Dean's Brother is Found

Uncovered Remains May Be Howard Dean's Brother
Charles Dean Reportedly Was Killed 30 Years Ago in Laos

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 2003; 3:30 PM


U.S. military investigators have recovered remains from a site in Laos where the younger brother of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean reportedly was killed nearly 30 years ago while traveling with a friend.

The remains were found during an excavation in Bolikhamxai Province in central Laos, said a Pentagon spokesman, Larry Greer. But he cautioned that investigators have not yet positively identified the remains as those of Charles Dean and that the forensic process necessary to make such a determination could take months or years.

However, the Dean family was given a preliminary notification of the discovery that included information on some of Charles Dean's personal items that were found with the remains, a spokesman for Howard Dean's campaign said.

"The personal effects found at the site make us confident that we finally have located Charlie's remains," Dean told reporters in Bedford, N.H., where he appeared at a candidates' forum.

"We greet this news with mixed emotions, but we are gratified we are now approaching closure," Dean said in a brief statement. He declined to take questions on the matter.

While the discovery in Laos may eventually provide closure in allowing the family to bury a missing son, it may not definitively clear up the mystery that has surrounded Charles Dean's disappearance for 29 years.

Charles Dean, then a 24-year-old graduate of the University of North Carolina, was on a trip down the Mekong River with a companion, Neil Sharman of Australia, when they were captured by communist Pathet Lao guerrillas on Sept. 4, 1974. The two were reportedly held in a remote prison camp for a few months on suspicion of being spies. The U.S. and Australian governments strongly protested their detention, saying they were simply tourists.

The two had met in Australia, where Charles Dean had lived on a ranch for nine months while traveling around the world. He had begun his travels in the spring of 1973 after graduating from college, journeying first to Seattle by car and then taking a freighter to Japan.

In disclosing the excavation, the Pentagon said it was responding to media reports in Australia about the discovery so that the Dean family would not be getting its information only from foreign newspaper accounts.

The Australian Herald Sun today quoted Sharman's brother, Ian Sharman, as saying that the two men had been handcuffed and executed before their bodies were thrown into a bomb crater. He said U.S. Army officials told him that two skulls, along with bones and shoes, had been recovered, and that one of the bodies apparently had been thrown on top of the other.

In an autobiography, Howard Dean discloses that his parents thought Charles Dean actually was a spy, although the candidate himself has his doubts.

"There was speculation that Charlie was in Laos because he was working for the CIA, and I think my parents believed that to be the case," Dean wrote. "Personally, I don't think he was employed by the U.S. government in any capacity, but we'll probably never know the answer to that question."

Dean said he had spoken to counselors about his brother's death. The chapter discussing it concludes, "I'm sure that, had he lived, he'd be the one running for president and not me."

Last year, Dean visited Laos and walked into a rice paddy where his brother was believed to have been buried. He later described the visit as "very tough" emotionally.

Greer, a spokesman for the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, said the case of Dean and Sharman "has been investigated seven times," with U.S. officials interviewing "so-called witnesses or villagers in the area." But he said the excavation between Nov. 8 and 15 marked the first time that investigators had dug for remains in the case.

The remains are still in Laos and will be brought out within the next couple of weeks by a U.S. Air Force plane and flown to an Army identification laboratory in Hawaii, Greer said. There the remains will undergo a painstaking process to make a conclusive identification, he said. Once that is completed, the families will be given a full briefing.

"We share all the details with them about exactly what was found at the excavation and make sure they don't have any doubts about the identification process," Greer said.

But, even if they do conclude that the remains are Dean's and Sharman's, the forensic scientists may not be able to determine the cause of death, which is not the primary focus of the process, Greer said.

"It may be coincidental in our scientific work," that such a determination is made, "but it's not something we set out to do," he said.

To date, 1,875 Americans are listed as missing from the Vietnam war, including Charles Dean. Since the war ended in April 1975, investigators have recovered and identified 708 sets of remains. Hundreds of others have been recovered but have yet to be identified.

 

From Kurtz's media column in the Washington Post... the last line is a bit bizarre I think...
___________

How strange is the following story, after 30 long years?

"Pentagon officials confirmed Tuesday that a search team in Laos has found what are believed to be the remains of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's younger brother," says the Burlington Free Press.

"Charles Dean and an Australian friend, Neil Sharman, were allegedly killed after communist Pathet Lao forces captured them while they were traveling down the Mekong River near the Vietnam border in late 1974. The two were said to be visiting the war-torn area as tourists.

"Howard Dean, speaking with reporters Tuesday afternoon following a campaign appearance in Bedford, N.H., expressed relief that the 30-year wait for answers about what happened to his brother might finally be over. As he has since the disappearance of his brother, Dean was wearing a belt buckle that belonged to Charles Dean as he spoke. "'This has been a long and emotional journey for my mother, Jim, Bill and me,' Dean said. 'We greet this news with mixed emotions but are gratified that we may now be approaching closure to this painful episode in our lives.' "Dean, in a soon-to-be released autobiography, called the capture and death of his brother 'the most traumatic events of my life.'"

I wonder if the remains would have been found if Dean wasn't running for president.

 

Yes, that's one of the questions... doesn't look like Dean believes he was there on any official capacity. I still think it's cool that Howard wears his brothers belt buckle everyday.