CEREMONIES HONOR NATION'S WAR DEAD; EX-POW ALLEGES COVER-UP

SIKESTON -- A decorated Navy flyer held captive by the North Vietnamese for seven years Monday blasted the government for its "cover-up" of Vietnam-era prisoners-of-war and soldiers missing in action.

Capt. Eugene "Red" McDaniel, retired from the U.S. Navy, used a Memorial Day audience in Sikeston as an opportunity to urge Southeast Missouri residents to demand that all U.S. prisoners now held captive in southeast Asia be released before any U.S. aid or political ties be extended to Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.

"It is tragic that we in this nation have left men in captivity for 25 to 27 years," McDaniel said. "We cannot put the Vietnam War, or the Vietnam syndrome, behind us until we bring the prisoners out of the jungles of southeast Asia."

McDaniel, who was awarded the Navy Cross for bravery, and later was the skipper of two ships including the aircraft carrier Lexington, said a Congressional report released recently removed any doubt he previously had about Americans still being held in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

He also cited the recent resignation-under-protest of Army Col. Millard Peck, who was chief of President George Bush's Special Office of Prisoners of War and Missing in Action.

McDaniel said Peck accused the government of a cover-up of the POW-MIA issue because it does not want to suffer political embarrassment.

McDaniel spoke of a late-night telephone call he received in 1985 after he began speaking out on the issue of a POW-MIA cover-up. The call came from an Army colonel in the White House.

"The purpose of his call was to intimidate me not to say publicly what I said earlier," McDaniel said. "I asked him if he thought we had prisoners in Southeast Asia. His answer to me was: `You're (expletive) right we do.'"

McDaniel said in a recent survey of returning Persian Gulf military personnel, 83 percent said they believed U.S. prisoners still are being held in Vietnam.

"There is a Senate investigation report that charges there was a cover-up of the POW-MIA issue," he said. "There is an Army colonel who quit his job last week who says there is a cover-up, and I have believed for seven years that there was a cover up.

"So we ought to investigate and put this issue to rest once and for all. It is not the American way to leave one fighting man in captivity after a war ends. If we do, we have failed as a nation."

McDaniel said the cover-up began when former President Richard Nixon, without Congressional approval, agreed to give the North Vietnamese $4.3 billion in aid.

"But Nixon couldn't deliver on his promise, and along came Watergate," McDaniel said. "To deal with Watergate, he had to put the Vietnam War behind him, so he declared all of them (POW-MIA) dead."

McDaniel said Nixon intended to address the matter of the POW-MIAs after dealing with Watergate, but he was forced from office.

"President (Gerald) Ford was elected and sent a commission over to Vietnam," he said. "They reported all of the American prisoners of war were dead.

"When Jimmy Carter became president, he sent another commission over, and they said only one American was, and still is to this day, a prisoner of war."

McDaniel said he believes the communists are holding the American POWs as collateral on the promised aid, and will not hesitate to kill them if the United States does not demand their return before granting aid and political recognition.

McDaniel cited the example of Colonel Charles Shelton to illustrate the tragedy of U.S. soldiers still being held in southeast Asia. Shelton was shot down and taken prisoner April 29, 1965.

McDaniel said Shelton's wife committed suicide last October because she no longer could cope with her frustration with the POW-MIA cover-up.

He said the daughter of another POW-MIA testified before the Oklahoma legislature that her mother and her grandfather committed suicide after they buried what they thought were her father's remains, only to learn that he was still alive as a prisoner of war.

"We as a nation owe those two families more than we have given them," said McDaniel. "Are we going to sit here, our heads in the sand, while American boys rot away in the jungles of southeast Asia? This report that I read says with factual proof that we left prisoners behind, not only in Vietnam, but in Korea and World War II as well."

McDaniel said the bi-partisan report, is attracting the attention of the national news media and political figures in Washington. "It's front page news in the New York Times and Los Angles Times," he said. "Why? Because American youth are important.

"Those POW-MIAs are no longer young men, and remember what I said: `The one thing that keeps this country strong is that human spirit that is embodied in our young Americans.'"

McDaniel said that young men and women will be less willing in the future to risk their lives for their country if they believe that country might abandon them if they become prisoners of war.

"We are toying with that human spirit," he said. "It is time to get these young Americans involved and change the system that declared all of these POW-MIAs dead. Let's do it now."

McDaniel said the POW-MIA cover-up issue is not a Democrat or Republican issue, but a "national issue."

He said he's received strong support from the American Legion and asked for support from other veteran's groups on the POW-MIA cover-up issue.

McDaniel urged U.S. Senators Christopher Bond and John Danforth of Missouri to co-sponsor Senate Bill 82 that will address the POW-MIA cover-up issue.

"We need everyone's help," he said. "The U.S. Congress has failed on this issue. It is the Congress that allowed the State Department to say in 1973 that they (POW-MIA) are all dead, without doing anything about it."

McDaniel said he chose Sikeston as the first city in the nation to launch his POW-MIA cover-up campaign because, "I came to a town where you wave the flag, not burn it. You are in the heartland of patriotism.

"You can start a national effort right here, and have these men out of southeast Asia in the next two weeks. I'm convinced of that."