Honorable Paul Wellstone
United States Senator
2550 University Avenue, West
Court International Building
St. Paul, MN 55114-1026

Dear Senator Wellstone:

Thank you for your November 14, 1995, facsimile and April 12, 1996, letter. Your facsimile forwarded a copy of a letter sent to you by Richard Daly. Mr. Daly was responding to a letter sent by my office regarding "alleged pilot distress symbols." He submitted a paper contesting 11 items related to these alleged symbols and their investigation which he claims were not addressed by my office the Defense POW/MIA, Office (DPMO). This letter addresses his concerns.

In his first item, Mr. Daly references comments made by the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs by stating "Senate Select Committee's recommendation that the appropriate high ranking officials of the Executive Branch" seek information on "GX2527" "by name" from the "government of Vietnam". The Select Committee further advised: "In making that request, it should be emphasized to the Vietnamese that there is a basis for questioning whether he could be alive." Mr. Daly paraphrases from my correspondence that "DOD investigators" visited the "area" and found no "witnesses".

United States Government (USG) officials did not approach the Vietnamese concerning an American who was unaccounted for after his C-130 aircraft was downed by an enemy surface-to-air missile in Laos in 1969 because there was no evidence any crew member survived the incident. The analysis of all source intelligence did not support a finding that any crew member survived.

When seven imagery experts reviewed the same photography as that viewed by the one consultant who claimed to have seen "GX2527" and failed to reach consensus as to its presence on the ground in Vietnam, no correlation to the American missing in Laos should have been made. Continued and extensive analysis of the 1992 photography, as well as subsequent photography, produced no identification of the alleged symbol. This fact, coupled with an intelligence expert's on-the-ground investigation of the area, failed to surface any evidence of its presence. The USG lacked a sufficient basis to approach the Vietnamese with a by-name request for information on the individual lost in Laos.

In "ITEM 2," Mr. Daly again references the Senate Select Committee by stating: "Committee finding in regard to the symbol "GX2527" that: "This number correlates to the primary and back-up distress symbols and authenticator number of a pilot lost in Laos in 1969." "JSSA (Joint Services Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape Agency) has confirmed that '2527' matches the authenticator number of a serviceman still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia." JSSA, the agency tasked with responsibility for the distress signals-evasion and escape (E&E) program since 1953, states clearly and authoritatively in an official letter of response, dated 6 Jan 1995, to an inquiry by Senator Smith on this same issue; "According to the PACOM [Pacific Command] documents covering the Vietnam War period, GX and TA were issued as classified E&E coded letter pair distress symbols; G and T were considered primary letters with X and A as backups" and "an E&E code letter symbol combined with an authenticator, such as GX2527, if seen on the ground, would be a valid and very effective distress symbol."

Mr. Daly alleges the DPMO ignores these findings and denies the validity of "GX2527" as a distress code. Whether the alleged symbol "GX2527" is a valid E&E symbol is not relevant; six USG interagency intelligence imagery experts took the position that there was no symbol an the imagery in question, and thus, there is no correlation to any unaccounted for American. Numerous individuals since 1992, some trained in photo analysis and some not, have reviewed the same photography viewed by the one consultant. Each has stated that he could not see the alleged symbol.

In "ITEM 3," Mr. Daly states: ""Retired Colonel Lorenzo Burrough's finding 'with 100 percent confidence a faint 'GX 2527' in a photograph of a prison facility in Vietnam taken in June, 1992." Colonel Burrough's April 27, 1993, DATELINE interview, where he stated clearly that the chances that "GX2527" could have been created naturally are "absolutely zero". And memos from the records of the Senate investigation that clearly discredit Carroll Lucas, who was brought in after Colonel Burroughs findings were brought to the Committee's attention." Mr. Daly alleges that DPMO "Ignores the findings of Colonel Burroughs, who used to run the top secret National Photographic Interpretation Center, and sides with Carroll Lucas."

Several of the statements in ""ITEM 3" are in error. Burroughs and Lucas were consultants to the Senate Select Committee. Both were hired for that purpose about the same time, and on December 17, 1992, they issued a joint report. Mr. Burroughs stated that special imagery enhancement techniques of positive and negative viewing were used to identify the symbol; Mr. Lucas stated he believed the alleged symbol to be natural shadings in the field, and not man-made intentional symbols. Based upon these opposing positions in the joint report, the matter was submitted to a panel of six government interagency intelligence imagery experts, all highly trained and current in imagery analysis techniques. These six experts concluded that the suspect GX2527 could not be identified as an intentionally prepared man-made symbol. Therefore, seven out of eight persons who conducted analysis into the alleged symbol stated they could find no intentionally prepared, man-made symbol. No findings of the consultant, Burroughs, were ignored. Actually, his findings formed the basis for the further and extensive follow-on analysis and investigation. Neither the public statements made by Mr. Burroughs, nor his former position at the National Photographic Interpretation Center had anything to do with his findings nor those of the interagency panel. DPMO agrees with the position of the six interagency imagery analytic experts to the effect that there was no GX2527 symbol evident in photography of 1992.

In "ITEM 4," Mr. Daly states: "Mathematical computations of all possible coincidental outcomes of the six digit-alpha-numeric code "GX2527" as confirmed by a University of Minnesota math professor and basic high school science clearly demonstrating that there are well over 2 billion other possibilities that could have occurred instead of 'GX 2527'." Mr. Daly again alleges that DPMO "Ignores mathematical evidence completely."

The mathematical evidence is not in question; what is in question is whether the alleged symbol GX2527 was on the ground and imaged on the 1992 photographic imagery of Vietnam. The consensus of imagery experts is that it was not.

No one questions the fact that T and A, along with many letters of the alphabet were used during the Vietnam War as evader symbols. However, the issue in question is whether these items were actually observed in photography of Vietnam. The individual who initially believed he observed the symbol in a print made from imagery had no analytic experience in imagery interpretation. Imagery analysts reviewed the actual imagery and found no symbols. Thus there was no evidence providing leads upon which to base further investigation.

In "ITEM 6," Mr. Daly states: "JSSA Deputy Director Robert Dussault's testimony before the Senate Select Committee, taken under oath, clearly stating that he saw the letters "SEREX" and that the symbols "TA" were the "E&E code letters that applied in 1972", the year the pilot was shot down." Mr. Daly once again asserts that the DPMO "Ignores this evidence entirely."

Mr. Dussault is not an imagery expert. His comments concerning his observations are his own, and did not represent the views of the government, or, in particular, the views of the imagery experts at the National Photographic Interpretation Center. They are not supported by either the review of the same print or the original imagery by photo analysis experts. In the original photography of the area in question, imagery analysts have not found the symbols in question. In the absence of substantive evidence as to the presence of these symbols, the alleged symbols were never previously addressed by the USG.

In "ITEM 7," Mr. Daly states: "From the Senate Select Committee report: "They (JSSA analysts) correlated 19 of those authenticator numbers with numbers belonging to Americans still listed as missing in Southeast Asia." Mr. Daly states that DPMO has ignored completely this ""major finding."

This is not a major finding. The same Senate report also states, "it was later demonstrated to the satisfaction of all parties that none of these numbers were man-made, and all were naturally occurring phenomena such as shadows, ridges, or trees, with the exception of one additional symbol identified by one consultant in an altogether different location (Senate Report 103-1, page 25).

"JSSA personnel, who either were not trained in photographic analysis, or were not current in photo analysis techniques, found more than 100 alleged symbols in prints (reproduced copies of the original imagery) shown to them by imagery experts. When their observations were checked further, some of the numbers and/or letters they claimed to find in the print could be correlated to the numbers and/or letters of Americans who were unaccounted for.

However, when allowed to review the original imagery (not a reproduced copy) of the same area, the same JSSA analysts conceded that they had not observed this large number of symbols in the area analyzed. Thus, whether these nonexistent numbers or letters correlated to missing Americans was never an issue; the JSSA personnel agreed they could find no such letters or numbers in the original photography of Vietnam.

To demonstrate to the JSSA personnel how easy it was to find numbers or letters in prints that were not observable in the original photography, the JSSA personnel were given the opportunity to review photography of one of our western states. In this photography, they were able to find similar letters and numbers.

The statement concerning rebuttal by "Laotian youths" is wrong. When imagery analysts first reviewed the photography containing "USA," their initial analytic findings were that the letters were depressions that when filled with water would form the dark images observed on the imagery. They based their initial analytic findings on the basis that since, the surrounding rice field was much lighter in color, the darkness of the letters was probably caused by water filled depressions.

In ""ITEM 9," Mr. Daly states "1988 ""WRYE" symbol: This symbol was found on overhead imagery taken in 1988. The DPMO states that his remains were returned in 1990. The DPMO should be required to provide an itemized report on the "remains," in question and action should be taken to establish an 'independent' forensic examination of said "remains."

Agreement was never reached among the Senate imagery consultants as to whether "WRYE" was in the original 1988 photography. One analyst said, with approximately 60 percent confidence, that he could see a possible "RYE," but he was less confident that he saw a "W;" the other consultant said he believed it was man-made. Other photo analysts who reviewed the same photography failed to find the alleged symbol.

The return of the remains of Major Wrye is not in question; in the absence of photo evidence that such a symbol was actually on the ground in Southeast Asia, there should be no linkage between the alleged symbol and the date of return of positively identified and accepted remains.