Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWs in Vietnam

Sidney Allinson is the editor at the Royal Canadian Military Institute
and author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

Usually, books that purport to reveal “conspiracies” are
preposterous. This work, however, is better researched than most, and
provides much fascinating information about high-level diplomacy,
politics, and irregular warfare. At another level, it is about the
heartbreak of thousands of bereaved families left to grieve in
uncertainty.

Kiss the Boys Goodbye claims to reveal a massive U.S. government
cover-up of evidence that thousands of American servicemen were left
behind in the enemy’s hands after the Vietnam War. The Canadian
co-authors, both media professionals, had the devoted assistance of
pow/mia activist organizations in ferreting out information and
testimony. To gain background from the other side, William Stevenson
even ventured to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and interviewed Communist
officials.

The story is one that simply won’t go away: that the Viet Cong
continue to hold more than 2000 U.S. servicemen as pows. By this late
date, most of them are probably dead, from ill-treatment or disease.
Nonetheless, the relatives who grieve for those missing in action have
every right to know their fate. Sadly, because of officialdom’s
foot-dragging, too much time has passed for the mystery ever to be
solved.

This book certainly offers disturbing evidence that many Americans were
indeed kept by North Vietnam long after the war’s end, as possible
bargaining chips for American economic aid and diplomatic concessions.
The authors recount how they faced repeated evasiveness and outright
lies from State Department military officials. The can of worms they
opened included contradictory testimony, defensive and hostile military
officers, hidden record files, outraged veterans’ groups, mysterious
cia agents, and even a U.S. Army deserter once convicted of
collaborating with the enemy. From these sources, the authors have
compiled an impressive narrative. They then make a dubious quantum leap
claiming to have uncovered a massive “deliberate conspiracy.”

This book affirms the faith of relatives who can never forget, their
dreams still haunted by beloved soldiers held in a jungle limbo.