ON JANUARY 31, 1971, the world watched as America’s space cowboys made yet another triumphant lunar landing. Astronaut Alan Shepard led the third successful landing on the moon with the Apollo 14 mission.1 It seemed as though almost anything was possible for the Americans—except ending the war in Vietnam. That same month, Phyllis had redoubled her efforts to raise POW/MIA awareness. Under the auspices of the National League’s “Write Hanoi” letter campaign, Phyllis and her volunteers kicked off a Richmond-based “Bring Paul Home” letter-writing campaign in January. This effort urged those from all over the state to write the North Vietnamese government in support of the tenets of the Geneva Conventions regarding prisoners of war.
Bring Paul Home letters from concerned Richmonders demanded proper food, shelter, and medical care for the POWs, mail privileges, and the free flow of information regarding both POW and MIAs. Form letters were made available all over the state through Richmond’s TV station WWBT and its Bring Paul Home letter-writing office. Judi, Connie, and Phyllis all worked there night and day with their dedicated volunteer office manager Gwen Mansini to manage the letter collection.2
Judi recalled that the Write Hanoi “office” was really a large trailer on the property of WWBT-TV, under the station’s tall antennas. WWBT had generously donated the space for the local POW/MIA effort. “We had three phones, large tables for desks, posters on the wall of Paul in jail, and American flags everywhere.” The women were surrounded by boxes of “Write Hanoi” materials, dozens of volunteers, and phones that never stopped ringing.3 On January 22, 1971, the campaign got a publicity boost when Ross Perot arrived in Richmond for a Write Hanoi luncheon at the Hotel John Marshall. Phyllis and the Texas maverick millionaire appeared together later that day on local TV.4
On February 12, shy Phyllis faced yet another test of her mettle. This time, she addressed the Virginia Senate in a televised press conference. This appearance would kick off a larger, area-wide effort for the Bring Paul Home campaign. The former housewife who just wanted to stay home instead spoke out forcefully on the POW/MIA issue, making a not so subtle jab at her own government during her speech: “Paul is a very patient, very easygoing person. But I know he must be wondering why the greatest country in the world can’t get him out of that rathole he’s been in for four and one half years.” While she was not advocating for early prisoner release, Phyllis was demanding that the world listen, that it rebuke the North Vietnamese for their inhumane treatment and force the Communists to improve the prisoners’ living conditions immediately.5
Richmonders and Virginians statewide responded in force to the appeal in ways they had not before. Schoolchildren, military veterans, firefighters, teachers, policemen, college students—everyone seemed to unite on this issue. Don’t stand by and let this happen, Phyllis and her friends pleaded. The women knew how concerned the North Vietnamese were about their public image. If they continued to chip away at this, one day, they reasoned, their defenses might finally be breached.6
Former POW Norris Overly was back in Richmond to speak with Phyllis on February 12 in front of the Virginia Senate. He saw a seismic shift in Richmonders’ attitudes since the June POW rally at the state capitol. “The difference that I noted is that there is more support by people who are not directly involved in the POW issue.” People like Judi, Connie, and their families who saw a need and responded to it. Overly pointed out that, unlike Virginia Beach, with its “colony of wives,” Richmond had only six men among the possible prisoners.7 Jane Denton, Janie Tschudy, Louise Mulligan, and others in Virginia Beach had a tight-knit group of women all in the same situation, with a military base at its core. But Phyllis had no family to support her, and few other military wives in her situation in her adopted city.
Instead, Phyllis got by with a little help from her friends.
The result was a truckload of 750,000 letters: 450,000 from Richmond and 300,000 from Northern Virginia.8 Now Phyllis, a former “shrinking violet,” and her allies had the currency they needed to bargain their way into the North Vietnamese embassy in Stockholm. They didn’t fight their way in like traditional soldiers—they wrote their way in. In the case of the POW/MIA wives, the pen would prove mightier than the sword.
Phyllis made her long-awaited trip to Stockholm on March 8, 1971, armed with an eighteen-wheeler truck—covered in WRITE HANOI bumper stickers—that contained 750,000 letters demanding the ultimate release of the POWs as a group and adherence to the tenets of the Geneva Convention in the meantime. Accompanying her was a diverse group of nine others, including Judi and Connie, who had left their children at home with their husbands.
As Judi later related, the team of supporters the women put together was carefully planned. “The choice of these people was imperative.” Phyllis’s colleague Cliff Ellison, personnel director at Reynolds Metals Company, was selected in large part because of his Swedish background: his parents were both Swedes, and he spoke the language fluently. His linguistic skills would be crucial in Stockholm. Gwen Mansini, the women’s dedicated office manager, was a skilled organizer who helped keep things running smoothly. Prominent Richmond businessman Joe Antonelli and local banker H. L. “Ted” Baynes signed on to show the support of the city’s business community for the POW issue. High school student Don Smith, head of the Young Republicans at his high school, rounded out the entourage. “We tried to get a cross section of the population involved,” noted Judi.9
But Phyllis’s most important allies came from the Richmond media.
WWBT-TV Channel 12 newscaster Ed McLaughlin and manager Jim Babb were Phyllis’s secret weapons. The media coverage they would generate and the injustices they would document were exactly what the POW/MIAs needed.10
The Richmond Write Hanoi delegation arrived on a cold, gray Tuesday afternoon. The Swedish press immediately mobbed the group: journalists from four newspapers and a television station and AP and UPI reporters all sought interviews. The next morning, March 10, the story was all over the news, and it was time to act. The group had set up their own appointments, and they met first with American ambassador Jerome Holland and his embassy staff.
While sympathetic and helpful to Phyllis and her entourage, Holland and his people had faced a steep uphill battle as they attempted to combat the Communist propaganda coming out of Hanoi. Most of the media in Sweden came from left-leaning sources that tended to paint the American soldiers in Vietnam as ruthless and combative warriors.11 The Write Hanoi delegates next had a fruitless meeting with the head of the International Red Cross. Judi remembered indignantly, “He was awful, definitely a Communist. He said, ‘We will not help you, period.’ He never even asked us to sit down!”12
Phyllis would later tell Frank Sieverts, deputy assistant secretary of state for POW/MIA matters—and member of the original “Washington Road Show” team at Miramar—that both the Red Cross and the Swedish government were “non-committal” and that neither were willing to intervene much in POW affairs.13
The most important development of the day came from a spontaneous, unannounced visit to the North Vietnamese embassy. Phyllis, Ted, and Joe went there on foot and asked a Swedish woman working at the embassy for an appointment. This time, cordiality was tossed out the window. Phyllis sweetly explained to her, “If we are not granted an audience, then we would come back with all of the press and our 750,000 letters that we had with us.” Her gambit had the desired effect: Phyllis was told to call back that afternoon for an appointment.14
Phyllis kept calling the North Vietnamese embassy, but the staff refused to return her calls. She continued to slowly and calmly repeat what she would do if they refused to speak to her. The North Vietnamese representatives finally agreed to see her, accompanied by two men from her party. No other women from her party would be allowed into the embassy. “Women had absolutely no value” in that culture at that time, noted Judi.15 Phyllis prepared to meet with them the next day and spent a restless night in her hotel, worrying.
The next morning, Judi and Connie fussed over Phyllis and her outfit, advising her on what to wear. They all knew the power of image. This ensemble needed to be simple and unadorned, but it had to have some punch to it. That way, Phyllis could make a statement about her position, her loyalty, and her mission without having to say a word. The embassy had told her to leave her “Nixon propaganda” at home, as well as the letters—and the media.16
With her two best friends’ approval, Phyllis chose a simple navy-blue dress with tall boots and navy stockings. She wore no jewelry except for her wedding ring. But her Hermès silk scarf, a gift from Judi’s mother, sent a clear message: it was red, white, and blue.17 Judi and Connie nodded with satisfaction as Phyllis departed for her appointment: her friends knew her well enough to know that she would somehow get the job done. She had gotten further than they ever expected she would by boldly demanding an audience with the North Vietnamese, using her literal ton of letters as a bargaining chip.
Phyllis arrived at the embassy with Ted and Joe in tow at 10:30 a.m. sharp. The embassy was a villa in the suburbs of Stockholm. Ted and Joe later recalled that the structure resembled the infamous Bates Motel, from the Hitchcock thriller Psycho. It was not exactly a welcoming place. The Americans were served various refreshments, which Joe and Ted later compared to “Styrofoam potato chips.”18
The Americans were told where to sit, and to speak in English. Monsieur G. Viet, the North Vietnamese chargé d’affaires, and his assistant interspersed their English with French, which was the diplomatic language and the language they would use to communicate that day between themselves in front of their visitors. Their assumption that the Americans spoke only English would prove to be a serious strategic mistake.
Phyllis took the lead, surprising the North Vietnamese, who did not expect a woman to lead the discussion. “I want to know how my husband, Paul, is—what is his physical condition?” The men took down her mailing address, and Phyllis was shown his name on a list of POWs sent from Hanoi. They refused all information and letters she had brought with her, but one of the men did read a letter from a seven-year-old American child asking for the POWs’ safe return. Phyllis then asked the men, “Would it would be possible to bring the American POWs to Sweden for internment?” referring to Prime Minister Palme’s offer to accept the American prisoners. The men stubbornly continued to insist that they had no knowledge of this offer.
When Monsieur G. Viet and his cohort spoke about her in French, assuming she did not speak the language, college French major Phyllis stopped them, letting them know she understood exactly what they were saying about her. When they claimed they had no way to communicate with Hanoi, she called their bluff, noting the obvious antennas and communications equipment attached to the top of their building. At every turn, Phyllis showed herself much cleverer than the diplomats charged with keeping her at bay.
After an hour and twenty minutes, the conversation began to disintegrate. The North Vietnamese soon asked Phyllis, Ted, and Joe to leave. Viet and his staffer did not stand up; this was a subtle dismissal and a knowing disregard for diplomatic politesse. They hoped to put this sassy American woman in a place of submission this way. But Phyllis knew how to handle them.
She got up and left without being officially dismissed, leaving her letters for Paul on the table. She later would tell Judi and Connie about the scene at the embassy. They were totally astonished that shy Phyllis had made such a bold move. “She was controlling them and the situation. I don’t know how she knew to do that, but she did!” noted Judi proudly.19
The story of Phyllis and her entourage and her success in gaining entry to the North Vietnamese embassy helped generate fresh interest in the POW/MIA story—an ongoing goal for the National League and all the families of POWs and MIAs. Too often, the ladies knew, the POW/MIA story took a backseat to issues of far less importance. The country kept forgetting about its captured and missing men and needed to be constantly reminded of them. Phyllis and the other POW and MIA wives refused to let them fall off the radar.
During that same trip, under-the-radar efforts were also made to meet secretly with Prime Minister Palme. Judi remembered, “It seemed there was no hope of getting to Palme. Then ‘a man’ from the U.S. State Department contacted her under ‘utmost secrecy’ with phone numbers to use.” After a flurry of calls from Phyllis, Judi, and Connie, an appointment was set. But only the three women were to attend. None of the men from their entourage were invited. Judi noted, “We were to tell absolutely no one including those traveling with us and especially no other POW wives. The officials didn’t want a steady flow of POW wives there.”
Judi vividly recollected the Stockholm secret meeting: “We went out several days later saying we were going shopping. A man met us and took us to a small hotel nearby. He walked with Phyllis and talked to her the whole time in excellent English though he was Swedish. At the Hotel café, we were told that ‘because of high security risks’ we would not see Palme. But this man would take our material and photos. He gave us gold brooches with the seal of Sweden on them from Palme, he said. He stressed again secrecy.… We felt he was very sincere.”
But nothing happened. Phyllis and her friends were very disappointed with this outcome. Had they come this far only to leave empty-handed? “Phyllis asked again why we had to keep the meeting a secret since we hadn’t met with him. The man said he was doing a favor for ‘an important American friend.’ So we agreed.” The mysterious man looked through all of Phyllis’s materials and asked her questions for ninety minutes. After the episode, the man disappeared. “Phyllis was very firm that we never speak of it.”20
Unbeknownst to the women, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Dick Capen had also tried, through secret channels, to work with the Swedish government on interning the American POWs. Like Senator Dole, Sybil, and Phyllis, he saw the Swedish solution as a real possibility.
Before Capen came on board at the Defense Department, he had worked in the newspaper business, and he had developed a friendly relationship with a newsprint supplier based in Sweden. This colleague’s family owned a shipping line that included two ships named the Gripsholm and the Drottningholm. These two ships had a unique history: both had been employed during World War II to transport prisoners of war to neutral countries.
Capen remembered: “I led a secret, small mission to Sweden to meet with my friend the chairman of this line who readily agreed to donate two ships for a proposed move of POWs from Hanoi and South Vietnam to Sweden or another neutral site. The Geneva Conventions encourage such internment in neutral countries. My contact went to Olof Palme, a strong ally of NVN. He in turn met with the NVN and made this proposal. It all was set up in such a way that Palme would get full credit for his humanitarian gesture. My plan was to raise the funds secretly to underwrite the costs. I felt quite confident that this could be done.”
But in the end, Palme showed his true allegiance: “Palme thought this would be seen as a gesture of support for the USA so he backed off.” Capen had known all along that the secret plan was a long shot, but, like Phyllis and Sybil, he was willing to pursue all leads, try anything he could to help rescue the men.21
Once again, the Americans had hit the North Vietnamese wall—impossible to scale and unyielding.
After her return from Sweden, shy Phyllis was well on her way to becoming Fearless Phyllis, as she would later be known. She was becoming increasingly outspoken and more critical of the Nixon government. In a letter to her friend Ross Perot on April 6, 1971, she vented her frustration and her willingness to go further in League efforts to obtain the release of the POWs and an accounting of the MIAs. Phyllis noted that while she was in Sweden, the Swedes kept asking her, “Why doesn’t your government do something?” She found she could not convincingly answer that question.
Phyllis also noted the shift she was seeing among her League friends and within herself. The women had avoided becoming political, consistently choosing the humanitarian path instead. While this approach had been highly effective in the past, it still was not enough. “It is now becoming very apparent that everyone else is using our men politically, both the North Vietnamese and the United States government. I don’t think it will be very long before the families begin taking a political stand, because we are not getting the results we want … Why should I have to travel halfway around the world to try to get help for our men who were sent to war by their own government?”
Phyllis ended her letter to Perot with a declaration of intent. Something was changing, she sensed, among her friends in the League and within herself. It was not just their policies that were transforming, but the way the women saw themselves and their roles. Phyllis would never be a feminist. But she was becoming a human rights activist and one who would never quit until the POW rescue was complete. And she was finding that the National League was evolving along with her: things needed to be clearer, stronger, louder.
“We do not want to become a group of loud, boisterous, pushy women … But the lives of our husbands are at stake. If we have to take a more political stand to achieve this end, many of us are willing to do it.”22 The personal was about to finally become political.
By May, the U.S. government was finally beginning to realize the level of frustration the National League and its officers, like Phyllis, were experiencing. As Sybil had told the men in Washington years earlier, the wives of POWs needed to be treated like their own wives—you couldn’t just say you loved them on your wedding day and then forget about them.
On May 27, Sweden announced its support for the Viet Cong, sending the group $550,000 in medical aid.23 This must have been a crushing blow for Phyllis, after all of her efforts—and the publicity coup—in Sweden. As in World War II, the Swedish government refused to commit to one side or the other during wartime. In June, an editorial in Newsday punctured the hopes of POW wives everywhere. It bluntly stated, “Sweden, the only Western nation recognizing North Vietnam, plainly doesn’t want to offend the Hanoi government in any way. It doesn’t need Sweden, but Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme’s Social Democratic Party needs Hanoi to keep its left wing happy.”24 By refusing to take sides, Sweden had taken sides—with the Communists in Hanoi. They refused the role they could have taken as a Good Samaritan host country. It became disappointingly clear to the U.S. government and the POW/MIA wives that Sweden had chosen not to stay neutral.
Air Force general James Donald “Don” Hughes, one of Nixon’s military assistants, wrote to Senator Dole on May 19, 1971, telling him he had contacted Phyllis. The U.S. government had identified her as a key influencer regarding POW/MIA issues. The men knew they had to be careful, as she had a direct line of communication with military families. If women like Phyllis, Sybil, Jane, and Helene weren’t “handled” properly, the U.S. government might just have a full-on rebellion on their hands. Regarding Phyllis, the condescending Hughes wrote that “she, like so many others feels the ever-increasing pressures of frustration and anxiety and need to be reassured periodically.” He was relieved that she was already pro-Nixon, and he felt that “she will influence the other girls in her area as best she can.”25
Dole agreed with Hughes in his response: “Certainly understand the feelings these girls have occasionally of the need to be reassured, and appreciate your giving her a call.”26 However, it wasn’t just “the girls” who needed reassurance at this point. Other family members were also showing their displeasure with the American government and the seemingly endless war. Senator Dole received hundreds of letters from POW/MIA family members attesting to this.
One particularly poignant letter Dole received came from Paul Galanti’s father, Philip Galanti. The June 15, 1971, letter begged the Kansas senator to work within the government to set a withdrawal date from Vietnam for all U.S. troops, provided the prisoners were released within thirty days. He deemed the war and Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy “tiresome, worn-out, meaningless, and trite.”
Time was running out. Like his daughter-in-law, Philip was not willing to wait and be patient anymore. He knew what the outcome would be for Paul and his fellow POWs if the war continued for much longer. All the blood, treasure, and time spent by the United States would end up being for naught. “If some dramatic positive action is not taken soon,” Philip wrote, “the prisoner problem will go away since they will probably all be dead.”27
The League trip to Europe that Patsy Crayton had labored over in the League office for months, and which Jane, Dot, and many other POW/MIA wives had fundraised so tirelessly to support, would also take place in May. Sybil would not be on that trip. She decided she still needed some distance from the organization. “I just wanted to be occupied elsewhere,” she later recalled.28
In contrast, Helene was beginning to ramp up her own activity with the League in Colorado Springs. She and her friend and fellow Air Force MIA wife Mary Dodge were among the 174 participants in the League’s trip abroad. Along with other area POW and MIA wives and some family members, they left on May 19 from Peterson Field, in Colorado Springs. Their first objective: to meet and influence delegates to the Geneva Conventions meeting on May 24, which was being held under the auspices of the International Red Cross. The title of the conference was “Government Experts on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts.” The meeting was limited to legal experts from thirty countries, all of whom had signed and agreed to the tenets of the Geneva Conventions.29
The goal of the League delegates was to contact and try to influence the legal experts present to help and support the POW/MIA cause. They soon found that the side conversations and the relationships developed outside the closed conference walls made a difference. Joan Vinson, the League’s national coordinator at that time, stated, “We hope to express our concern for all prisoners of war, and all those affected by the conflict in Vietnam. We hope that the countries represented at the meeting will resolve to demand impartial inspection of all POW camps, a complete account of prisoners and the missing, immediate release of the sick and wounded, and that mail flow be in accordance with provisions of the Geneva Conventions.”30
Helene and Mary were assigned to cover Switzerland, Sweden, and London at the Paris peace talks. They were particularly horrified by the Swedish delegation: the Swedes gave them a bulletin with a photo of happy, smiling, well-fed American “POWs.” Clearly this was a propaganda piece sent by Hanoi, the channel through which Sweden got most of its news of the war.31 Like Phyllis had found before, Sweden was not really a neutral country. It was the job of Helene, Mary, and the other National League members on this trip to call out these images as false representations of what was going on in the prison camps.
In Paris, the women encountered delegates who were both hostile to and sympathetic to their cause. One English-speaking man at the conference refused to talk to Helene about the American POWs and MIAs, instead asking, “Did you bring the wives of the Vietnamese men missing in action with you?” Despite this attitude, Helene followed him and continued trying to reason with him. “I didn’t come to this conference to talk to the likes of you,” the man snapped. “I have no time for you.”32
The League group had its supporters, too. Helene and Mary were most impressed by Philip Habib, whom they met on May 28 in Paris. The chief assistant to U.S. envoy David K. E. Bruce, Habib spent hours with the group and answered every question they had directly. He assured the women that peace was coming and eventually all the POWs would be returned.33 No one was too sure, however, about the MIAs, like Herman Knapp and Ward Dodge, husband of Mary Dodge.
But the League trip was successful in that it kept the POW/MIA issue in the world spotlight. The group visited thirty embassy offices in eleven cities that May.34
In June, Sybil and her boys moved back home to Coronado. As they made the cross-country trip, they became more and more excited. Sid had joined them and was pressed into service to drive, while Stan made tuna fish sandwiches in the backseat. No one wanted to stop for long. After the dreary D.C. days, the sunshine and palm trees of California could not have looked more appealing to Sybil. When they finally arrived at their destination, she “wanted to hug everyone I met on the streets of Coronado. Oh, how relieved I was to be back where I seemed to belong. Even the furniture seemed to heave a sigh of relief as it settled back into its familiar locations.”35
On June 13, 1971, The New York Times published what would soon be known as the infamous Pentagon Papers, leaked by a former Marine, Defense Department staffer, and analyst for the RAND Corporation think tank, Daniel Ellsberg. This classified study was compiled on the orders of former secretary of defense Robert McNamara. The papers examined U.S. policy toward Vietnam from President Truman through the Johnson administration (1945–1967). The U.S. Justice Department under Nixon tried to stop publication of the papers, but the effort ultimately failed. Articles were published first in the Times and then in The Washington Post.
The damning conclusion? That the United States government had escalated the war all the while knowing that it was on the losing side of the equation. The report also confirmed that JFK’s administration had helped to overthrow and assassinate Ngo Dinh Diem, the leader of the South Vietnamese government, which America supported. If our own government had no faith in our allies and our capabilities, then why the hell, readers of the Times and the Post wondered, were we still sending our men to be killed in Vietnam?36
Support for the war at home was eroding daily; the protests were increasing, with voices calling, louder and louder, for an end to the conflict. Rebellion was brewing even from within the “silent majority.” Most of the POW/MIA wives had been in this camp for years. They had been trained to be strong government and military supporters, but they were now completely disgusted with Washington politics. Their suspicions about the war and those leading it were confirmed. McNamara was now right up there with Cora Weiss as a target of their ire. They knew to be wary of antiwar figures, but McNamara? Wasn’t he supposed to be on their side?
The Nixon administration was not implicated in the Pentagon Papers, though the president was incensed to see classified government reports leaked to the public. Instead of seeing the papers as a potential help, separating his administration’s policy on Vietnam from those of JFK and LBJ, “the leak of the Pentagon Papers brought forth a profound paranoia in Richard Nixon … The ultimate manifestation of this drive was the White House Special Investigations Unit, informally referred to as the Plumbers, whose first assignment was to raid the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Later, members of the group would carry out one final mission, the Watergate break-in, which ultimately cost Nixon the very thing he had sought to defend: his presidency.”37
But in 1971, the Watergate scandal had not yet happened. The wives were more than curious to see what Nixon’s next move would be regarding the war and their husbands’ fates.
In September, Sybil, Jane, and many other POW and MIA wives and families returned to Washington for the second annual League conference, held at the Statler Hilton. Every September at the League convention, elections would be held for the new League national coordinator and board chair. For the 1971–72 year, the League had elected a new national coordinator, Evie Grubb, from Petersburg, Virginia. Carole Hanson served as the League’s board chair.
Evie was tenacious and had a bulldog manner about her. Not everyone liked her, but she was a hard worker and got the job done.38 Carole was extremely tall and looked like a fashion model, with a diplomatic manner that played well in the press. Her hope for the League? “We are probably the only organization in the country that is trying to put itself out of business” by bringing home the POWs and accounting for the missing men.39 Only then could the League finally close its doors.
Sybil was in town to testify before Zablocki’s congressional committee for a second time. This year, she noticed that her troops were restless. “There was seething unrest among the POW/MIA Families with some feeling that we should become a political rather than humanitarian organization.” A political action committee was established, and Henry Kissinger was soon informed “about the possibility of a revolt against the Administration by our Organization.”40
The Nixon administration was conducting its own high-wire act, negotiating with both the families and the North Vietnamese in Paris. They knew they couldn’t afford to blow it with either group. The 1972 election was at stake. This time, the administration knew it had better send a high-level official to the League’s banquet to placate the ladies—or suffer the political consequences. Even in an election year, LBJ would never have shown up.
Richard Nixon did show up. Unlike his predecessor, he knew he needed to be there.
Sybil recorded Nixon’s words from that evening in her diary: “I have considered the problem of obtaining the release of our POWs and missing in action as being one that has Presidential priority. I can assure you that every negotiating channel—and now I say something here that I am sure all of you will understand—including many private channels that have not yet been disclosed, are being pursued.”41
In his closing remarks, the president gave his word that he would continue working hard to end the war, get the POWs home and the MIAs accounted for, and gave credit where credit was due—to the women who surrounded him that night.
“I am just so proud of how great you have been and I am not going to let you down.”42
The newly elected League leaders, Evie and Carole, were tireless in keeping up the League work that Sybil, Louise, Jane, and the others had begun. Carole vividly remembered, “As we held our board meetings in Washington, D.C., we all would ‘walk the halls of Congress’ at least once a month, spreading the word about our husbands and the length of time they had been incarcerated.” The MIA wife emphasized the instructive role that the wives were still playing even in 1971: “We were, in fact, educating Congress in regards to this issue. Most did not know that there was no list provided by the North Vietnamese and very little mail received. Their lack of knowledge was frustrating, but slowly, congressmen and senators began to listen to us. At least, some of them.”43 Carole also instituted a hugely popular “Don’t Let Them Be Forgotten” POW/MIA bumper sticker campaign that, like the POW/MIA bracelets, helped raise awareness for the movement and for the League.44
That same autumn of 1971, Helene Knapp was hard at work with her “Silent Nights” Christmas seals campaign. Three million seals, designed by Colorado Springs artist John Manson, a friend of Helene’s, had been sold by early December. The POW/MIA office on East Kiowa Street was flooded with hundreds of orders waiting to be filled.
The seal featured white letters on a blue background, with the words SILENT NIGHTS and LEST WE FORGET: 1964–1971. The prisoner of war featured on the stamp was Lieutenant Commander Richard Allen Stratton. He was pictured sitting alone on a bench in solitary confinement, looking up at a “Christmas Star.” Helene remembered, “To use today’s vernacular, it went viral!”45 This striking image and message ultimately generated $30,000, all of which was donated to the National League.46
Though the League’s charter deemed it a humanitarian group, the formation of a political action committee within its ranks had changed the dynamics of the organization—and some of its members. Sybil herself noted the impact of this internal PAC with satisfaction and the savvy of an experienced political operator: “It didn’t do any harm at all to have a radical fringe group as part of our organization.” When some of the more outspoken wives asked Sybil what she thought of them picketing the White House, she told them it was their decision. “It didn’t hurt to let the White House know our loyalty was wearing thin.”47
Jane, too, was now willing to push the Nixon administration. In a letter to Phyllis on National League stationery, she urged League members to send a “barrage of mail to the President and to Congress during the Christmas season … to emphasize the importance of the prisoner of war–missing in action issue.” She was becoming more and more impatient for resolution. Instead of sending letters to the North Vietnamese, the wives were now sending pleas on behalf of their husbands to their own government.
At the bottom of the holiday appeal, Jane added:
“This has got to be the New Year we’ve all been waiting for.”48