The Pow/Mia Myth

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 69 percent of the American people believe that U.S. prisoners of war are still being held in Southeast Asia, nearly twenty years after the United States called its troops home. They hold this belief because of the cynical way the Nixon and subsequent administrations exploited the POW/MIA issue. And where Washington left off, Hollywood picked up, until fact and fantasy got hopelessly mingled in people’s minds. Herewith the story of one of the most stubborn mass irrationalities of our times.