M.I.A., Or, Mythmaking in America

by Howard Bruce Franklin

Book Overview

Almost two decades after the Vietnam War, most Americans remain convinced that U.S. prisoners are still being held captive in Southeast Asia, and many even accuse the government of concealing their existence. But as H. Bruce Franklin demonstrates in his startling investigation, there is no plausible basis for the belief in live POWs. Through scrupulous research, he shows for the first time how this illusion was fabricated and then converted into a...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556521189
• ISBN13: 9781556521188
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Lawrence Hill Books
• Length: 225 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A mythbuster about a despicable effort to deceive the American public

I stumbled across this book while doing some research on Vietnam and found it to be fascinating. Franklin argues that the POW/MIA myth is a concoction of politicans, right-wing political activists, and hucksters who have kept the POW issue alive as an open wound and thus reframed the Vietnam War with Americans as the true victims. This myth has been kept alive by Hollywood films such as Missing in Action and Rambo and has done a disservice to Americans' attempt to understand the Vietnam War. Having grown up in the post-Vietnam era, I was also fascinated by tales of POWs and the possibility that some may still be alive. As I got older, however, I came to suspect that this was largely a myth designed to deceive the American public once again about Vietnam. This book has confirmed by suspicion. Franklin examines the "numbers game" of POW/MIAs and explodes the possibility that any are still alive or that the Vietnamese government has not fully accounted for POWs or had any reason to keep some secretly, while releasing others. Franklin also debunks many of the alleged "live sightings" and the conspiracy theories associated with alleged POWs. Well worth the read.

This book is great

This book is really great, it's about a very important but little understood issue. It's full of factual documentation of all aspects of the MIA issue -- from how the counting was done, to the various political angles the issue took at various times throughout the war -- and is a great read, as well. It brought back a lot of memories of the bizarre things that went on then, and still do today.

Shatters the Biggest False Myth of the Vietnam War

Franklin has done a great service for contemporaty America, and the collective memory of the Vietnam War in U.S. history. His book illustrates that maxim that truth is not only the first casualty of war, but often suffers long after a war has concluded. His extensive research reveals that the post-Vietnam War POW/MIA "myth" (i.e. a misrepresentation of the truth) has been a cruel hoax propagated by right-wing politicians (Nixon, Kissinger, Robert Dornan, Ronald Reagan, Ross Perot, and a host of others) in an attempt to create a pseudo-history of the Vietnam War where the U.S. military become the "real" victims of this war, not the millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians whose country was destroyed. As Franklin notes, "every responsible investigation conducted since the end of the war has reached the same conclusion: there is no credible evidence that live Americans [were] held against their will in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or China" after the war." (p. 14) Franklin knowledgeably concludes his book by noting that "the last chapter of the Vietnam War cannot be written so long as millions of Americans remain possessed by the POW/MIA myth." The lesson is clear. Beware of false politicians who manufacture bogus history while cruelly exploiting other peoples' tragedies to further their own warped and self-serving political agenda. H. Bruce Franklin's book more than lives up to John Lennon's Vietanm-era plea - "gimme some truth, just gimme some truth." You'll find it in this book.