The Cold War (57 page)

So I decided to get on with plans we had made prior to his disappearance. We both had wanted to become English professors, and I took my first step toward that goal by enrolling in graduate school. A large number of other MIA wives also earned degrees while they waited for their husbands' return. Initially, we were not entitled to benefits mandated by the GI Bill because we weren't widows, and we were not allowed to collect our husbands' full salaries; the Defense Department required that a percentage be held in savings. When the length of time men were listed as MIA continued beyond that of earlier wars, wives who persisted were given full benefits. I did not apply because neither my casualty assistance officer nor my monthly updates from the navy informed me that I was eligible. Instead, I held part-time jobs to finance my studies.

I was still under government orders not to reveal my husband's status, so when I was asked about the wedding ring I wore, I'd reply, “My husband's in Vietnam.” I often didn't like the immediate response that statement received: an almost instantaneous look of pity or, rarely, a diatribe about how reprehensible U.S. activities in Vietnam were.

Within a year of Frank's disappearance, the government negotiated with the North Vietnamese to allow wives to send letters and, eventually, packages to their missing husbands. Soon, navy communiqués detailed what could be included in the monthly letters (good news and cheer) and what could not (the war or any other bad news). Last year the navy returned one of my letters; it had been “found” in materials that they received from the North Vietnamese. Speaking encouragingly about Frank's family and my continuing education, the letter closes with this:

Rereading these words today, I am embarrassed by how closely they follow navy guidelines. Had he received this letter, I suspect Frank might have found it disconcerting. To anyone who knows my independent nature, it sounds as artificial as the deliberately staged confessions of captured American fliers during the Persian Gulf War. Coming from someone who, prior to her marriage, had negotiated an agreement that she didn't have to be the kind of military wife who held squadron teas and luncheons and would be free to pursue a career, this letter sounds suspect. But it illustrates just how fully I had adopted the official government role.

Whenever the government's rules changed, I followed the new orders. Every two months I could send Frank a six-and-a-half-pound package. Suggested contents included toothpaste, playing cards, vitamins, socks, underwear, soap, canned meat, bouillon cubes, raisins, candy, cheeses, and photographs. I remember how apprehensive I was the first time I also included cigars, an item not mentioned on the list.

About once a month I received a letter that detailed any changes of policy. With each letter, the government's insistence on silence about MIAs grew increasingly irritating. Why couldn't I talk about my husband? Why was I being treated as though Frank and I had done something shameful? And though I had been asked to remain silent, information about me was being used by politicians. Many of them were not interested in Frank's fate or mine so much as in furthering their careers. My local congressman, Bill Brock, told a story in his local campaign speeches about my asking him for help (which, following navy guidelines, I had stressed should remain confidential); he colored both my request and the possibility of what he could do to appeal to local voters.

In 1969, I joined the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, an organization founded by the families but fundamentally upholding government policy and receiving government support and encouragement. The league's primary spokeswoman was Sybil Stockdale, the wife of Commander James Stockdale, who was a frequently photographed prisoner and had been the commander of the first air wing of the U.S.S.
Oriskany
. She supported the government's argument that we must win the war to free the prisoners. Angered by my congressman's actions, I had written to Allard Lowenstein,
the congressman who started the dump-Johnson campaign and had been a mentor of Frank's at the University of North Carolina, asking for his help and suggestions. I tried to arrange a meeting between Lowenstein and Stockdale, but she refused to cooperate because of his antiwar stance. I have always suspected that her actions were being dictated by government policy, but I have no way of knowing how much official advice she received or followed.

I often resented the rhetoric of war protesters as well.
The Saturday Review
published a letter from a writer who called the first prisoners released by the North Vietnamese in 1969 “obscene biological charades” who wore their uniforms like “the skin of a predator.” I responded with a letter of my own, which the magazine also printed. Yet I continued to talk to people like Cora Weiss, cochair of the left-wing Committee of Liaison, whom I asked for help in establishing communications with the North Vietnamese.

From these disparate sources I tried to piece together a realistic picture, one that would allow me to act in Frank's interest. It became clear to me that the MIA/POW issue was being presented as an excuse to continue an otherwise unpopular war; the missing were being used to justify our increased bombing. Repeatedly calling attention to Hanoi's refusal to abide by the Geneva Convention, President Nixon's speeches included his promise to continue the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia “until the prisoners of war are freed.”

Al Lowenstein suggested that my going public might actually help Frank, rather than harm him. He put me in touch with John Siegenthaler, the editor of the Nashville
Tennessean
. (By this time I had moved to Nashville and enrolled at Vanderbilt University in another master's program.) Siegenthaler sent Kathy Sawyer to interview me, and she wrote a story that the paper timed to appear on the third anniversary of Frank's disappearance.

The government did not object. For reasons never clearly stated, its policy had changed. After the release of the first three prisoners in 1969, the word went out through our monthly newsletters from the military, through our casualty assistance officers, and through the National League of Families that we could take our suffering to the public. At league meetings we were asked to conduct letter-writing campaigns to show the Vietnamese what the people in the villages of America thought of their treatment of prisoners. Businessman H. Ross Perot spoke at these meetings, garnering support for his attempts to take food and supplies to the prisoners. (Perot would run for president as an independent in 1992, with Stockdale as his vice presidential candidate.) The Pentagon encouraged us to woo the media to mobilize world opinion against the
North Vietnamese. In an international contest for moral approval and goodwill, our government started calling attention to North Vietnam's refusal to follow the rules of the Geneva Convention.

Kathy Sawyer's well-written, sensitive article received a lot of attention, and many of my fellow graduate students seemed shocked to learn that my husband was an MIA. Generally, they were kind and supportive. But I received a number of phone calls from heavy breathers who offered to help me out with my sex life, and others who offered to find Frank for me using a variety of methods that ranged from witchcraft to prayer. When I was interviewed on local television and radio shows, I was surprised by the questions some interviewers and callers asked. They seemed more interested in knowing intimate details about my life than in learning about the MIA situation. Many people just wanted me to look pretty, vulnerable, and sad; they certainly didn't want me to have a political opinion. Privately, I had felt for some time that the war was wrong—both morally and practically—but I hesitated to express these sentiments because I feared such remarks might have serious repercussions for Frank, or might be used as propaganda tactics against other POWs. So I remained officially silent about my doubts.

In the spring of 1970, encouraged by both our government and the trips other wives had made, I went to Paris. Calling on the North Vietnamese consulate at 2 rue le Verrier, the two translators I had found through the American embassy and I were greeted civilly and allowed to enter. But a Vietnamese gentleman, who never told me his name, insisted that we should “ask President Nixon” about my husband's whereabouts, and he asked us to leave.

I was struck by the contrast between the elegance of the American embassy and the shabbiness of the North Vietnamese consulate. This was my first encounter with Vietnamese people, and I was also humbled by their small physical stature. By comparison, I felt Brobdingnagian, insensitive, and clumsy. The difference in our size seemed somehow a metaphor for the war in which Amer-ica's superior numbers and strength were becoming liabilities.

When I returned to the States, I continued to criticize Hanoi's policy concerning prisoners. But often my speeches, and those of other wives of MIAs, were used for different political purposes. At a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting, when the local commander suggested that he and members of the audience should “go over to Arkansas and whip Fulbright's ass for this little lady and her husband,” I announced that I was not present to support the continuance of the war in Vietnam or to attack those people who opposed it; I had come only
to express my concern about the prisoners. My audience became quiet and unresponsive. No one spoke to me afterward.

The National League of Families meeting held in Washington in July 1970 crystallized my decision to pursue my own course and ignore the one our government was dictating. When Vice President Spiro Agnew made an appearance to address the members, I didn't stand; the rather stout woman beside me started tapping me on the shoulder with her handbag, increasing the force with each tap. At last I stood up, then left—both the meeting and the organization. I had had it with everyone's political agenda. I wanted no part of a group whose allegiance precluded questioning such leaders as Nixon and Agnew.

By this time President Nixon, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, and other administration officials had escalated the frequency of their claims that we must remain in Southeast Asia to ensure the release of American POWs. The navy was not happy with my public statements that the “identification, treatment, and release of prisoners should be handled as a separate issue.”

In March 1971, I decided to move to Paris and make daily visits to the North Vietnamese consulate, vowing to stay until they told me something about Frank's status. Before my departure, the navy sent an official to caution me about my action and about any statements that I might make: “The foreign press may misinterpret your remarks if you say anything critical about the war, and you don't want your husband to be hurt by your carelessness.” He also advised me to watch out for suspicious people who might want to kidnap me.

So commenced a series of days in Paris that always began with a trip to the North Vietnamese consulate. The French police guarding the consulate would often nudge one another and say,
“C'est la femme. Encore, eh?”
Usually, a Frenchwoman of about forty-five with blue-black hair and bright red lips, dressed in a white blouse and black skirt, would come to the door demanding in French, “Who's there? What do you want?” I would respond, “It's Madame Elkins. I would like to ask you about my husband.” Her “We can't give you any information; go away!” would follow.

More than two hundred relatives of MIA/POWs had already come knocking on this door, but I was the first to make it a daily activity. If I knew foreign visitors were likely to be present at the consulate, I would try to time my visit to coincide, making an effort to embarrass the North Vietnamese. Occasionally, I would be given admittance and admonished to “go home and tell President Nixon to stop bombing our country. Then you'll get your answer.” Sometimes members of the North Vietnamese delegation would yell at me and criticize
the American bombing; at other times they would apologize and look genuinely moved by my request.

Once I asked the secretary directly if Frank was dead. Lowering her eyes, she replied,
“Oui.”
But she would provide me with no additional information. I explained that it would be to her advantage to give me all the information she had on all the men so that President Nixon would have fewer names to use as an excuse for keeping our troops in Vietnam, but she refused. Eventually, she began greeting me with “
Bonjour,
Madame Elkins,” but I never obtained the audience I requested with Delegate General Vo Van Sung.

Sometimes I tried to get the secretary to pass Vo Van Sung copies of articles that Kathy Sawyer had written about me for
The Tennessean,
notes explaining my position and my plans to return every day, and cards with my address and phone number. Occasionally, the secretary would give me pamphlets that restated her instructions to me in English. The details changed, but these conversations always ended with my standing in the shadows before a closed door and saying,
“À demain.”

Because I had great sympathy and respect for these people, the adversarial role was especially stressful for me. I couldn't blame the North Vietnamese for shooting down Frank's plane when he had been bombing their country. Sometimes I would run into members of the delegation in shops. If I spoke, they usually refused to acknowledge me. I suspect they feared I was a little crazy. Perhaps I was.

Other wives of MIAs or POWs would arrive for short stays in Paris, and I would accompany them to make their requests. After almost three months, the North Vietnamese delegation must have realized that I was there to stay. They finally admitted me and told me that Frank was dead. But when I asked them to put the information in writing, they refused, saying that all the other wives would then come to Paris and harass them.