M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America: How and why belief in live POWs has possessed a nation

H. BRUCE FRANKLIN is the John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark and is the author of War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination and many other books.

Acknowledgments    
Preface to the Expanded and Updated Edition    
Preface    
Prisoners of Myth
A National Religion?
But Are There Live POWs?
Prisoners of the War
The Matrix of the POW/MIA Issue
The "Go Public" Campaign
Enter VIVA and the Bracelets
Four More Years of War for the POW/MIAs
Peace for the POWs
Counting on Discrepancies
The POWs in War and Peace
The Missing of Peace
War Remains
VIVA and the National League of Families Continue the War
The Pentagon's New Math
The Case of the Disappearing POWs
The Multiplication of the POWs
What Did Happen to the Missing Men?
Cambodia
Laos
Vietnam: Or What the Garwood Case Really Shows
"Live Sightings"
Why?
Reparations and POWs
Mythmaking in America
Crucifixion and Resurrection
Hollywood Heroes I: Bo Gritz and Ronald Reagan
Hollywood Heroes II: Gene Hackman and Chuck Norris
Hollywood Heroes III: Rambo
The Plots Thicken
Still Missing
Recovery
A Story of the Missing and the Missing Story
"The Last Chapter"?
"POW/MIA"
Appendix A: From the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam, Signed in Paris, January 27, 1973
Appendix B: The Secret Nixon Letter
Glossary
Notes
Index

"A major critical study on one of the central public myths of our time. It uncovers the political sources and historical development of a national cult of grievance, whose persistence distorts our understanding of the Vietnam War and our responses to current issues in foreign affairs.... An important contribution."

"Mr. Franklin's meticulously researched book... casts strong light on the Indochina war's ghostly and ghastly afterlife."

"Finally, someone has put the Vietnam legacy of alleged MIA survival in its wider political and cultural setting.... A powerful confirmation of the cruelly irresponsible forces that are at work in our country at the highest levels of government.... A gripping account of subversion from above, a book that should be read by all Americans."

"An important and compelling book.... Franklin raises and answers all of the hardest questions about an enduring piece of political mythology."

"Franklin's startling and meticulously researched account of the inner history of the POW/MIA issue transforms our understanding of how the Vietnam War ended and how it continues. Every historian of the period... will need to read and contemplate its conclusions."

This paperback edition of M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America adds major new material about Ross Perot's role, the 1991-1992 Senate investigation, and illegal operations authorized by Ronald Reagan.