Jerry Jennings, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, said on March 11 that live American prisoners are being held from the Vietnam War and the administration is committed to bringing them home.

"Our highest concern is live prisoners." Jennings told a gathering of the American Legion. "You all want to bring your fellow veterans home."

These words are significant because, during the Clinton years, the White House insisted that there are no live POW's and that Vietnam and Red China were cooperating fully in the effort to account for 1,936 Americans missing from the Vietnam War, said Ann Mills Griffiths.

"There was not a superlative we didn't hear" from the Clinton administration about Vietnam, Griffiths said. She heads the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.

America is investigating all "live sightings" of American prisoners of war and pressing for greater cooperation from China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Russia, Jennings said.

"We are looking for more cooperation from Vietnam," Jennings said. "We need access to officials and documents. They know much more about Laos than they have told us."

Vietnam captured Americans there when the war spilled over into Laos. Since some Americans captured by North Vietnam and, earlier North Korea, were sent to the former Soviet Union, Jennings said they are seeking access to Cold War records in Russia and are hopeful of full cooperation.

REFUSES TO COOPERATE --

Since a large number of Americans captured in Korea were sent to Red China, the United States is pressing the Chinese to make documents and officials available to investigators, Jennings said. But, he said, China has refused to cooperate.

Hunting for live Americans is a nonstop project as demonstrated by a Washington Times report the same day that Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, a Navy pilot whose plane went down in the Persian Gulf, could be still alive and in an Iraqi prison, Jennings said.

Americans are being held alive in Southeast Asia, China, and Russia; and the United States will "intensify efforts" to find them, Jennings said.

There have been 21,000 reports of first-hand, live sightings of Americans being held in Vietnam, and all are being investigated, Jennings said.