Airport dispute on U.S. pilots9 return

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33035, 30 September 1972, Page 17

Airport dispute on U.S. pilots 9 return

(By

SEYMOUR HERSH.

o[ the “New York Times/' through N.Z.P.A.)

NEW YORK, September 29. The three American pilots freed by North Vietnam, and their escort of anti-war leaders, arrived from Copenhagen last night, and the pilots—after a 25-minute shouting match aboard the parked Scandinavian Airlines System plane—were taken by Defence Department officials to military hospitals.

The dispute broke out soon after the pilots were greeted by a highranking delegation of military men, led by Dr Roger Shields, the chief Pentagon spokesman for prisoner affairs. Lieutenant Mark Gartley, of the United States Navy, who was accompanied on the four-day trip from Hanoi by his mother, objected to a demand that he travel under military escort to a Naval Hospital in New York for a ••medical check-up.” The lieutenant told military officials during a stop in Moscow on Wednesday that he wanted at least two days to visit his family before rejoining the service.

, He was captured by the ! North Vietnamese in August, 1968. SOBBING MOTHER The argument broke out when Dr Shields told the (lieutenant that his request would not be approved. Mrs Gartley insisted that ,the military fulfill what she I said was its agreement to permit a family visit. ! “We just want him to our- ( selves,” she said, “free of the Government, free of the Navy, free of the press, free of the North Vietnamese, and now we’re not going to get it.” Dr Shields told Mrs Gartley, “he is an officer in the (United States Navy.” At that point, Mrs Gartley began sobbing and emotionally told the defence official.

“I haven’t cried since the day you called me and said my son was shot down.” Lieutenant Gartley, obviously distressed, stepped in: “My mother hasn’t cried in years. You may have pushed this a little too far.” ACTION CRITICISED

Throughout the exchange, defence officials and airport policemen kept on trying to eject two reporters from the plane.

As the pilot and his mother began moving out of the plane, one Washington official said—obviously referring to the military’s action —"I told them not to do it.”

Lieutenant Gartley, aged 28, was later reported by the Pentagon to have entered the hospital, at least for an overnight stay. The other two released pilots went calmly to their destinations.

Navy Lieutenant Norris Charles, aged 27, was taken —with his wife, who flew back from Hanoi with him — to a Naval hospital in San Diego.

Major Edward Elias, aged 34, of the Air Force, was flown to a hospital at Maxwell Air Force' Base, Alabama. Lieutenant Charles was captured in December and the Air Force pilot was shot down five months ago. NEW UNIFORMS

All three pilots had willingly agreed before the plane landed to doff their Hanoi-made suits and put on new military uniforms that were placed aboard the Scandinavian airliner in Copenhagen, the group’s earlier stop. Members of the Committee of Liaison—an anti-war group that was asked by the North Vietnamese to escort the pilots home —protested against both what they termed the military’s urging of the men to wear uniforms and the confrontation with Mrs Gartley and her son.

At a later airport news conference, Mr David Dellinger, a co-chairman of the committee, declared that the pilots “had been promised that they would be free to speak to the press,” upon landing and could also “go to a private room where they could talk to other prisoner-of-war families.” “PEACE OFFENSIVE”

He said that the military’s interference with the pilots would jeopardise the future release of prisoners by North Vietnam.

The release of the three, he said, “was a first step in the peace offensive. “It was incumbent upon the United States to respond in a similar manner.”

Earlier, in a news conference before leaving Copenhagen, the pilots—in obvious good physical health —expressed gratitude at their release from North Vietnam and also vowed their determination to help bring home the rest of the captured men.