In early 1973 Vietnam released 591 American POWs in Operation Homecoming as part of the Paris Peace Accord. There were always suspicions that not all POWs were accounted for. For nearly twenty years between 1973 and 1993 the POW families petitioned the American government to negotiate with Vietnam to locate any POWs still captive. Vietnam never admitted to holding any. However, in 1992, Dr. Stephen Morris, a Harvard researcher abnd Russia expert, was in Moscow going through old Russian intelligence records and stumbled upon a report dated September 15, 1972. It turned out to be a Russian translation of a Vietnamese general’s report, six months befoe Operation Homecoming, that specifically detailed that there were “1205” American POWs that were being held, not just the 591 released in early September 1973. The report details the exact numbers of ranking officers, their military specialties, and the camps they were captive in including Laos and Cambodia. The scandal is that the American government and military were aware of this report and refused to act on it! This book details that story and includes the original 1205 report in both Russian and English.
Glory Denied: The Vietnam Saga of Jim Thompson, America’s Longest-Held Prisoner of War
Glory Denied is the harrowing and heroic story of Floyd “Jim” Thompson, captured in March 1964, who became the longest-held prisoner of war in American history. Tom Philpott juxtaposes Thompson’s capture, torture, and multiple escape attempts with the trials of his young wife, Alyce, who, feeling trapped, made choices that forever
