Home At Last

By John Greenwald

IT IS THE BIGGEST BREAKTHROUGH IN RESOLVING THE FATE OF America's 2,266 Vietnam War POW/MIAs since 1973. The U.S. has acquired 4,500 black-and-white photos of dead Americans taken by Vietnamese combat photographers during the war. While some 80% of the grisly photos are duplicate shots of the same individuals, the material has already helped determine what happened to several soldiers who were listed as missing. Armed with the photos, special presidential envoy GENERAL JOHN VESSEY flew to Hanoi last week to try to persuade the Vietnamese to open up the rest of a cache of photos, dog tags and other items that could help identify missing Americans.