Why did Johm McCain make 31 propaganda tapes for the enemy and then classify them?

Answer 1

The number of "Propaganda tapes" made by McCain and other Prisoners of War has been disputed almost from the time they were first heard.

Remember, the North Vietnamese didn't exactly send cassette tapes to the USA news media. The North Vietnamese Government broadcasted a huge quantity of programs using both AM radio (like we have in the USA) and over Short Wave (International Broadcasting).

Almost all of those broadcasts were intercepted by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) which was and is an overt activity that is part of the CIA. Other recordings were intercepted by the various Military Intelligence organizations, which sent the taped broadcasts to the National Security Agency (NSA).

The NSA has not released any of their tapes, indeed they have not admitted that they still possess the tapes. Their story is that the tapes were erased some 30 years ago.

The FBIS tapes are obtainable from the National Archives, which has a duplication service and will copy the tapes over to CDROMs in .wav format. They do this for people who want to obtain copies of the Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy secret taping of Oval Office conversations. However, you have to wade through hundreds of thousands of hours of scratchy, low-fidelity and static filled tapes; an impossible task for the casual inquirer.

The Archives are not admitting that the FBIS tapes are "searchable" by the name of the individual making the broadcast. Perhaps this is true, perhaps is it not.

I know for a fact that there exist tapes of Prisoners of War who made statements which were broadcast. The Department of Defense POW/MIA Affairs office has their copy. Whether they ever see the light of day, only time will tell -- and that will be long after you and I are dead and gone.

Now, having said all of that background, you absolutely MUST understand that prisoners such as Captain McCain were tortured incessantly. Every day in their lives brought some type of physical injury, torture and pain and suffering. This was the North Vietnamese way of POW treatment. McCain is only one of many POW's who were tortured and forced to make statements at odds with the US Government's position at the time vis a vis the Vietnam War.

Remember that some anti-war protestors went to North Vietnam and made broadcasts of their own free will. Jane Fnda is one of those. Almost all Vietnam Veterans consider such voluntary acts to be treasonous.

It is an established fact that some POW's in the custody of the North Vietnamese acted in a less than honorable manner. Matter of fact, McCain was one of several officers who attempted to press charges against several unnamed individuals whom he observed acting in a manner which was injurious to the other POWs. The President and Secretary of Defense quashed all of those attempts at prosecution. They cited the public spectacle of courts martial which happened after the Korean War POW's were returned by the North Koreans (who also brutally tortured the POWs).