Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam’s Hoa Lo Prison to America Today
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| Authors | Tom Wilber and Jerry Lembcke |
|---|---|
| Genre | Military History |
| Publisher | Monthly Review Press |
Publication date | April 2021 |
| Pages | 160 |
| ISBN | 978-1-58367-908-1 |
| Website | https://monthlyreview.org/product/dissenting-pows/ |
Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam’s Hoa Lo Prison to America Today by Tom Wilber and Jerry Lembcke is a "myth-shattering" book about the American POWs who dissented from the war and whose story contradicted the official American POW narrative.[1] The "official story", as told in the book P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973 and other early accounts, is that the POWs were "stalwart warriors who resisted to the maximum under the most abominable and abusive conditions."[2] However, Dissenting POWs points out that even P.O.W.... admits that by 1971 "at least 30 percent and perhaps as many as 50 percent of the prisoners were disillusioned about the war and becoming increasingly cynical about it."[3] When the POWs returned from the war their public comments were stage managed and controlled, so much so that The New York Times editorialized in Muzzled P.O.W.'s..., "..the Government would prefer not to let people speak for themselves without first straining and homogenizing their words in a public relations blender."[4] All previous books on the POWs have given little attention to those POWs who dissented—this book attempts to set the record straight and argues this full history has been consciously obscured.[5]: p.13&103 Wilber, the son of former POW U.S. Navy Captain Gene Wilber, made "more than thirty investigative trips to Vietnam" gathering extensive new material, including POW's handwritten documents, letters from POW family members, texts for POW broadcasts on Radio Hanoi, and more. He also interviewed former Vietnamese prison guards, staff workers and administrators from Hỏa Lò Prison, known to American POWs as the Hanoi Hilton. His research provides the foundation for the "untold story" in Dissenting POWs.[5]: p.11 Lembcke, a Vietnam veteran and Associate Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Holy Cross College, is the author of eight books, including The Spitting Image.
Synopsis
editOver the course of the Vietnam War, over 700 American pilots and ground troops were captured by the Vietnamese. Ground troops were mostly captured in South Vietnam and transported to North Vietnam, while pilots were mainly shot down during bombing runs over North Vietnam.[6][5]: p.8 As the war ended and the prisoners were released in 1973, the Pentagon launched Operation Homecoming to celebrate their return. But amid the celebration was controversy as eight enlisted men and two officers were soon facing charges for being "bitter critics" of the war as prisoners.[7] Before the end of the year, however, all the charges were dismissed for "lack of sufficient evidence" and the narrative surrounding their dissent began to shift.[8][9] Soon, the official story of these ten dissidents, and other POWs who agreed and/or sympathized with them, as told by the White House, the US press and the forthcoming POW books, was that "they were the deviants"—"loners, losers, alienated, and maladjusted".[5]: pp.104-5 This would be contrasted with the "upright manliness" of the "hardcore loyalists" who refused to question their role in the war.[5]: p.55 An early stage of this shift in coverage was evident when the co-author's father, Gene Wilber, appeared on a April 1, 1973 CBS 60 Minutes show. He described reexamining himself during captivity, "And as I had time to sit for many hours...I had time to really find out what Gene Wilber was like." "I happened to be a Christian", Wilber continued, "and found out that my conscience bothered me. ...conscience and morality—started to show itself." Mike Wallace for CBS, reminded Wilber, "After all, you were a career officer—you weren't a child." Then Wallace quoted one of the "hardcore loyalists", "...it's those guys who fink out who get you. Those guys will get what's coming to them."[5]: pp.53-4
were confronted by the Senior Ranking Officers (SROs) among the POWs who threatened them with courts-martial upon returning home. Dissenting POWs argues these conflicts between the POWs "were rooted in the disparate socioeconomic backgrounds...The privileged backgrounds of the SROs were in sharp contrast with the modest origins of war resisters."
References
edit- ^ Glatz, Paul Benedikt; Kuzmarov, Jeremy; Brown, Steve (2021-06-21). "New Evidence Reveals That Senator John McCain and Other High-Ranking Vietnam War POWs May Have Lied to the American Public About Being Tortured". CovertAction Magazine. Huntington, NY: CovertAction Institute, Inc. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
- ^ Rochester, Stuart I.; Kiley, Frederick T. (1998). Honor Bound: The History of American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973. United States: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense. p. vii. ISBN 9780788177453.
P.O.W. was more a paean, a salute to valor, than an authoritative history.
- ^ Hubbell, John G.; Jones, Andres; Tomlinson, Kenneth Y. (1976). P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-war Experience in Vietnam, 1964-1973. United States: Reader's Digest Press. p. 549. ISBN 9780883490914.
- ^ "Muzzled P.O.W.'s...". The New York Times. 1973-02-24.
- ^ a b c d e f Wilber, Tom; Lembcke, Jerry (2021). Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam’s Hoa Lo Prison to America Today. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-908-1.
- ^ "Vietnam War POWs and MIAs". Britannica. Retrieved 2024-10-14.
During the war, POWs in Hanoi prisons endeavoured to maintain a registry of captive Americans; they concluded that at least 766 POWs entered the system.
- ^ Hersh, Seymour M. (1973-03-16). "Eight May Face Courts-Martial For Antiwar Roles as P.O.W.'s". The New York Times.
At least eight of the enlisted men scheduled to return early tomorrow from Hanoi are known to be bitter critics of the Vietnam war
- ^ Finney, John W. (1973-07-04). "7 Former P.O.W.'s Freed of Charges of Aiding Enemy". The New York Times.
- ^ "U.S. Drops Charges Against 2 Officers". The New York Times. 1973-09-27.
No charges are now pending against any of the 566 returned prisoners of war