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Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam Records
Notifications
Held at: Swarthmore College Peace Collection [Contact Us]500 College Avenue, Swarthmore 19081-1399
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
The Committee of Liaison With Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam (COL) was founded in 1969. Cora Weiss was the co-chair and director of the organization from 1969-1972. The COL organized the exchange of letters and packages between families of prisoners of war in Vietnam and the POWs themselves. This exchange often revealed the names of those men still alive and prisoners in North Vietnam, which the U.S. government had refused to make public. The COL played a significant role in providing information to the U.S. public about the POW situation and in the public debates about this issue. In 1972 Weiss and other COL supporters traveled to North Vietnam to visit U.S. POWs. They were able to arrange for the return home of some these men. Other supporters and activists with the COL include David Dellinger, Richard Falk, and William Sloane Coffin.
This collection includes Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam (COL) administrative records, newspaper clippings on COL activities, a large collection of newspaper clippings on individual prisoners of war as well as clippings with general information on POWs; material about trips of COL organizers and supporters to Vietnam; and records on individual POWs, including COL correspondence with family members (these files are restricted).
This collection is unprocessed and remains in the order in which it was donated. Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam (COL) administrative records are scattered throughout the collection. Newspaper clippings about COL activities and POWs may also be found throughout the collection. Records of POWs maintained by the Committee of Liaison are to be found at the end of the collection organized by the COL in several sections. In each section these records are in alphabetical order by the last name of the POW. At the end of these records there are three boxes of files cards about POWs maintained by COL staff.
The Swarthmore College Peace Collection is the official repository for these records.
Gift of Cora Weiss, 2007 [Acc. 07A-044, Acc. 07A-047, Acc. 07A-059].
For the catalog record for this collection and to find materials on similar topics, search the library's online catalog.
This collection is unprocessed. This finding aid was created by Wendy E. Chmielewski, 2007-2009.
Items removed: Photographs were removed to the Photograph Collection, where they are filed with the photographs in DG 222: Cora Weiss Papers.
People
- Weiss, Cora, 1934-
- Coffin, William Sloane, Jr., 1924-2006
- Dellinger, David T., 1915-2004
- Falk, Richard A.
Organization
- Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam (Date of work: 1969-1973.)
- Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam
Subject
- Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Prisoners and prisons -- History -- Sources
- Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Missing in action -- History -- Sources
- Prisoners of War -- Vietnam -- History -- Sources
- Political prisoners -- Vietnam -- History -- Sources
- War crimes -- Vietnam -- History -- Sources
- Peace Movements -- United States -- History -- Sources
- Publisher
- Swarthmore College Peace Collection
- Access Restrictions
-
Prisoner of war files (Acc. 07A-044 and 07A-047) are restricted until May 2023. A list of these files is maintained separately and will be made available when the restrictions are lifted.
- Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
- Use Restrictions
-
None.
Collection Inventory
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26604
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