
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 20, 1993                   TAG: 9305200525
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

WHO'S TO BLAME IF POWS LEFT BEHIND?

IT SHOULD come as no surprise to see vehement Vietnamese denials of the authenticity of the POW document recently discovered in Soviet archives. The Vietnamese know that any evidence of American POWs held after the war jeopardizes aid promised them after a full MIA accounting. It is difficult to believe that Gen. Vessey could expect to get the truth about this document from the Vietnamese.

The irony of these POW/MIA negotiations is that they have rendered the lives of any remaining prisoners worthless. Where once they might have been held for ransom or the promise of aid, their very existence now threatens this assistance. Russia faced the same problem last year when Boris Yeltsin revealed the existence of American prisoners in the former Soviet Union. Rest assured that whatever POWs survived their treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese and the Soviets are now dead, and all traces of them erased.

It is unfortunate that our faith in our own leadership is also at stake here. If Americans were actually left behind, who is responsible? CHARLES M. DIETZ JR. PULASKI

by CNB