Wait, was the POW/MIA thing some kind of conspiracy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_POW/MIA_issue

Considerable speculation and investigation have been devoted to a hypothesis that a significant number of missing U.S. service members from the Vietnam War were captured as prisoners of war by communist forces and kept as live prisoners after U.S. involvement in the war concluded in 1973. A vocal group of POW/MIA activists has maintained that there has been a concerted conspiracy by the Vietnamese and U.S. governments since then to hide the existence of these prisoners. The U.S. government has steadfastly denied that prisoners were left behind or that any effort has been made to cover up their existence. Popular culture has reflected the “live prisoners” theory, such as in the 1985 film Rambo: First Blood Part II. Several congressional investigations have looked into the issue, culminating with the largest and most thorough, the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs of 1991–93, which found “no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.”

It was Ross Perot’s flagship issue during the early 80s