Scope and Contents

This collection contains letters from President Nixon, and the United States Air Force (USAF) to Mrs. Johnson regarding the status and condition of her husband, Major Samuel Johnson, after he was shot down over North Vietnam. Major Johnson, who became a U.S. Respresentative from Texas, was held captive in a prison in Hanoi for seven years. These letters also indicate to her the measures taken by the USAF and the Nixon Administration to locate its personnel who had been listed as MIAs (Missing In Action) or POW (Prisoner Of War). NOTE: Researchers wanting access to boxes 13-16 must contact archival staff prior to arrival in Lubbock, due to condition of materials.

In addition the collection includes letters of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, and those from the North Vietnamese Government giving concessions on family-packages to captured personnel. The date range of this part of the collection is 1966 to 1972, and includes numerous newspaper articles about Col. Sam Johnson as a POW and Mrs. Johnson's involvement in trying to maintain American awareness of the POWs held in North Vietnam, secure communication with and better treatment of the POWs, and the release of her husband and other POWs, including a wide assortment of POW/MIA documents such as Hearings Before the Subcommittee on National Security, newspaper and magazine articles, form letters for POWs to send overseas to family, newsletters, press releases, photocopied magazine articles, and fact sheet about POWs and MIAs. In early 1973 Sam Johnson was released and repatriated to the U.S. along with 590 other American POWs as part of Operation Homecoming.

There are also materials documenting The Honorable Sam Johnson's post-war political career (1985-2019).

Biographical / Historical

In 1970, during the captivity of her husband, USAF pilot Samuel R. Johnson, as a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam, Mrs. Johnson became a member of the League of Families, a group dedicated to writing letters to government officials and lobbying for awareness of and dissemination of information on U.S. prisoners of war. Her dedication enabled her to send 12 letters and receive 32 letters from her husband while he was held in a prison in Hanoi, North Vietnam, from the date he was shot down on 16 April 1966 to his release in May 1973.

Series

• Sub-Series - Newspaper collection