Book Selections:
Prisoners and Missing From The
Vietnam War
Anyone who researches the question of books written about prisoners and missing from Vietnam finds a number of volumes. I commend to you the books written by returned prisoners. My favorite is In Love and War by Admiral Jim Stockdale and Sybil Stockdale. There are lots of others.
Then, there are a number of books claiming that the U.S. government abandoned men in SEAsia, that there is a huge conspriacy going on to hide the fact, and you know the rest of the story. If you have read this far, you know my views on that nonsense. So, I will not waste my server space by listing those here.
The following four books are my recommendations for books regarding the MIA issue.
Few bookstores carry these books; you will probably have to special order them.
I have included on each page a link to Amazon.com that will allow you to read what
others have said about the books and, if you wish, to order the book online.
 | M. I. A.: Accounting for the Missing in Southeast Asia. By Paul D. Mather. |
| Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW-MIA Myth in America. By Susan Katz Keating. |
| M. I. A.: Mythmaking in America. By H. Bruce Franklin. |
| Inside Hanoi's Secret Archives: Solving the MIA Mystery. By Malcolm McConnell. |
The best book about the experience of US POWs in Southeast Asia is Honor
Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961 - 1973,
by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley. I strongly recommend this book. It
is not easy to read -- it's 596 pages long, is detailed, and contains graphic descriptions
of the tortures and deprivations inflicted on US POWs in SEAsia. It is also a
soaring tribute to human courage and compassion. By clicking on the link, you will
go to Amazon.com where you can read a review and order the book if you wish.
There is another book that should be read by anyone who wants more background on how the Vietnam MIA issue took on the political stature it now has. The Missing Man: Politics and the MIA, by CAPT Douglas C. Clarke, U. S. Navy. Clarke points out, among other things, how the process of declaring a man missing, then presumed dead, is weighted in favor of a determination of missing. As a squadron commander in combat, Clarke was subject to the natural, human pressures to continue a man in missing status when, according to all evidence, the man died in his loss incident. Why? To keep the paycheck going to his wife and children, who often are personal friends of the men in the squadron.
The book was published by the US Government Printing Office. As best I can determine, it is no longer available. I have seen it in a couple of military and university libraries. Look for it. It is informative. The book also documents how missing men from the Vietnam War were parlayed into a political issue by a group of Southern California Republican loyalists who gained the attention of a California gubernatorial candidate -- Ronald Reagan. If anyone finds a copy of this book, I would like to have it for my collection. A photocopied version is fine. E-mail me at: joe@schlatter.org. Thanks.
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