Vietnam War Working Group

The U.S. Co-Chairman of the Vietnam War Working Group (VWWG) is Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), currently a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Senator Chambliss was appointed to the Commission in 2005.

The U.S. side of the Vietnam War Working Group seeks fate-clarifying information about missing American military service members from sources throughout the former Soviet Union (FSU) and Central and Eastern Europe. The primary sources for this information include: military, political, security, state media, and other government archives; interviews with former Soviet veterans of the Vietnam War; interviews with government, Communist Party, and diplomatic officials who were involved in Vietnam War policy in the FSU and Warsaw Pact countries; open source publications in the FSU press, memoirs published by former Soviet veterans, as well as academic, military, and political books, articles, and journals from the FSU.

Access to the Defense and Security Archives

One of the Vietnam War Working Group’s main objectives is to obtain access to former Soviet archival documents that might shed light on the fates of missing American servicemen from the Vietnam War; in the Russian Federation, these documents remain classified and unavailable to U.S. researchers. We believe that the Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defense in Podol’sk, Russia, and the State Security archives in Moscow contain information of value to the American accounting effort, including reports of the downing of American combat aircraft; POW interrogation reports, and the activities of the Soviet "special group" that acquired several thousand pieces of captured American combat equipment for eventual technical exploitation in the Soviet Union. The U.S. side has repeatedly asked the Russian side of the Joint Commission to declassify or redact pertinent documents for release and to facilitate U.S. access to Vietnam War-era documents in these archives. To date, the Russian side has not been responsive to either request.

Previously, the Russian side did provide lists of aircraft shoot down incidents extracted from classified, Vietnam War-era documents in the Podol’sk archive that provided information on over 350 purported shoot-downs of U.S. combat aircraft during the Vietnam War. The VWWG completed analysis of these lists and asked the Russian side for more detailed information about some of these reports. In each instance, the Russian side provided a response that contained some further clarifying details but not enough to substantially contribute to fate determination or case resolution of actual American loss incidents. The U.S. side continues to seek direct access by U.S. researchers to original, Soviet-era documentation, but these materials remain classified, and the Russian side continues to withhold permission. It also resists American entreaties to consider these materials for declassification, and without a Russian side with which to negotiate, all meaningful dialogue regarding release of specific Vietnam War-era documents has literally ceased.

Cooperation with Ukraine and Other Countries

Outside the auspices of the Joint Commission but in direct support of its work, the VWWG has sought cooperation from a number of other sources of Vietnam War-era documents, such as diplomatic correspondence from former Warsaw Pact nations. Some of these nations have provided such materials, including the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland. In addition, Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, has provided access to archival information and has permitted U.S. researchers to review lists of still-classified former Soviet documents held in the Archives of the Ministry of Defense. From these, JCSD has selected numerous documents and requested declassification. Of the former Soviet republics, Ukraine is of unique interest, because one of the main Soviet air defense academies was located in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and graduated many of the officers who served as advisors in North Vietnam during the war. Furthermore, many air defense officers returned to the academy as instructors after their Southeast Asian tours. Some officers retired in Ukraine and reside there today, and many have been interviewed by U.S. researchers. Additionally, VWWG analysts have conducted research in Kharkiv at what is now the University of Air Forces for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is reviewing thousands of pages of classified materials from the Vietnam War era. JCSD has requested declassification of many of these documents. Although the preliminary research has not yet yielded any correlation to any unaccounted for American losses, access to these materials is a positive step as we continue to work with Ukraine to release additional documents.

Besides formal governmental cooperation, many former Soviet veterans’ groups are active in Ukraine and have provided information in the form of memoirs and contact information for Vietnam War veterans. Due to a relationship between the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) and the Kharkiv Vietnam War veterans group, fostered by JCSD, the Kharkiv group presented VVA with a list of shoot-downs compiled from their members and associates. The VVA, in turn, shared this list with DPMO, and several of the incidents listed therein correlate to actual American losses. Further research in Ukraine is continuing in parallel with our efforts to press the Russians for cooperation. As in Russia, research in Ukrainian holdings at security and defense archives will continue, as well as regional government and academic archives throughout the country. We recently have received permission to work at over 30 regional and central government archives.

In addition to our work in Ukraine, the VWWG has received several documents from the archives of former Warsaw Pact countries, including Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and the Czech Republic (all now NATO allies). While most of these holdings contain only diplomatic correspondence from their embassies during the Southeast Asia conflict and reveal little information on POWs or American losses during the war, our work in these and other former Eastern Bloc nations continues.

Volkogonov Memoirs

In early February 1998, researchers on the U.S. staff of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs (USRJC), working in the personal papers of the late General-Colonel Dmitri A. Volkogonov, found a six-page, Russian-language, autobiographical sketch entitled, "A Little More About Myself." This brief memoir, written by Volkogonov in August 1994, reveals his discovery in Russian archives of a document from the late 1960s that assigned to the KGB the task of "delivering knowledgeable Americans to the USSR for intelligence purposes"

Nowhere in Volkogonov's memoir is the purported KGB plan linked explicitly to American prisoners of war or to the war in Southeast Asia. Joint Commission analysts have concluded, however, that Volkogonov's discussion of the KGB plan in the context of his work with the Joint Commission on POW/MIAs strongly suggests that Volkogonov thought the plan targeted American POWs. Moreover, the date of the plan (late 1960s) suggests that American POWs from Southeast Asia may have been the targets of the KGB plan.

The VWWG immediately launched an inquiry into Volkogonov's memoirs, the purpose of which was to gather as much information as possible about his revelation before requesting an official explanation from the Russian Government. When presented with the U.S. information on this issue, the response from the Russians was not encouraging. In the government and on the Joint Commission, Russian officials have said that their archives contain no evidence that a KGB plan as described by Volkogonov ever existed. They claim that Volkogonov "later rechecked his information and arrived at the conclusion that such a plan did not exist as a separate entity." But the Russian side offers no evidence to support this claim, and much of the Russian response is directly contradicted by Volkogonov’s account in his memoirs.

Meanwhile, the issue of Volkogonov's memoirs became public knowledge with the first revelation in the U.S. press on November 9, 1998. U.S. and Russian media outlets have covered this issue, and members of Congress, American POW/MIA family groups, POW activists, and veterans’ organizations have expressed an interest in seeing this issue resolved.

The U.S. side of the VWWG retains an interest in pursuing this issue further with the Russian side and hopes to re-open the topic when meetings of the Joint Commission resume. 

Soviet Advisors in Vietnam

During the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union provided technical and material assistance to its North Vietnamese ally. The Soviets sent air defense equipment and personnel to equip and train the North Vietnamese. Experienced Soviet Air Force pilots and maintenance personnel were sent to train and repair MiG aircraft flown by the North Vietnamese and to provide advice and assistance to North Vietnamese anti-air defense forces that were shooting down American combat aircraft with Soviet missiles and aircraft. Estimates of the number of Soviet advisors, who served in North Vietnam range from 10,000 to 15,000.

About 10 years ago, the U.S. side began to gather evidence that Soviet officials directly interrogated American POWs in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. This project examined information from three primary sources: the testimony of former American POWs; the testimony of Soviet veterans of the Vietnam War who had knowledge of direct Soviet participation in POW interrogation; and U.S. Intelligence Community reports (since declassified) that suggest the Soviets sought or obtained direct access to American POWs for interrogation. The research conducted in support of this project shows that Soviet officials participated in the interrogations of American POWs and received interrogation reports from the North Vietnamese. It is reasonable to assume that Soviet military officials generated these reports in North Vietnam and forwarded them to Moscow for processing. These interrogation reports should be available today in Russian archives [probably those of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and the Committee for State Security (KGB)] and might contribute to clarifying the fates of unaccounted-for Americans. For this reason, the U.S. side seeks access to these materials.

Early in the Vietnam War, a Soviet special group, or "spetsgruppa," composed of GRU officers and employees from various Soviet military industrial organizations, was deployed to North Vietnam to acquire captured American combat equipment and to arrange for shipment of this equipment to the Soviet Union for technical exploitation. Although the U.S. has no interest in the classified aspects of this program, Soviet spetsgruppa members and technicians may be able to provide new details about shoot-down incidents in Southeast Asia. For instance, in 1992, representatives of Task Force Russia (the predecessor of JCSD) discovered an F-111 crew capsule at the Moscow Aviation Institute. With assistance from FBI experts, Task Force Russia analysts correlated the capsule to a specific shoot-down incident. While the crew that was flying this particular F-111 is accounted for, discovery of the capsule in a Russian facility demonstrates the potential that American combat equipment now held by the Russians might provide clues to the fates of crew members who did not return. Archival records documenting the spetsgruppa’s work might also provide valuable information about American loss incidents during the war. The U.S. side has pressed the Russian side repeatedly for access to these archival materials and for interviews with spetsgruppa members and continues to press for more information. The Russian side has expressed a willingness to assist the U.S. side in locating spetsgruppa members but has yet to fulfill this promise.

Interview Program

The Vietnam War Working Group maintains a vigorous program to locate and interview former Soviet military personnel who served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War or who have knowledge of events during that period. Since 1992, the VWWG has conducted over 1,000 interviews in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other former Soviet republics. The majority of these interviews have been with PVO (Air Defense Forces) veterans who served as military advisors in North Vietnam during the war. VWWG personnel have also interviewed aviators, journalists, KGB and GRU officers, and former Soviet Government and Communist Party officials. We continue to expand our interview program as we develop more contact information, relying recently on the active participation of several veterans groups throughout the former Soviet Union. The VWWG continues to review internal files for names of sources who have not been previously contacted and conducts regular searches of foreign internet and media for relevant information that might guide its investigations in the Russian Federation

Re-Engagement with the Russians

The VWWG intends to be fully prepared to re-engage with the Russians when they reinstate their side of our Joint Commission and return to cooperation with the United States on the POW/MIA issue. To this end, we have prepared a list of issues for consideration, many of which are discussed above. Moreover, the VWWG will seek to establish a mechanism that would permit research in Russian archives by U.S. researchers or, at the very least, by cleared Russian researchers working on contract with the U.S. side. We remain convinced that selected Russian archives contain materials that are relevant to the commission’s work, and the U.S. side will endeavor to negotiate a way to overcome the road blocks that have prevented U.S. access to these materials in the past. We also will seek to reinvigorate our interview program in Russia. Working with our Russian counterparts, we will try to gain interviews with Russian military intelligence officers and security services personnel who operated in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and who might possess important information about American POWs from this conflict.