Word: signs
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Finally, the inquiry also raises questions as to the validity of the Military Code of Conduct (see ESSAY), which requires brave men of conscience like Bucher to endure vicious treatment rather than sign false confessions that are of dubious value anyway. Fiercely loyal to his crew, orphanage-raised Bucher could only be made to sign such a document when he believed his men-his military family-would be shot one by one. Whatever the court of inquiry decides, it is clear that the Navy's investigation will not satisfy Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield predicted that both...
...have a broader understanding of the plight of the P.O.W., some factions within the State and Defense departments want to liberalize the Code of Conduct. They include Averell Harriman, who was put in charge of P.O.W. affairs at State almost three years ago. Flyers imprisoned in Viet Nam have signed many confessions-a situation that Harriman's aide, Frank Sieverts, finds predictable enough. "The code says a prisoner can't sign anything, but those who have given it any thought know the only practical answer is 'yes, he can sign,' " says Sieverts. Neither the U.S. military...
...cases where prisoners finally do break down and sign incriminating confessions, the rest of the military should perhaps follow the lead of the Air Force and discount the propaganda loss. Anyone, friend or enemy, who is persuaded by a forced confession doubtless had his mind already made up. Moreover, propaganda can backfire. The fact that it has been gained through the abuse of prisoners repels people. When the North Vietnamese put captured U.S. flyers on exhibit in Hanoi, foreign reaction was so adverse that the Vietnamese never restaged the spectacle...
Some people in the Defense Department have proposed that the U.S. ignore confessions altogether. They argue that P.O.W.s should sign anything, as long as they do not divulge classified military information or imperil other prisoners. A well-publicized official policy to this effect would drain confessions of any real significance, in the manner of the disclaimer that preceded the Government's own "confession" last month that the Pueblo was inside North Korean waters...
...Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Portuguese, the Spanish and the French-but it has never been conquered. With a coastline on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, it is the westernmost nation in Africa, which may account for the fact that it was the first African state to sign a treaty of friendship with the U.S. -in 1787. And with only the eight-mile-wide Strait of Gibraltar separating it from Europe, its ambiance is understandably cosmopolitan...