Nation: THE PLIGHT OF THE PRISONERS

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Fear of Brainwashing. Despite the understandable reticence of the three men, their release called attention to the plight of U.S. prisoners in the North and gave some indications about their conditions of captivity. Of the more than 1,300 men listed as missing in action in the Viet Nam war, the U.S. Government estimates that as many as 500 to 600 are held as prisoners in the North; most of them are downed pilots and air crewmen.

The North Vietnamese have not released the names of the men they hold, have refused to free sick and wounded prisoners, and have rejected proposals for impartial inspection of prison camps by the Red Cross or other neutral agencies. Little mail and few packages are allowed to be sent, although, under the Geneva convention, war prisoners are allowed two letters and four postcards per month. During the past five years, only about 600 letters have filtered out from the prisoners; the peace delegation last week brought with them another 42 messages. Packages from relatives are allowed only sporadically, apparently for fear that electronic devices, such as locators, might be hidden in them. Hanoi justifies its tough position by maintaining that the prisoners are "war criminals" who are not entitled to the protection of the Geneva convention, of which it is a signatory.

At one point in 1966, the North Vietnamese threatened to try U.S. pilots for "war crimes" and paraded them through the streets of the capital. Some pilots were forced to write outlandish "confessions" in improbably stilted Eng lish. Then in 1967, the North Vietnamese produced Lieut. Commander Richard A. Stratton at a filmed news conference. His behavior—he walked around as if in a trance and repeatedly bowed to his captors—raised the issue of whether he had been either brainwashed or drugged. Frishman confided to Reporter Babcox that on arrival in Vientiane he had looked into a mirror and had asked himself: "Was I brainwashed? Would I think I was brainwashed if I had been brainwashed?"

The prisoners are apparently kept in small facilities in and around Hanoi. The best-known is the "Hanoi Hilton," a former officers' billet that now houses an estimated 30 to 40 Americans. Some of the men are held in solitary confinement; isolation seems to be a fairly common feature of North Vietnamese internments and life, by the few accounts available, is dull and tedious. When Frishman was interviewed by Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci not long ago, he burst out, "For a year and a half I haven't spoken to anybody." Navy Captain James Bond Stockdale, the highest ranking U.S. prisoner, wrote his wife in April 1966 that he was completely alone and had seen no other Americans. Although she received nine letters and postcards from him, her mail —letters and packages—apparently never reached him. Other prisoners, however, seem to have been taken out on tours of museums—and to see areas hit by U.S. planes during the bombing offensive against the North.