Vietnam Allows 4 U.S. Senators to Search Prison
HANOI — Four U.S. senators scoured a Vietnamese prison camp Wednesday for signs of American captives in a test of Hanoi’s willingness to resolve the issue of servicemen missing from the Vietnam War.
The four, including three Vietnam War veterans, found no evidence of Americans at the heavily guarded Hanoi B camp, but they were told that as many as 10 American prisoners were detained there in the 1960s and 1970s.
“Any cell that was locked was unlocked in our presence and so we were able to see who was in it,†said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of a Senate panel investigating cases of missing Americans.
The mission gave Vietnamese authorities 90 minutes’ notice of their desire to visit before traveling to the camp on the To Lich River near Hanoi. The camp commander initially balked at the visit, but he later got new orders.
The United States lists 2,266 servicemen as unaccounted for in Indochina.
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