Texas billionaire Ross Perot told Senate investigators Tuesday he believes he can prove American prisoners were left behind after the Vietnam War, and he accused some government officials of covering up their existence.
"There is no question in my mind we left men behind, and I think I can prove it," Perot said.Meanwhile, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs said committee investigators had learned that the Vietnamese government, despite publicly saying there were no American POWs left, had offered to make a deal with the Reagan administration to trade some POWs for $4 billion in reconstruction aid.
"Already our committee is aware of three separate U.S. government officials who are stating that such an offer was indeed made," said Sen. Robert Smith, R-N.H.
Newspapers have reported in recent weeks an offer was made to exchange 57 prisoners for $4 billion in aid.
Perot told the committee he believed Americans shot down in covert war activity over Laos were left behind alive.
He said he believed the reason some POWs did not return home from Laos was that the United States took the official position that it had not sent ground troops into Laos, even though the U.S. government was running covert bombing missions.
"That's how covered-up the whole thing has been," Perot said.
The committee released a previously classified document in which Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, then acting assistant defense secretary, wrote in March 1973 indicating the government believed unaccounted-for Americans were being held in Laos.
Perot said while there had been concern in recent years over fraudulent POW sightings, the government should have been more concerned about "federal employees who have covered up, disassembled and finessed this issue for 20 years."
Smith said Perot has provided investigators significant new information and previously unknown documents.
But Sen. John McCain, a former POW in Vietnam who is skeptical that any Americans were left behind, said he has seen nothing from Perot and others to change his position.