteurs," when added to the 591 genuine Americans who were held, yields close to the 1,205 figure.
Here is an interesting item that has an impact on Wick's thesis. The Quang document states that forty-seven US POWs captured during covert operations included "36 special operations forces advisers who were inserted in the border region between DRV (Vietnam) and Laos." General John Singlaub and Colonel Steve Cavanaugh, both former commanders of the US unit responsible for covert operations along the Vietnam - Lao border ( MACV/SOG ) insist that none of their American personnel were lost in insertion operations along the North Vietnam - Lao border. There were fifteen or so special ops soldiers missing along the Ho Chi Minh Trail area of Laos and Cambodia bordering South Vietnam. Singlaub and Cavanaugh do recall that as many as forty-seven Asian special ops personnel on missions for MACV/SOG could have been captured further north in Laos. But, these people were not Americans, they were Vietnamese. Still, they were just the type who would have been refereed to by the North Vietnamese as "American commandos, spies, or saboteurs."
Wick's thesis should be given some weight. The number "1,205" may refer to the total of US POWs plus various Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, and others who were working for the US as "spies, commandos, and saboteurs."
Maybe the Russians forged, then planted, the document knowing that Morris or some other researcher would find it and that the document would create a huge debate within the US. Why would they do this? To torpedo the growing US - Vietnam relationship. Remember, the document surfaced in January 1993. By this time, there was considerable debate in the US as to whether or not we should lift our embargo on Vietnam and anyone with half a brain could see that it was only a matter of time before the embargo was lifted. The next stop would be full relations and the Russians could not stand this.
Along with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European empire, Russia saw their overseas empire collapse. Vietnam was important to Russia because of the military potential of Cam Ranh Bay. The Soviet Pacific Fleet used Cam Ranh as a home port, for refueling, repair, R & R, and the like. Soviet TU-95/BEAR long-range bombers were stationed at Cam Ranh. These aircraft were configured for anti-submarine surveillance and attack and for electronic intercept. From Cam Ranh, they ranged all over the South China Sea and the Western Pacific, monitoring US naval activity.
Soviet - Vietnamese relations were not really smooth to begin with and the Russians knew that, when US - Vietnam relations got smoothed out, they would be the odd man out. Russia needed Vietnam.
What better way to trash the growing US - Vietnam relationship than to have someone find a document that proved that the treacherous Vietnamese had not released a huge number of US POWs?
The errors in the document, if it was a Russian forgery, are due to the fact that the Russians would not have had access to the details that they tried to portray as accurate.
If it was a Russian forgery, it worked for a while. US - Vietnamese relationship went on hold until the document was analyzed and other work was done.
The document may have been a Russian forgery aimed at wrecking US - Vietnamese relations.
Now, here is an intriguing theory. In her book Prisoners of Hope, Susan Katz-Keating claims that "In June 1994 I learned that the forgery was actually the work of the CIA." Now, that's a really strong statement. Let's examine why the CIA would want to plant such a document.
It seems that in the course of researching the Vietnamese archives dealing with US POWs, we had learned of the existence of a set of documents that came to be called "The Blue Book." It was a handwritten, day-by-day account of Americans captured by Communist forces and their eventual fates.
Remember earlier I described how General Vessey went to Vietnam in April 1993 and demanded an explanation of the 1,205 document? Well, one of the documents that the Vietnamese turned over to Vessey during that visit was the "Blue Book." They gave it to him because they felt that this original document would show clearly exactly how many Americans had been captured by their forces during the war and would refute the claims of the 1,205 document ( it was dog-eared, faded, handwritten and no doubt genuine ). They knew that we would subject this document to extensive forensic analysis and we would determine that it was genuine. ( We did. It is. )
Katz-Keating says that her source claimed that the CIA forged the 1,205 document then planted it where they knew some foreign researcher would find it. When the Vietnamese were confronted with a seemingly authentic document "proving" that they held more US POWs than they released, they would do everything they could to prove that the document was bogus, including releasing their original document -- the Blue Book.
If this was the case, it worked.
The document may have been a forgery by US intelligence to force the Vietnamese, in self-defense, to release documents that we wanted from them.
Those who want to believe that the 1,205 document is one of the gospels will not be
convinced by anything I have said here. However, most folks have never seen a
description of the document except for that carried on the "activist" web sites
and in their literature. I believe that, by presenting some facts, I will allow
folks to make an informed judgment.
I would really like to believe the CIA forgery thesis. I do not know the true nature of the 1,205 document. I do know that the Vietnamese did not hold any 1,205 Americans and they did not keep back over 600 at Operation Homecoming. Everything we knew during the war, everything we have learned since the war, and everything that we are learning through our searches and research in country simply reinforces this conclusion.
Here is where I come down, for what it is worth. Of all the possible explanations of the true nature of the document, I vote for the idea that it is a flawed piece of HUMINT reporting. I suspect that some low-level source, reporting to the Soviets, blew some smoke at his Soviet case officer.
If I am wrong, and one of the other theories is correct,then, in order of priority, I would support the following theories:
| Russian forgery |
| CIA forgery |
| Counting indigenous POWs along with US POWs |
No way this thing is accurate and authentic.
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