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But according to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who described the incident in November testimony before Congress, after several fruitless days Bailey came up empty-handed. Then, Cheney testified, Bailey had second thoughts. Perhaps, he suggested, the picture had been taken in Burma. Bailey now claims he was set up by Cheney. The Pentagon, he insists, drove a wedge between him and his mysterious source by getting to the man first and convincing him that Bailey was attempting to cheat him out of a sizable reward for his information.
The Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs has begun its own effort to close the books -- or open them more fully -- on the MIA issue. During a 14- month inquiry that is expected to cost $1.9 million, the committee hopes to establish whether any American servicemen are alive in Southeast Asia, as well as make recommendations for ways in which the government can improve its process for resolving unsettled cases.
Unlike earlier bodies that have looked into the question, the Senate committee has subpoena power, and witnesses who appear before it must testify under oath. For those reasons, its probe stands a better chance than previous investigations of unearthing enough evidence to determine whether the search for missing Americans should be continued. Moreover, the replacement of the Soviet Union by a new Commonwealth of Independent States seeking good relations with the U.S. could permit American investigators to learn at last what Moscow knows about the MIAs.
Even so, it is likely that the Senate investigation, like 10 prior official inquiries, will leave unanswered questions that the MIA industry can prey on. Illinois Republican Congressman Henry Hyde has suggested that given the cost of disproving counterfeit assertions about MIAs, anyone who makes one should be charged with defrauding the government. Perhaps. But the real victim is not the government. It is the MIA families, whose grief and uncertainty have been exploited.