Mothers at what is still considered the largest dinners ever held at the white house. As president nixon said, it rained all day and much of the evening, and the south long was south lawn was soggy when the guests started arriving for dinner. Many of the womens long dresses got splattered with mud, but nothing would dampen the spirits of that night. In the first year of his presidency, nixon met with the wives and mothers of the pows during the christmas season. He wrote that the women spoke respectfully and passionately about the need to get their husbands and sons returned home to american soil. From that time on, each pow was an individual to me, obtaining their release became a burning cause. Our distinguished speaker on this memorial day will tell this important story. Her name is heath hardage lee. She is a historian, writer, and museum curator, and holds a ba in history with honors from davidson college, and an ma from the university of virginia. A 2017 robert j curatorial fellow, and her first book one the 2015 colonel dames of america annual book award and the 2015 gold medal nonfiction from the independent publisher awards. Her new book is a topic of todays discussion, it is called the league of wives the untold story of the women who took on government to bring their husbands home. She will be joined in discussion with other wives of prisoners of war. And the director of the Campus University and cocurator of mia allies and advocates, a special exhibit which is coming soon to the Richard Nixon president ial library. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce to the Nixon Library stage heath hardage lee. [applause] ms. Lee thank you so much, jonathan, and i want to thank byron forbill, jim hosting us on this beautiful this fantasticr event celebrating the pow mia wives. I am just going to give a short talk to set the scene for our panel discussion, which will follow, and then introduce our panelists, moderator, and some special guests that we have here today. So a quick refresher course, or maybe introductory course for those of you too young to remember the vietnam war, the american war in vietnam was not the first. The french battle the vietnamese before us and lost in a bloody in 1954. The battle the 1954 geneva accord divided vietnam into the north and the south. The emperor control the south, and the north was controlled by ho chi minh. By 1955, the emperor was pushed out, and of ireland anticommunist took over. President ported by eisenhower, our hedge against communism in the region. U. S. We were getting into our own war with vietnam. , many pilotsis war were shot down i am going to mainly talk about those involved in the air war over vietnam. The mostly navy and air force pilots were the ones shot out of the sky over vietnam, and they would make up the pows, the majority not all, but the majority of the prisoners of war and many of the missing during the american war in vietnam. Now, the women i talk about in the league of wives in this story, we are going to get back to the 1950s, to the World War Two era. That is when these protocol guides are created the navy wife, the army wife, the marine wife, the air force wife. They are protocol guides with lots of good, topical information about deployments, making up the navy and Army Air Force households, but they also have notsosubtle social prescriptions and even a bit of propaganda that, as a navy wife for instance, your job is to make sure he can do his job. Them and todays eyes, they seem a little antiquated. But they serve multiple purposes. The wives in my book, many of them, including the woman at the center of the book, this was their bible as young military rank,how to act hierarchy, all of that. These protocol guides are what i started with when i started working on this book to understand the midcentury wife and how they thought about things. When vietnam comes along, these protocol guides go out the window and the wives have to create their own rulebooks. Thesethe very center of stories, the story really revolves around them. These 1950s, there are midcentury navy couples i call them the idea Fighter Pilot and the idea Fighter Pilots wife. Jim was u. S. Naval Academy Class of 1947. Civil is from connecticut, highly educated, one of the best womens schools in the country. Unknowingly, they had this time they had a lovely kind of 1950s military wife and existence, before vietnam, where civil was able to gain her footing as a military wife. Septemberas shot down 9, 1965, this all changed in a heartbeat. They were based out of coronado at that time. At the highest ranking naval s wife in the area, it was obvious among the lives and the family communities, would take sybil over. Your rank as a wife was reflected as your husbands rank. She took over, and that was not questioned. That was the way it would have worked in any situation like that at the time. So when this happens at the beginning of this conflict, first we had jfk, jfk is assassinated, johnson takes over as president and the vietnam war is really starting to heat up. What was interesting about the lbj administration and this was a policy, really, that had gone on before then. I really cant blame lbj for this there was something called to keep quiet policy. The policy was if your husband was shot down or your son, brother, whatever was shot down in the air or went missing, you were not allowed to talk about it, as a military wife or a military family. Nothing. Only under your host family members could you discuss the situation. This is untenable after not too long how could you go on with your daily life, not telling anyone your husband had been shots down and you did not know what was happening . Under Lyndon Johnson, this policy was enforced. Lyndon johnson also would not meet with the wives, he occasionally would meet with them, but only for photo op ops like this one, where you see sybil it was a shake your hand and how to you do and he was on to the next thing. Keen for photo ops, but really was not wanting to meet with the wives. Wanted to sweep this under the rug, because vietnam is the war that did not look good for him. Great onhnson was domestic policy, the civil rights act, not so good on Foreign Policy vietnam became his blind spot and eventually the lilt killed his political career. So the the wives birthplace of the pow mia movement is an coronado. In coronado. The birthplace of the movement was around civil strap field, around her dining room table this is where the wives meet. This is where they first come together on october 7, 1966. The big question on the table among the wives in attendance is , are we wives or are we widows . Many of them dont know. This was the days before gps, before facetime and twitter. They do not know where their husbands are. Some know, some do not. Many do not know. They are sharing information, comfort, bonding they are not doing anything political or organizing at this point. They are just hanging out and being together. As they would add an officers wives club. But this continues, it grows, and it will grow into a movement and the san diego leave of wives league of wives, which i will tell you about in a minute. I would be remiss if i did not mention bob burress. Bob burress is kind of the james bond of this story. He is the naval intelligence, contact intelligence for the wives in the area, and many wives i interviewed on the east coast had become involved in this story. At the time, you remember the keep quiet policy, the state department and the Defense Department were very siloed. No one was talking to each other about how to help the prisoners of war that are missing. Everyone was very distrustful of each other. Bob was one of the few people that saw that these wives were a huge asset. They might be the key to unlocking the puzzle of what was going on with the pows. He was very smart that way. Ybil andd with s many of these other wives. He was first telling them everything he knew about what was going on, was very honest with the wives. Second, more importantly, he taught a lot of these wives to code secret letters to their husbands in prisons like the hanoi hilton. Civil in particular s s was veryarticular good at this, and one of the words that came back was that the pows would be tortured horribly, and the North Vietnamese were lying about this, saying they were treated royally. It was not true. Bob was crucial in teaching the wives the code and getting this information through to naval intelligence. Some moving along quickly, under sident nixon, who comes in he is elected in 1968, lbj says he is not running, the vietnam war has put a nail in his political coffin, so president , and ismes in, he wins very shortly thereafter clued in by Ronald Reagan and the governor of california, and others in the area that this issue of the pow mia wives is a crucial one, and one he really needs to Pay Attention to. Sybil has gone public about her husbands situation. This is before the government has given them any real support, but with the approval of naval intelligence, she goes forward with that information. When nixon is elected, right after he is elected, sybil and her league of wives from san diego that is leading the charge for the pow mia cause they lose deluge him with telegrams. They say, you must Pay Attention to the pow mia issue. It is crucial. Floodnds of telegrams nixon and his administration, and they reply to every telegram, showing they are going to take this issue very seriously. Inthis slide here, we are december 1969. This is when the government is really on board with acknowledging the situation that the pows were being tortured, which was covered up during the lbj administration for fear it negotiations with the North Vietnamese. Under nixon, these ladies helped the Nixon Administration realized they must go public. Ins is what turns the tide terms of the torture stopping john mccain told me that himself. It was like a light switch going off, because these women went public in the newspapers. They went to paris to confront the North Vietnamese. They spoke all over the place many of the ladies here today can tell you about that later. Policy,is go public things start to change tremendously for the better for pows, and for the missing in action. Not do this talk without mentioning senator bob dole, who is one of the biggest allies of the pow mia wives. We have Audrey Coleman here usay, who has worked with extensively to bring in exhibit to life about the league of wives. Because senator dall was so key in helping these women with no one who no one else would to theenator dole came floor and realized he was very empathetic because he was a world war ii combat veteran. He realized these women were getting no help. When i interviewed senator dole several years ago, he told me even in 1969, nobody knew what a pow or mia was incredible. At that point, people still did not know or perhaps did not want to know what was going on with that scenario. He helped that cause tremendously, and the other person you see here with civil is theield sybil texas millionaire, now billionaire that spent a lot of his money and time on helping these women. The picture when was taken, the San Diego League of wives that sybil has created has connected with wives all over the state to lobby for the prisoners of war and missing. Iny are incorporated in d. C. June 1970, they have a spot to operate out of, they have the support of senator dole, of president nixon. Its just a tremendous, tremendous change from the Johnson Administration. And here, i always i call this, you have come a long way any one of you remembers that old virginia slims cigarettes campaign. We have come a long way from the Johnson Administration and we are here with president nixon, Henry Kissinger, the other two ladies here, maureen dunn, to the left is an mia wife, phyllis sitting next to Henry Kissinger is an east coast wife for my hometown of richmond, virginia. The way i got into this story. They are having one of their regular conferences. Henry kissinger at this point is meeting bimonthly with the wives to give them updates, to tell them what is going on, to keep them informed. Sybil is the First National coordinator of this National League of families. At this point, the name is now the National League of families for american servicemen i am sorry, for american prisoners and missing in Southeast Asia. And it is huge and national. It has become a huge deal, and the women have a huge amount of influence and i think power, in terms of diplomacy and lobbying for their husbands now. They have the ear of the president and have a way to make a huge difference in their husbands lives. Not to spoil the story for people who might not know, most people here know that the the him war ends vietnam war ends, the peace treaty of 1979 is signed. The paris peace treaty is signed and people are coming home. Here we see the stockdale homecoming on february 15 of 1973. Jim stockdale comes home and here he is seen with his family meeting him on the tarmac. Sid, the first boy, would be there later today after he won his championship hockey game. So they are all reunited that night. , to goson there is this back to the paris peace treaty, it is not always conditional that the prisoners missing are really accounted for. Or that the enemy is held to repay treating. One of the things these women did was require the repatriation of the pows. And the best possible accounting of the missing that was one of the great achievements of the National League, that was a requirement before the peace treaty could be signed, and something, of course, Richard Nixon could support. But before jim walked off the plane i have to mention on february 14, he had sent sybil a dozen american beauty red roses just to remind her of his love and that she was tremendous and amazing. He did not even know the extent of what she had done until he came home. Then he did understand that fully. The nixon p. O. W. Gala, which jonathan referenced a little bit earlier you can watch it on youtube, i have watched it 20 times. May 24 of 1973, 1300 people, prisoners of war, their wives, girlfriends, and mothers were invited to the largest dinners still to this day ever held at the white house. It was on the south lawn under tents. There were movie stars. John wayne, entertainers bob hope, sammy davis junior. Politicians like kissinger, of course. It was very glamorous. Everyone wearing beautiful gowns. It was a pow food fantasy come true in terms of food. They had steaks, potatoes, strawberry mousse it was just an amazing evening. But the most important thing of the evening, at least from my perspective as a scholar of womens history, was nixons toast, which was not made to the returning pows, but was made to their wives. He said, gentlemen, to the first ladies of america, the first ladies. That is the hollywood ending to the story, but it is not really the end. The end of the story is never ending. The missing in action. So after the war was over, we wanted the best possible accounting of missing in action. But after the fall of saigon it was impossible to really get in there and find that for a number of years. Today there are so many stories i have seen recently when abc had a wife who i had interviewed, her husband came back after 50 years. The dna, everything being done by the Defense Department and in terms of identifying remains, we are still having missing men returning from that time so long ago, 50 years ago. So that continues. And many of us today, Jenny Connell robertson being an example her husband jj did not come back. He was killed in action, he was a prisoner of war. He did not return. Many like marie, who is also here, her husband did not return. So we cannot ever forget that. Sybils National League ended in 1973 with bringing the pows back. The missing in action, there is still a National League today. They focus on the missing in action and identifying them and returning them home. I want you to remember, though, if you remember anything from this talk, that these pow mia wives, under the leadership of stockfield, demanded that the prisoners be brought home, the missing be accounted for, and they changed the treatment in the prison camps. If it had not been for the pr, going public as Danny Schechter as sybil did at great risk of herself, things would have not ended well for a number of pows. John mccain told me many more men would have died in prison without these women and their courageous efforts to go public on behalf of the missing and prisoners of war. Remember that. We will tell you more in just a second with our panel. I do want to move on to that and introduce you to two panelists and also i want to acknowledge these people. To do of her children are there. I want to acknowledge his wife taylor stockdale. We are so happy to have you here. We so appreciate you coming to support us. Yes. [applause] yes, round of applause. [applause] this whole family could not have been more supportive of my efforts to tell the stories, so thank you so much for that. I also want to acknowledge patsy, one of our panelists, one of the p. O. W. Wives in my book. She has hurt herself, as the league of wives is bound to do, some of the other wives are stepping in to help today. We are going to have debbie burns henry join us in her place. I first want to introduce you to jenny robertson, who laid the wreath at nixons grave. She was a navy wife with two Young Children when her husband was shot down in 1966, only two weeks before his scheduled return home. Under the leadership of a senior navy wife, jenny and numerous other p. O. W. Wives formed the San Diego League of wives in 1957. She was one of the founding members of this organization, which had become the