Tales of torture in North Vietnam

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33189, 31 March 1973, Page 15

Tales of torture in North Vietnam

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright > WASHINGTON, March 30. Horrifying tales of cruelty and torture suffered by American prisoners at the hands of Vietnamese Communists today caused waves of shock and revulsion among the American people and threatened to harm future United States-North Vietnamese relations.

Many of the former American captives, breaking silence about their treatment only when the last United States prisoners were freed, charged that they were beaten, starved, humiliated, and denied medical treatment.

Under the torture, al] number of them broke and agreed to make anti- , war statements suggested to them by the Communists, the returned prisoners said. Several of the former pri-j soners — who had almost all] semed in excellent health' when they stepped jauntily from aircraft bringing them] home—demanded that North Vietnamese leaders be formally accused of war crimes. Americans were shocked and nauseated by the stories of torture told by the former (prisoners at a series of press conferences across the United | States on the day the last i group of American captives | was released by Hanoi. I Until the moment the last j prisoners from Hanoi were ■ released, there had been no public reports of widespread ! ill-treatment of prisoners and | most people thought the pri- | soners had been fairly well j treated. Apart from the disgust felt by many Americans, the big--1 gest impact of the disclosures

| of torture seemed likely to. !be a backlash against giving] ‘any American economic aid to the rebuilding of North Vietnam. . The disclosures were ex-] peered to strengthen already- ] strong resistance in Congress] to granting economic aid to I I Hanoi, which President Nixon jhas said is necessary to en:courage North Vietnam to co-] '] operate with its former ad-1 • versaries in the south. I President Nixon, in a ] I nation-wide television address' . last night, did not mention] the torture allegations made] j earlier in the day by former] ; prisoners. He referred only indirectly] to the conditions in which the! I prisoners were held, describ-] : ing how a few days ago he ; met a former prisoner who, Ihe said, was kept in solitary : confinement for four years, ! living on a daily piece of > bread and vegetable soup and 1 reading and listening only to 1 Communist propaganda. • ] The stories told by the reI turning prisoners probably had even greater impact bet cause of the previous restric- ■ tions placed on the men by > the Defence Department.

These restrictions, barring the men from talking freely to reporters and discussing the conditions of their captivity until the last prisoners were released, led to charges by the news media of censorship by the Pentagon. When the men finally were allowed to talk, they told a ■ common tale of horror and degradation at the hands of ! their captors. Demands that the North Vietnamese leaders be charged with war crimes were led by Commander (Richard Stratton of the j United States Navy — one of the most widely-known prisI oners of war because of a : famous photograph showing ]him bowing low before his I North Vietnamese captors. While in captivity, Commander Stratton was induced to read a “confession” of his supposed war crimes. Commander Stratton, a 41-year-old father of three

children, of Palo Alto, California, said that he was tortured and beaten and placed in solitary confinement for 18 months of his six and a half years in captivity. He pointed to scars on his arms that he said were done by North Vietnamese interrogators burning him with cigarettes. He also said two of his fingernails were bent back and broken. Commander Stratton also| told of Communist guardsj taking a prisoner with a; broken arm and working it !up and down like a pump, i Lieutenant - Commander Rodney Knutson, aged 34, of 'Bollings, Montana, said that j during his first weeks of imIprisonment he went six days without food and water and was put in stocks with his ’arms bound behind him. ; “I was beaten to near tinj consciousness,” he said. “Myi (nose and teeth were broken, i • Then 1 was turned over to; |the stocks and beaten with; ja bamboo club across the ; buttocks. 1 was beaten until;

my buttocks were just ham-11 , burgers and the blood splat-, Itered against the wall.” i Stratton and Knutson spoke, at a press conference in Oakland, California. Other former prisoners told j I similar stories across the i • United States. Several said that they quite I ' understood how any man • broke under pressure and ] agreed to make propaganda ■ statements or broadcasts on . j behalf of the Communists. I In Hong Kong, the last listed American prisoner of war, Captain Robert White, ; of the United States Army, J will be released by the Viet ' Cong in South Vietnam’s Tra ‘ Vinh Province, the New China News Agency reported ' today. Although the agency did ‘ not say when Captain White would be freed, it was expec- ' ted to be on Sunday or Mon- ’ day.