Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993 TAG: 9311110059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The Defense Department said it had declassified and made public an estimated 1.5 million pages of documents related to POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War. They include Pentagon reports on interviews with refugees from Southeast Asia, information provided by former POWs and other subjects.
Last Memorial Day at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Clinton drew loud applause when he said he was ordering the Vietnam POW-MIA documents declassified and released by Veterans Day.
Clinton said he wanted to "renew a pledge to those families whose names are not on this wall, because their sons and daughters did not come home."
Press secretary Dee Dee Myers said the "small proportion of documents not declassified" pertain to sensitive foreign policy discussions and active negotiations, intelligence sources and methods, ongoing clandestine operations and privacy issues related to returnees and the families of POWs and MIAs.
The documents have been given to the Library of Congress, where they are being put on microfilm, said Marine Corps Maj. Steve Little, a Pentagon spokesman.
"Everything that can be declassified has been," Little said.
But a POW activist said he thought there may be other documents that were withheld.
"I'm not persuaded they're all declassified," said Bill Bennett, a spokesman for the National Vietnam Veterans Coalition, a coalition of 75 groups nationwide.
by CNB