CNN's sensational claim that U.S. Special Forces dropped sarin nerve gas on a village in Laos at the height of the Vietnam War has now been discredited. But in all the hand wringing, CNN's equally disturbing allegation -- that the raid was intended to seek out and eliminate American deserters -- has largely been ignored. This issue deserves further exploration. PNS commentator Douglas Valentine is the author of a book-length study of the activities of the Special Forces in Vietnam, entitled "The Phoenix Program," published in 1990. FIRST OF A TWO PART SERIES.

The fate of American deserters during the Vietnam War -- a blip in CNN's now loudly discredited story about the use of Sarin gas in Laos -- remains a controversial and unresolved issue some 25 years after the war ended. If the U.S. government has its way, the issue will remain buried.

Who were these soldiers and how did the U.S. government deal with them?

It is important to distinguish between deserters and defectors.

A deserter is a soldier who leaves his post without authorization, no matter what the reason. During the Vietnam War, many deserters "of conscience" fled through various underground railroads to nations that offered sanctuary. A smaller number chose to remain in South Vietnam, in so-called "Twilight Zones" where they thought they were beyond the reach of the authorities.

A defector commits the far more serious offense of treason-- collaborating with the enemy. In Vietnam, a number of U.S. defectors allegedly fought with enemy units, while others were said to have remained in their units, passing classified information to the enemy or committing acts of sabotage. Some defectors were prisoners of war who, in exchange for leniency, spread anti-war propaganda or attempted to persuade their fellow POWs to cooperate with the enemy.

U.S. policy toward POWs often blurred these distinctions. Some POW officers worked with the enemy to ensure the survival of the men under their care; none was ever court martialed. But Marine Corps private Robert Garwood, who was captured by the Viet Cong in 1965 and escaped in 1979, became the only American serviceman convicted of collaborating with the enemy -- although he explained that he had acted, like many officers, to protect his comrades. All 700 deserters listed in a 1972 compilation were identified as enlisted men from troubled backgrounds.

A top priority for U.S. policy makers in dealing with deserters was to keep them out of the public spotlight. Investigations were conducted but quietly. Detachment A of the CIA's Special Operations Division, formed in 1968 and led by Major Fred Carristos, sought deserters in the Twilight Zones of South Vietnam major cities. "People were coming out of Holabird (the Army's military intelligence school) and going AWOL... but most (were involved) in blackmarket transactions, and we never found any security problems," Carristos recalls. "They weren't selling weapons -- they were loyal."

But there were also "killer teams" organized under the CIA's Phoenix Program whose aim was to assassinate, on sight, suspected defectors behind enemy lines.

Phoenix operations were also directed against deserters who, as denizens of Twilight Zones, were very much behind enemy lines. "We had a problem with deserters, mostly blacks hiding out in shantytowns," the Phoenix adviser in Danang told this writer. "They were trying to stay underground, but they were heavily armed and, at times, they worked with the VC. So we had cordon and search operations to round them up. After the MPs started taking casualties, we used American military units, South Vietnamese airborne rangers, and Nungs."

On the other hand, deserters could also be cultivated as double agents to infiltrate the ranks of Viet Cong sympathizers (the Phoenix Program kept a list of suspected sympathizers in every district, province, region and city in South Vietnam). Many deserters had fled the army to make money selling drugs and gold on the black market, and CIA talent scouts looking for assassins sought out just such ruthless individuals. Likewise the CIA would recruit soldiers from stockades, offering them qualified freedom if they "escaped" and then "deserted" and went to work as deniable assets, doing the dirtiest of jobs. Soldiers facing charges of murder and rape often took the deal.

It was these "deserters" -- who operated in Cambodia and Laos as well as Vietnam -- who were flagged for execution because, as Jensen noted in her book, "No one should find out that such a traitor had ever existed." Indeed, "The CIA had compiled thick dossiers of such men," according to Keating, including those who were only "suspected of crossing over."

This is the basic premise of the CNN story which has yet to be recanted.