Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam's Hoa Lo Prison to America Today is a 2021 non-fiction book by Tom Wilber and Jerry Lembcke, published by Monthly Review Press. The book is about the American POWs who dissented from the Vietnam War and whose story contradicted the official American POW narrative. Wilber and Lembcke argue all previous books on the POWs have given little attention to those POWs who dissented, and that this full history has been consciously obscured. They further suggest that this work can provide a place where future GIs and civilian resisters can look for role models and allies "in their efforts to end U.S. wars of aggression."
The "official story", as told in the book P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973 and other early accounts, is that the POWs were "stalwart warriors who resisted to the maximum under the most abominable and abusive conditions," although by 1971 "at least 30 percent and perhaps as many as 50 percent of the prisoners were disillusioned about the war and becoming increasingly cynical about it."
The book has been positively received by a number of reviewers (see Reception below for details).
Authors Wilber, the son of former POW U.S. Navy Captain Gene Wilber, made "more than thirty investigative trips to Vietnam" gathering extensive new material, including POW's handwritten documents, letters from POW family members, texts for POW broadcasts on Radio Hanoi, and more. He also interviewed former Vietnamese prison guards, staff workers and administrators from Hỏa Lò Prison, known to American POWs as the Hanoi Hilton. His research provides the foundation for the "untold story" in Dissenting POWs. Lembcke, a Vietnam veteran and Associate Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Holy Cross College, is the author of eight books, including The Spitting Image and Hanoi Jane.
Official story
Over the course of the Vietnam War, over 700 American pilots and ground troops were captured by the Vietnamese. Ground troops were mostly captured in South Vietnam and transported to North Vietnam, while pilots were mainly shot down during bombing runs over North Vietnam. The authors document that, especially during the latter years of the war, dissent was "a fact of life" within the POW population, just as it was among US GIs (see here and here) and veterans (here) and among broader populations within the US and around the world (here). And, as in the larger populations, there were pro-war loyalists among the POWs who were led by the Senior Ranking Officers (SROs). The SROs threatened the dissidents with "courts-martial and even violence", and when these threats didn't work, the doubters were isolated and ostracized.
As the war ended and the prisoners were released in 1973, the Pentagon launched Operation Homecoming to celebrate their return. But amid the celebration was controversy as eight enlisted men and two officers were soon facing charges for being "bitter critics" of the war as prisoners. Before the end of the year, however, all the charges were dismissed for "lack of sufficient evidence" and the narrative surrounding their dissent began to shift. Soon, the official story of these ten dissidents, and other POWs who agreed and/or sympathized with them, as told by the White House, the US press and the forthcoming POW books, was that "they were the deviants""loners, losers, alienated, and maladjusted". This would be contrasted with the "upright manliness" of the "hardcore loyalists" who refused to question their role in the war. The New York Times editorialized in 1973 that "..the Government would prefer not to let people speak for themselves without first straining and homogenizing their words in a public relations blender."
An early stage of this shift in coverage was evident when the co-author's father, Gene Wilber, who came to oppose the war during his captivity, appeared on an April 1, 1973 CBS 60 Minutes show. He described reexamining himself, "I had time to sit for many hours...I had time to really find out what Gene Wilber was like." "I happened to be a Christian and found out that my conscience bothered me. ...conscience and moralitystarted to show itself." Mike Wallace for CBS, reminded Wilber, "After all, you were a career officeryou weren't a child." Then Wallace quoted one of the hardcore loyalists, "...it's those guys who fink out who get you. Those guys will get what's coming to them." Even though Wilber had stuck to his principles and his conscience he was having his manhood questioned and threats repeated to him on national television. The official narrative was shifting towards maladjustmentthe "rebels weren't criminals so much as emotionally and psychologically hurt, sick, damaged goods". A June New York Times article raised the concerns of the Pentagon's health chief over "the potential for violence" among former POWs. In July, another piece in the same paper titled Antiwar P.O.W.'s: A Different Mold Scarred by Their Combat Experiences highlighted the suicide of one of the antiwar POWs and discussed how painful the dissidents readjustment had been. Dissenting POWs makes the case that the "official story" is a false and one-sided narrative.
Exaggerated tales of torture
A central element of the official POW story is that of torture. Dissenting POWs submits new and little known information about this narrative and says "[p]ostwar studies raised serious questions about the claims". It points out that the most oft-cited "record" of torture is "the memories of the prisoners themselves", which for the hardcore loyalists is colored by their "own self-interest in maintaining...the hero-prisoner-at-war narrative." Even looking at those memories, "[a]lmost all accounts agree that there was no torture after 1969". Prior to that, some of those captured said they were tortured, some say they weren't and most "remained silent on the issue." It also notes that knowledgeable Vietnamese have "always denied using torture". Even with all the political changes in Vietnam, the defections and emigration over the years to the U.S. and other countries, "no former guards or prison administrators have corroborated the charges of the former POWs." In 2008, the London Times interviewed Tran Trong Duyet, the former director of Hỏa Lò Prison, about former POW and U.S. Senator John McCain who described being tortured as a captive. Duyet said, "He was very brave, very manly, he dared to argue with me and he was very intelligent." But he also said, "I never tortured or mistreated the POWs and nor did my staff.... it’s not as if they had important information we needed to extract." The Times also interviewed Nguyen Tien Tran, another director at the prison, who confirmed Duyet's story: “We had a clear code of taking care of the injured. We did our best to patch McCain up and he was treated by a good doctor. Why would he say that he was tortured?"
Dissenting POWs notes that although official accounts argued that it was torture that coerced some POWs into making antiwar statements and broadcasts, none of the dissidents singled out upon their return reported being tortured. In fact, the group of enlisted ground troops and helicopter crews captured in South Vietnam were, if anything, "even more opposed to the war despite not having been tortured".
In 1975, Amnesty International reported that when the POWs arrived at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1973, their condition was "really good. That applies to their mental, physical and dental conditions." Although it also noted, "That a man was relatively healthy in 1973 does not prove that he was not tortured in 1969." POW Gene Wilber, who was shot down as a 38 year old senior officer and air squadron commander with a leaders knowledge of battle plans and tactics. Wilber described his treatment as "not very kind" but said he "was not physically beaten" or treated badly the way some others had "described".
Dissenting POWs also draws attention to the idea that self-inflicted harm may have played into the torture narrative. For the hardliners, "torture became a way to confirm their worth as American warriors.... When the torture they wanted from the Vietnamese wasn't forthcoming, they provoked it. When that didn't work, they inflicted their own damage." At one point, James Stockdale, out of fear he would be filmed "for propaganda purposes", "battered his own face with a stool and cut his scalp to create wounds that would appear to have been inflicted by his captors." For similar reasons, Robinson Risner, tried to damage his voice so he couldn't be forced to read over Radio Hanoi. As he described it in his memoir, "I began pounding my throat as hard as I could." When that didn't work, he tried using lye soap as an "acid treatment". He filled a cup with mashed soap and gargled with it, then screamed into a towel. He did this for three days and nights, but "one good cough the next day and his voice was back, leaving him with nothing but diarrhea for his effort."
Education not brainwashing
Many of the POW's stories talked about the education sessions the Vietnamese gave them. Army Captain John Dunn observed that "Our camp commander...seemed more interested in the psychological aspects of conversion rather than the application of torture". Air Force Captain Joseph Crecca wrote that while a prisoner he "had the opportunity to study Russian as well as to teach mathematics, physics, classical music, and automobile theory and mechanics." Many also described the education programs, which included the centuries long history of the Vietnamese independence struggles, the content of the 1954 Geneva Accords which had divided Vietnam into North and South, and basic political economy. The authors note that, "From what we know, there was little in the Hoa Lo 'lesson plans' for POWs that is not today the accepted wisdom of what the war was about."
Dissenters
Dissenting POWs devotes two chapters to a discussion of the two officers and eight enlisted men who were singled out upon their return for their opposition to the war and for making public statements to that effect while in captivity. While there were a number of other POWs who dissented and disagreed with the war to varying degrees, these ten were singled out as the leaders and were the only ones who faced charges for their actions.
Officers
The officers were Marine Lieutenant Colonel Edison Miller, 36 years old at the time of capture, and Navy Commander Gene Wilber, at 38 years old. They were both pilots and the commanding officers of their respective flight squadrons. Because they were some of the most senior officers among the POWs, they complicated the hardcore narrative the SROs had hoped for.
Edison Miller
Miller was orphaned shortly after birth and raised in an orphanage until adopted at age five. As a teen he worked on farms and sold newspapers, enlisting in the military at eighteen. His talent and moxie were recognized early and he was selected for the aviation cadet program even without a college degree. By the time he was shot down over North Vietnam on October 13, 1967, he was the commanding officer of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323, flying the F-4B Phantom. His parachute didn't fully open, which caused a hard landing, severely injuring several vertebrae in his back and breaking his ankle. He spent five years four months as a POW and was the highest ranking Marine Corps officer among the prisoners.
On Mother's Day in 1971, Miller delivered a public message:
Gene Wilber
Wilber was the son of poor tenant farmers who worked on a dairy farm. Graduating from high school in 1947, he soon enlisted in the Navy and, like Miller, joined the aviation cadet program. By 1968, he was the commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 102 and flying F-4 Phantom IIs over North Vietnam. He was shot down on June 16, 1968.