Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) — Hoover has acquired the papers of Andrea Rander, a prominent activist in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the movement to negotiate for the release of American soldiers held in captivity as prisoners of war in North Vietnam.
The Andrea Rander collection consists of documents, correspondence, photographs, publications, and ephemera related to the activities of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia (The League) and her own experiences as the wife of a POW. Ms. Rander was married to Vietnam War POW Donald Rander and was a powerful voice in the "League of Wives" alongside Sybil Stockdale, Jane Denton, Louise Mulligan, Phyllis Galanti, and Helene Knapp. Rander and her friends and colleagues went to extraordinary lengths to facilitate their husbands' freedom, and to account for missing soldiers. The women relentlessly lobbied government leaders, conducted savvy media campaigns, met with antiwar activists, and attempted to negotiate with the North Vietnamese. Ms. Rander and her fellow activist leaders were recently featured in Heath Hardage Lee’s 2019 book The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home.
Andrea Rander’s husband Donald Rander served as a Military Intelligence Specialist with Company B of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion in South Vietnam from October 1967 until he was captured in Hue during the Tet Offensive and taken as a prisoner of war on February 1, 1968. After spending 1,882 days in captivity, Sergeant First Class Rander was released during Operation Homecoming on March 27, 1973. The newly acquired collection movingly includes Donald Rander's uniform, sandals, and razor from his time in captivity. “The papers and artifacts that our family has shared with the Hoover Institution will live on not for just researchers but also the general public,” Rander shared. “The League of Wives tells a story, some of which was found in the donated items. All these years later, I can appreciate and be proud of the work that the League did to bring our loved ones home.”
Andrea Rander was the only African American elected to the founding board of the National League of Families for Prisoners of War and Missing in Action in Southeast Asia for the 1970-1971 term. “The Rander Collection provides rare and significant documentation regarding the experience of an African American prisoner of war (POW) spouse, her POW husband, and her family during the Vietnam conflict.” said Heath Hardage Lee, author of The League of Wives. “Most POWs were Air Force and Navy pilots; very few were Army servicemen, and even fewer prisoners of war were African Americans.”
Andrea Rander went with League leader, Sybil Stockdale, to Paris in October of 1968 to meet with North Vietnamese diplomats, hoping to obtain more information about the POWs and MIAs. On December 12, 1969, Sybil asked Andrea to be among the representatives for the POW and MIA wives at a meeting at the White House with President Nixon. On Christmas Day of 1969, Andrea flew on billionaire Ross Perot’s “Spirit of Xmas flight” with her older daughter Lysa to Paris to plead for the POWs’ release. “Andrea’s fighting spirit, her dedicated POW-MIA advocacy, and her fierce determination to help bring her husband and all the POWs home is an incredible story that needs to be both preserved and celebrated,” said Lee. Ms. Rander’s collection will reside at Hoover alongside other leaders of the POW-MIA movement, including Sybil Stockdale (wife of Hanoi Hilton POW and former Hoover fellow Jim Stockdale, whose papers are also housed at Hoover), Juliene Williams, Maerose J. Evans, Alice M. Stratton, and Shirley Mae Stark.
Ms. Rander and Sybil Stockdale appear on the cover of Lee’s book, in images taken during the visit to the White House to meet with President Richard Nixon to discuss the release of prisoners. Author Heath Hardage Lee reflected that “despite her husband Donald’s lengthy imprisonment and the American government and military dictates for Andrea and all the POW-MIA wives to ‘keep quiet,’ Andrea and her fellow POW-MIA wives and mothers knew that silence on the issue was killing the POWs. Only by speaking out and raising awareness of the POW-MIA situation were the women who organized the advocacy group, The National League of Families, able to help rescue these men.”
