[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 3 (Thursday, January 27, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: January 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
FOREIGN RELATIONS AUTHORIZATION ACT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will now resume consideration of S. 1281, which the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1281) to authorize appropriations for the fiscal
years 1994 and 1995 for the Department of State, the United
States Information Agency, and related agencies, to provide
for the consolidation of international broadcasting
activities, and for other purposes.
The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
Pending:
(1) McCain Amendment No. 1262, to express the sense of the
Senate that in order to maintain and expand further United
States and Vietnamese efforts to obtain the fullest possible
accounting of American servicemen unaccounted for during the
war in Vietnam, the President should lift the United States
trade embargo against Vietnam immediately.
(2) Kerry Amendment No. 1263 (to Amendment No. 1262), in
the nature of a substitute.
(3) Smith Amendment No. 1266, to express the sense of the
Senate relating to the lifting of sanctions on the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam contingent upon a resolution of all cases
or reports of unaccounted for United States personnel lost or
captured during the war in Vietnam.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there
will now be 45 minutes for debate to be equally divided and controlled
by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] and the Senator from New
Hampshire [Mr. Smith].
Who yields time?
Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the Senator
from New Hampshire [Mr. Smith].
Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, just one parliamentary inquiry. I assume
that the time will continue to run if we go into a quorum call, is that
correct?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Quorum calls will be charged
against Senators who control that time. And the vote will occur at 10
o'clock.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I am anticipating the arrival of Senator Specter
momentarily. If he is watching the monitor here, I am prepared to yield
to him when he gets here.
The debate last night was emotional and intense, as you might expect.
This is an emotional and a very intense issue. It has been for a number
of years, since the end of the Vietnam war.
Let me just state the parliamentary situation here. We have the Kerry
amendment which we will have the opportunity to vote on, which is a
second-degree amendment to the McCain amendment. And then my amendment,
the Dole-Smith amendment, will be voted on after that.
The issue here with the Kerry amendment, which amends the McCain
amendment, is whether or not we want to instruct the President to lift
the embargo. Are we ready for that? I say we are not, that the Kerry
amendment is premature to say the least.
I hope my colleagues will listen and heed the words of those who have
the most to lose or gain on this issue, that is, the families and the
veterans. I, in the debate last night, indicated that the League of
Families, all of the Alliance of Families, individual family members
who contacted me, the Legion, the American Legion, the DAV, VFW, and
all the veterans groups have indicated to me that they oppose the Kerry
amendment.
They do not want us to indicate to the President of the United States
lifting of the embargo. These are the people who have the most to lose.
These are the people who are asking us not to lift the embargo. They
are petrified. I think that is the adjective to use. They are
petrified. They are petrified that this amendment is going to be
adopted and that the leverage that they have to get the answers about
their loved ones will be lost. That is a risk that we are taking if we
lift the embargo.
After 20 to 25 years of waiting, hoping, I think these people deserve
better than that. I understand the intense feelings here and understand
how many want to get the war behind us. More want to get the war behind
us than I do. I urge my colleagues, if you have not had a chance to
look at the debate, try to look at the record and consider the feelings
of these family members. In doing so, I think if you do that, you come
to the conclusions I have that it is wrong to lift the embargo. I will
have a few comments in a minute. I want to allow some time to be used
on the other side before I conclude.
But I hope that people will understand that the people who have the
most at stake--the family members--are the ones that want this
amendment defeated. They want the Dole-Smith amendment adopted because
that is a reasonable amendment because it says that the President will
certify that all of the intelligence that he has reviewed will indicate
that the Vietnamese have been fully cooperative. When that happens, the
President can certify but not before. That is the issue. After all of
these years, I hope that we are not going to bail out on the families
now. It would be a terrible message to send. At this time, Mr.
President, I yield the floor.
Mr. KERREY addressed the Chair.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
Mr. KERRY. I yield the Senator from Nebraska 5 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nebraska [Mr.
Kerrey] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I believe it is time for us to end the
Trading With the Enemy Act restrictions on the nation of Vietnam.
Moreover, I believe this action is in keeping with our desire to gain
the full accounting that everybody in this Chamber wants to accomplish.
I believe, in fact, that the people who have the most to gain by this
action are, indeed, the families who have suffered for so long not only
the lies of this Government but very often the lies of the Vietnamese
Government.
This tragedy that the families have been suffering for so long can
end, Mr. President, but in my judgment one of the things that must
occur in order to end it is to, at this stage of the game, lift these
sanctions. I understand that there is great doubt. I understand there
is still a considerable amount of animosity. I understand there is
still a considerable amount of fear, Mr. President. But I believe
strongly that not only is this in the best interest of the families but
that the United States of America will continue to hold a considerable
amount of leverage to make sure the Vietnamese Government continues to
make all efforts to comply with the requirements we put in place to
gain the full accounting that every single Member of this body wants to
accomplish.
There is another issue that I believe needs to be discussed and,
indeed, I have discussed this issue with the administration at length.
My hope is, along with our concern for the men that we left behind,
prisoners and missing in action in Vietnam, along with our concern for
our own, Mr. President, I hope that we will now begin to talk about the
freedom of the Vietnamese people as well.
One of the concerns that I have with this action, which, as I said, I
believe is appropriate now, is that it is being done as a consequence
mostly of economic pressure; in other words, I have people who are
concerned about losing oil leases in the North China Sea. I have people
who have concerns about losing contracts for supply planes to Vietnam.
I have people who have concerns about losing business in Vietnam.
I believe it would be a terrible mistake and a real tragedy and a
denial of any purpose whatsoever of the war in Vietnam if when we come
back into Vietnam all we care about and all we talk about is making
money. At our best, and Lord knows we were not always at our best, at
our best in this war we fought for the freedom of the Vietnamese
people. For gosh sakes, Mr. President, we ought to be able to come back
into Vietnam, heads held high, proud, and say that we still care about
the freedom of the Vietnamese people and that we are not going to stand
still and watch the Vietnamese Government throw people in jail for
advocating multiparty democracy, throw people in jail for merely
practicing the religion they decide is best for them; that we care
about the freedom of the Vietnamese people.
The movement to markets and the movements to a free political system
will not be sustained unless the United States of America provides the
leadership necessary to embolden the people in these countries to make
this effort. They are risking a great deal.
So I appreciate the Senator from Massachusetts putting into this
sense-of-the-Senate resolution a concern about human rights. I know
that he is as concerned as I am. One of the things that I find missing
in our policy that bothers me terribly is that there is far too much
self-indulgence, far too much concern about what was the impact of the
war upon me; how terrible the war was for me as an individual. Mr.
President, we fought the war not for ourselves; we fought the war for
the Vietnamese people.
As we come back into Vietnam, we ought to come back with pride for
that fact, with no shame whatsoever, and say that struggle ought to
continue and that, indeed, it is legitimate for us to say to the
government leaders: If you want prosperity in your country, if economic
prosperity is your concern, then do not simply come to the United
States and other Western developed nations and say you want
investments. Follow your own people. A million and a half people left
Vietnam, have come to the United States, have prospered. Why, Mr.
President? Because they have political freedom, because they can own
private property, because they do not have to worry--with certain
exceptions--about whether or not the Government is going to come in and
tell them they cannot join this political party or cannot practice this
particular allegiance. It is political freedom that is essential if you
want to develop your country.
We have to be saying that now with confidence, with pride, with real
belief. I think a meeting in New York City to discuss human rights is
inadequate. We should send a human rights delegation to Vietnam and say
to the Vietnamese people who will hear us that we care about their
freedom, that we believe this war had purpose at its best.
Not only do I find myself saying I am terrified and concerned about
the families right now--and I know there are many families out there
wondering whether this resolution is a sellout. It is not a sellout,
Mr. President, but a true sellout would be if the United States
Government says that we do not care about the freedom of the Vietnamese
people; that we believe the war had no purpose at all.
So I hope the Members of the Senate today will support Senator
Kerry's resolution and Senator McCain's resolution. I believe it is
time to end these sanctions, but it is not time for us to stop fighting
for the freedom of the Vietnamese people.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from
Arizona.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair recognizes Senator McCain
for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I would like
to express my personal appreciation for Senator Kerrey, of Nebraska.
There has been no individual in America, much less this body, who has
been a stronger advocate for the basic human rights and freedom of the
Vietnamese people.
I suggest that one of the reasons why it continues to have the
priority that it does, both with the American people and the
administration, is because of his efforts. I appreciate it and I know
he will continue to contribute to efforts to enable the people of
Vietnam to realize the freedom and democracy for which Senator Kerrey,
of Nebraska, made such an enormous sacrifice.
I thank the Chair. I thank Senator Smith and Senator Kerry for a very
elevated and enlightened debate. I wish to tell both of them that I
think it has contributed enormously to the understanding of the
American people on this issue. Both have made cogent and informed
arguments. What we have is an open and honest disagreement amongst
honorable men in this particular debate.
I would like to mention that last night you did hear two arguments
about the level of Vietnam's cooperation with the United States. Those
Senators unable to decide which argument the facts support should look
to the most credible sources. In my view, the most credible sources are
the men and women we have asked to carry out the tasks of ascertaining
the fates of the missing and finding a resolution to the POW/MIA issue.
These are people like John Vessey, a man who received a battlefield
commission at age 17 in Salerno, who fought in three wars including the
Vietnam war, who was appointed emissary by two Presidents of the United
States, who made numerous trips to Vietnam, who is respected and highly
regarded. In fact, in my view, I have never met a finer individual in
my life than Gen. John Vessey, a man who instead of taking his well-
deserved retirement has spent thousands and thousands of hours trying
to resolve this issue, not because the President of the United States
asked him to but because of his feeling of obligation to the men and
women who served in Vietnam and those who are still listed as missing
in action or POW.
Gen. John Vessey, after many years of total immersion in this issue,
believes that it is in the interest of further accounting on this issue
for the United States to move forward and lift the embargo.
I make brief reference to Adm. Charles Larson, Commander in Chief in
the Pacific, and Gen. Tom Needham and the other military members who
have been through jungles and hardship and difficulties that are
impossible to describe in their efforts to ascertain the whereabouts of
those who are still listed as missing in action. All of those
individuals who we have entrusted with that responsibility say that
they believe we can help resolve this issue if, indeed, the United
States moves forward in our relations.
I have, in a previous statement, articulated my strongly held view
that it is in the national interest of the United States to have an
economically viable and strong Vietnam in light of the enormous
economic and military growth of China. I also believe that at some
point or another, Mr. President, the United States brings closure to
our conflicts with other nations. Throughout our history we have
brought closure. I am not saying that I like and admire the Vietnamese.
I am not saying that Senator Bob Kerrey's remarks about human rights
are not entirely valid. There are human rights abuses in Vietnam as we
speak. There are people who are being imprisoned for speaking out about
suppression of the basic freedoms of democracy that Vietnam promised
the Vietnamese people during the entire conduct of the war, promises
they clearly had no intention of honoring. But the fact is that it is
in our interest to bring our conflict with Vietnam to closure.
I would also like to point out that this amendment asks the President
to lift the embargo expeditiously. Whatever he considers to be
expeditious is up to the President. The accounting process will
continue until we have identified all the remains that have been
recovered.
Among the criteria that Senator Smith's amendment establishes for
determining full cooperation is that Vietnam resolve all MIA cases not
just in Vietnam but in Laos and Cambodia. They had a free election in
Cambodia. I think we ought to ask the Cambodians to do that.
I would like to make a personal point, Mr. President. I do not often
discuss my past experiences in the Vietnam war, not because I do not
think it is appropriate, but because I do not think it is relevant to
my work as a U.S. Senator. The fact is that during the years that those
of us were held in captivity, our first and most important priority was
to establish the identity and the names of those who were being held
with us.
The Vietnamese constantly threatened those Americans held captive
that they would not release some Americans at the end of the war
depending on our attitude and cooperation. Therefore, many times at
great physical risk, we did everything we could to account for those
who were in prison. Most of us used to go to sleep every night
memorizing the names of those who were with us, and I can assure you,
Mr. President, every name that I knew of has been accounted for.
Now, does that mean there are not questions about those who were shot
down in Laos? Absolutely not. Does it mean that in South Vietnam there
is not a significant question? Absolutely not. And the accounting
process can go on. The question that this body must answer is whether
it will enhance our ability to get a full accounting by lifting the
trade embargo or will it harm it. The view of the experts is that it
will enhance our ability to obtain the fullest possible accounting.
Sooner or later, we must recognize that a complete accounting will not
happen because in every war there have been those for whom we have been
unable to account. At the same time, we as Americans will continue to
do everything in our power to get a full and complete accounting, and
the families of those who are still listed as missing in action deserve
nothing less. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the Senator
from New Hampshire, Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, how much time do I have on our side?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Sixteen minutes is remaining to the
Senator.
Mr. SMITH. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I yield myself 4 minutes.
I would like to respond to some comments that were made by Senator
Kerry last night regarding the intent of my amendment. The amendment is
very clear. There was some statement made that somehow this amendment
would hold the Vietnamese accountable for accounting for lost Americans
in Laos where they would not be able to do that because it was another
nation.
I would like to read the language of the amendment which was not read
last night, ironically. It says:
Resolution of all cases or reports of unaccounted for U.S.
personnel lost or captured in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia for
which officials of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam can be
reasonably expected to have in their possession additional
information or remains that could lead to the fullest
possible accounting of said U.S. personnel based on U.S.
intelligence and investigative reports.
That is reasonable. Anyone who knows anything about the conduct of
that war knows that the Vietnamese controlled large portions of Laos,
and that they know full well what happened to many of our pilots who
were shot down. Indeed, they were captured by the Vietnamese forces.
Vietnamese forces controlled the Pathet Lao.
So the intent of the amendment is clear. It does not ask the
Vietnamese to be responsible for that which they cannot be responsible.
But it does ask them to be responsible for the men they had some
knowledge of, either captured or killed or whatever in Laos when they
were operating there. So I think it is important to keep the record
straight on exactly what the amendment says.
Another point about my amendment which is very important is the
consultation clause. Again, as I indicated in my earlier remarks, there
is absolutely no individual group or any individual participating in
this debate or who has a stake in this debate greater than the
families. They deserve to be consulted before the embargo is lifted
because behind every one of those 2,238 cases there is a family. We do
a lot of talking and discussing about numbers, budget deficits and
everything else. There is always a number when we are talking about
things in the Senate.
But those numbers are families. Those families do not want this
embargo lifted. Does every family feel that way? No. There are families
who would support lifting the embargo. I acknowledge that. But the vast
majority do not and the organizations that represent them do not. The
national league, the alliance, and other veterans groups as well as
family groups do not support the lifting of the embargo. They should be
heeded and listened to. That is reasonable.
Let me also indicate that the reason I believe lifting the embargo is
wrong, that it is unconscionable to do so at this point, is because it
goes against the policies of President Reagan, President Bush, and
President Clinton. The policy that we have always had throughout
Democrat and Republican administrations on this issue is that the
fullest possible accounting would be the criteria for lifting the
embargo.
We are dealing with another agenda here. With the greatest respect
for my colleague, Senator Kerry, he has proven that his agenda over the
years is to lift the embargo. It is not linked to the POW issue. He
wants the embargo lifted. He said it in 1990. In 1990 in a letter to
then President Bush he said, ``We urge you to act promptly to lift the
U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam and we pledge our full support.''
There is no linkage here to POW and MIA. He wants the embargo lifted.
That is why he is here. He has a right to his opinion. But he wants the
embargo lifted.
So let us understand that. We are dealing with an agenda of lifting
the embargo.
The Vietnamese have not fully cooperated. They have not fully
cooperated. They have cooperated as we see with these excavations, and
Senator Kerry said last night that I had no concerns about that --or
indicated that I did not, intimated that I did not. I certainly do,
everybody that is accounted for here in these excavations. I support
doing those excavations, and I support accounting.
I yield myself an additional 2 minutes.
The point is, is that the priority? Should that be the only thing we
do? The answer is no. There are files in the archives of Vietnam where
people can be accounted for. The Vietnamese can unilaterally provide
this information today, and they do not do it. I gave plenty of
examples last night in the debate.
So what we are doing if we support this amendment of Senator Kerry is
we are basically going against policies of Reagan, Bush and Clinton,
and President Clinton has made a point of saying that he expects to
have the fullest possible accounting before the embargo is lifted.
And we are going against every family organization, every veterans
organization representing millions of people. We are going against
them. We are ignoring what they want. Do they not have a right to be
heard here?
So, let us not deal with somebody else's agenda, somebody else's
feelings about Vietnam and lifting the embargo. Let us deal with the
feelings of the people who count, the people who have the most at stake
here, the families and the veterans groups and the policies of previous
Presidents, and the current President.
That is all I am asking. My amendment is very reasonable. It does not
say we cannot lift the embargo. My amendment says that when the
President certifies that we have received the fullest possible
accounting from the Vietnamese Government, the embargo can be lifted.
That is reasonable. Do not try to cop out by voting for both
amendments. Vote for the right amendment. The right amendment is to let
the President certify when the fullest possible accounting occurs
because he has the access to the intelligence. Unless you have read
every case of these 2,238 and determine for yourself that the fullest
possible accounting in that family's case has been done, then you ought
not to vote to lift the embargo.
Fully forthcoming, do not be confused by partial--fully forthcoming.
That is the issue.
Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Senator Specter is recognized for 7
minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague from New
Hampshire.
Mr. President, I have followed the debate very closely and have
talked privately with the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire,
Senator Smith, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Senator
Kerry, and also the distinguished Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain
about the issues.
I have participated in the debate to some extent yesterday afternoon
posing the critical question as I saw it, which is has the Government
of Vietnam made the best good-faith effort to determine the locale of
all of the remains of U.S. servicemen? And that is the basis for my
judgment of the matter, and that is to support the Smith amendment.
The basis of the amendments offered by Senator Kerry and Senator
McCain turn on their pragmatic evaluation of what is the best way to
get continuing efforts by the Government of Vietnam, and they have said
that they believe that continuing efforts from the Government of
Vietnam can best be obtained by lifting the embargo.
I do not know whether that is true or not. That is a judgment call.
It may be that we can get more out of the Vietnamese Government by not
lifting the embargo, because I think that it is a point of real
pressure for the Vietnamese Government. I say that, having been in
Vietnam in the course of the past 2 weeks, being a member of the Senate
Energy Committee chaired by Senator Bennett Johnston, which visited
Vietnam. During the trip, we talked with General Needham, who is in
charge of the U.S. military efforts on the MIA issue, and with the
other U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. We also spoke with people
from the Vietnamese Government who are trying to cooperate in producing
the remains of all of the MIA's.
I share the conclusions articulated by Senator Johnston and Senator
Simpson, who is also part of the congressional delegation, that it
appears that the Vietnamese Government is trying. I am also familiar
with the comments made by General Needham, and those of Admiral Larson.
They are complimentary of what the Vietnamese Government has done.
However, I do not know if the actions by the Vietnamese are the maximum
good-faith effort possible.
Senator Smith has argued very persuasively that the Vietnamese have
not given maximum effort. He has backed up his generalization with
specific indicators, if nonspecific evidence. But there is really more
that the Government of Vietnam can do by way of disclosing the locale
of remains of MIA's.
I think that the President of the United States is in the best
position to make that determination. The President, with his executive
authority and with his access to much more information than any Senator
has, is in a better position than any Senator or the Senate as a body.
We know as a matter of practical experience that no matter how hard
we probe--I served on the Intelligence Committee for 6 years--and press
the executive branch for the facts, we just do not get the full facts.
It is an unfortunate fact of life in the U.S. Government that there is
concealment even from the key members of the key committees in the face
of specific requests and in the face of specific representations by the
executive branch. That is a very troublesome fact, Mr. President, but
that is a fact that I have seen now in my 14th year in the U.S. Senate.
The President knows more than we do. I had, frankly, expected Senator
Smith to offer an amendment which would be the sense of the Senate to
preclude the President from lifting the embargo on the basis of what
Senator Smith believes to be true.
That is what I had candidly expected. As soon as I returned from the
trip to Vietnam, I sought Senator Smith out and talked with him about
it and went over with him to the extent I could the specific facts that
he had and some, candidly, he would not tell me about. I understand
that, too, in terms of confidentiality. Based on where he was, I
thought he might well take the position that the Senate should say to
the President: Do not lift the embargo. He has not said that. If he had
said that, I do not think I would have gone that far with him, because
I think, with all due respect, that the President has access to more
information than Senator Smith. Senator Smith, may the Record show, is
smiling and nodding in the affirmative.
My colleague, Senator McCain, is on the floor, and I do not think
anybody has more standing than Senator McCain on this or any other
issue related to the Vietnam war. As I said yesterday, our
congressional delegation went to the monument for Senator McCain in
Vietnam by the lake where he was downed. Senator McCain is smiling, and
he finds it somewhat embarrassing to be a war hero, but that is part of
the problem he will have to bear. We all had our pictures taken in
front of the monument, and a group photo as well, because we have so
much respect and admiration for Senator McCain.
I do not disagree with Senator McCain, and I appreciated his comment
yesterday when I endorsed what Admiral Larson said and what General
Needham said, and he is prepared to back their view in lifting the
embargo. My own sense is not to accept their judgment but to look for
the standards, which I think are more important. The standard that I
think is most important is whether there has been a maximum good-faith
effort by the Government of Vietnam to tell us all they know about the
MIA's and the remains of the MIA's. I am not prepared to base my
decision on what is the maximum pressure or leverage.
I see my time has expired, as the Chair is about to pound the gavel.
I shall conclude at this point with thanks to Senator Smith for
yielding me the time.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from
Virginia.
Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, in order to support the continuing efforts
of the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting in Vietnam, United States
military personnel at the Pentagon and Pacific Command in Hawaii, POW/
MIA analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency, diplomatic officials
at the State Department, the President, and most importantly, the
families of those missing in action from the Vietnam war, I urge the
adoption of this sense-of-the-Senate resolution calling for the
expeditious removal of the United States embargo against Vietnam.
I join a distinguished group of fellow Vietnam veterans in supporting
this course of action; among them, Senators John Kerry and John McCain,
with whom I served on the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, and with
whom I continue to join in advancing the objective of the fullest
possible accounting of our POW/MIAs.
Mr. President, a few years ago we created a diplomatic framework,
known as the roadmap, for the resolution of this issue. We established
clear benchmarks in the roadmap that had to be met by the Vietnamese in
order for our economic and political relations to be restored. The
Vietnamese have taken many steps to fulfill their obligations under the
framework.
Following Assistant Secretary Winston Lord's trip to Vietnam last
month, the State Department reported to me that the Vietnamese have
exhibited far more cooperation than ever before. They provided
Assistant Secretary Lord new documents from the immediate post-war
period, and reiterated to him their commitment to cooperate in all
phases of our POW/MIA investigation.
Mr. President, regarding the four key areas President Clinton has
announced in which he sought further progress by the Vietnamese in POW/
MIA accounting--remains, discrepancy cases, trilateral cooperation, and
archives--there have been significant developments on all these fronts
in recent months.
Specifically, 67 sets of remains were returned in 1993, a number
higher than nearly any previous year. We have reduced the discrepancy
case number to 73, and trilateral excavation teams in late 1993
recovered remains on both sides of the Lao and Vietnamese borders.
Further, the JTF-FA in Hanoi describes the progress made to date in the
area of archival research as superb.
Mr. President, beginning earlier this month 8 American POW/MIA
excavation teams fanned out to 13 different provinces in Vietnam to dig
and examine crash sites. They are just now finishing up 3 weeks of
work. Eighty-four Americans are involved in the effort, and the next
mission is expected to include even more American personnel. The
Vietnamese fully support, and are cooperating with, these field
operations.
Last August, Premier Vo Van Kiet gave me his personal assurance that
the Vietnamese would help American investigators in-country. He told me
that while ``we can't find what was lost one hundred percent, the
Vietnamese Government will try all ways and means to try to resolve
outstanding problems with sympathy.''
Mr. President, besides speaking to the Premier and Foreign Minister
Nguyen Manh Cam at length, I saw concrete examples of cooperation
during my visit to Hanoi, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City. When I arrived
in Hanoi, I was briefed by JTF-FA personnel and assured that an amnesty
program was underway that would allow Vietnamese citizens to turn in
remains or evidence relating to American POW/MIAs and not face
retribution. JTF-FA were hopeful about the prospects of the amnesty
program, and State Department officials reported to me yesterday that
it has helped to resolve a number of POW/MIA cases.
An oral history program has also been initiated, and when I visited
the Ranch in Hanoi where the U.S. military is based, JTF-FA staff were
working their way through specific interviews, with past Vietnamese
leaders and cadre that would have possible knowledge of the POW/MIA
issue. They had already conducted quite a few interviews, with a
handful showing some promise of useful information.
In addition, JTF-FA personnel are now systematically conducting
documentation research. Analysts are conducting interviews with
Vietnamese journalists who covered the war, combing through newspaper
morgues for clues, visiting central and regimental level military
museums, and examining old Vietnam News Agency photos. I have been
impressed with the comprehensive approach and efficiency of their
efforts.
Mr. President, none of this would have been possible had Vietnamese
authorities stonewalled American investigators. There would have been
no interviews of Vietnamese military officials, visits to military
museums, field excavations, handing over of remains, or providing of
information on discrepancy cases if the Vietnamese had not acquiesced
to our demands as stated in the roadmap.
Mr. President, in order to continue with this forward motion, lifting
the embargo will help accelerate our efforts to achieve full
accountability. Our own interests--not just Vietnam's--are served by
expanding ties with Vietnam. Regretably, we will never be able to
recover every remain and close every case relating to missing Americans
in Vietnam--nor have we been able to do so for any war prior to
Vietnam. But the task will be easier with greater and more access.
What we risk by not proceeding is continued Vietnamese cooperation.
My interest is not in engaging in rhetorical saber rattling with
Communist leaders in Hanoi; I abhor their political system and
condition normalization of relations on improvements in the treatment
of their people.
Mr. President, beyond my own personal observations during two recent
trips to Vietnam and my active participation in the Select Committee on
POW/MIA Affair's investigation of this issue, I trust and believe
United States officials--from General Vessey to General Needham to
Admiral Larson to Assistant Secretary Lord--who tell me that the
Vietnamese are giving us straight answers and putting forth their best
effort to determine the whereabouts of our POW/MIA's. These officials
have laid the groundwork to expand the basis by which the JTF-FA is
conducting its work across Vietnam. Not proceeding would represent a
lost opportunity to learn more about our POW/MIA's who stood and fought
in Vietnam. Lifting the economic embargo enhances the prospects of
gaining more answers to what happened to our loved ones, so I lend my
full support to this measure as a means for achieving such a goal.
Mr. President, on a final note, as chairman of the East Asia
Subcommittee on the Foreign Relations Committee, I will be holding a
hearing late next week to question Clinton administration officials on
the latest progress. In my role of oversight, I look forward to laying
the facts out to the American people, and helping to shape future
United States foreign policy as it relates to our missing servicemen
and economic and political relations with Vietnam.
This morning, I want to say that I believe this is one of those
opportunities that if we do not take it, we are going to set the whole
process back. I agree very much with the arguments made by my
colleagues, Senator Kerry and Senator McCain, and many others, on this
particular topic. I spent time in July of last year meeting with a
number of Vietnamese officials, including the Premier, the Foreign
Minister. I spent time in a hearing. I spent time in August there.
There is no question in my mind that the officials in Vietnam think
they are cooperating to the fullest extent possible. They believe that
the United States has told them that if they will cooperate, at least a
lifting of the embargo can take place.
It is my very firm conviction that if we do not do something, we are
going to set back this process and make it more difficult to get the
kinds of information we have to have if we are going to provide a full
accounting. That is all this amendment requires, that we continue to
press for a full accounting, that we keep that commitment and concern
about loved ones that have not been accounted for. We can best do that
by fulfilling our part of the bargain in this particular case, because
the Vietnamese believe in good faith that they have complied to the
full extent of their capacity.
Mr. President, I urge support for the resolution that Senators Kerry,
McCain, I, and others put in.
With respect to my colleague from New Hampshire, I understand and
appreciate what he has done to keep the pressure on. But in this case,
we need to make a decision to move on and allow the rest of the process
to take place and to support the effort for the full accounting.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 58 seconds remaining. There
are 5 minutes 13 seconds on the other side.
Mr. SMITH. I think the Senator from Massachusetts should use a couple
more minutes, and then we will close.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield myself 4 minutes.
Mr. President, there are going to be two votes. One vote is urging
the President to do something--not mandating it, not telling him to do
it tomorrow, but urging him to expeditiously move to do this. The
President has been consulting with families. He will continue to
consult with families. There is nothing in the McCain, Robb, et al.,
amendment, that changes the policy of today, except to urge him to move
forward in order to preserve the policy of today.
The amendment of Senator Smith is cleverly calculated to change the
current policy. It changes President Clinton's policy, and it does not
do it as a sense of the Senate. It mandates it by law. It tells the
President what he must do in the context of this, different from what
was done with President Bush and President Reagan. It sets a new
standard, including Vietnam's responsibility to provide information for
Laos and Cambodia. It requires it to be based on intelligence, so the
veterans groups can say: You did not follow the intelligence; or you
did, not knowing whether the intelligence is even good.
I respectfully suggest that we should not order the President to do
something; we should suggest. This is not a test of patriotism. This
vote is not whether you are for or against getting an accounting. This
is a judgment issue as to how we best respect the commanders in the
field who are getting the accounting and respect a process that has
been underway for some time. If we do not proceed forward, Mr.
President, we can lose the ability to get the answers we are getting
today.
I am sorry that my colleague suggested that I have some other motive.
I have not suggested anything about his motives. The fact is that I sat
through hearing after hearing, asked the toughest questions of Dr.
Kissinger and others, helped get millions of documents declassified,
have traveled eight times to Vietnam, flown at risk in Soviet
helicopters across their territory, and spent hours trying to get
answers. I have listened to the people in the field--something that we
did not do during the war itself.
The people in the field are saying to us: Lift this embargo. You will
help us get answers for the families. We have to turn away from a
policy of retribution to a policy that makes sense--common sense. For
19 years, we did nothing; for 19 years, we got very few answers, if
any, for our families. For 19 years, we were not engaged. But since
General Vessey, who says ``lift the embargo" got engaged, we are
getting answers for our families. General Vessey has spent hours
working this process. He says, ``Lift the embargo.'' Admiral Larson,
who is the commander in charge, says, ``Lift it.'' General Needham, who
is working day to day at risk of life with other American soldiers,
says, ``Lift it.''
Mr. President, my colleagues say Vietnam has not done everything they
can. I do not know if they have or not. You cannot prove they have not.
The question is whether or not we are going to have a process in place
that puts them to the test. Senator McCain and Senator Robb and Senator
Bob Kerrey and Senator Larry Pressler and I, all Vietnam veterans, are
not asking this U.S. Senate to trust the Vietnamese. We are asking the
Senate to put in place a continuing process that verifies, that puts
them to the test, that asks for more information, and that guarantees
our ability to get it.
Two years ago, when I began this process as chairman of the Senate
select committee, we had no office in Vietnam, no ability to get
archives, no access to the countryside. We had no ability to follow up
on live sighting reports. Now we have American soldiers landing in
helicopters, not on search and destroy missions but on search and
discover missions. American soldiers again are walking through Vietnam,
unescorted, asking questions of the villagers. We do that at the
sufferance of the Vietnamese.
Unless we continue this process, which they could cut off tomorrow,
we will not serve the families. If you want to serve the families, you
will vote to lift the embargo. If you want to put the war behind us and
act in a statesmanlike fashion and look to the future and protect the
interests of this Nation, you will vote to lift the embargo.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the
Republican leader, Senator Dole.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I have listened to this debate very
carefully. In fact, last night I went home and listened to the
distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, the Senator from
Massachusetts, and the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn]. I must say it is
a judgment call as just pointed out by the Senator from Massachusetts.
I certainly respect all those who are associated on the other side,
Senator Robb, Senator McCain, Senator Kerry, and Senator Kerrey.
I understand that this is a matter of some import, but I do not
really understand why there would be opposition to the amendment that
we are offering. It just says the Commander in Chief is the Commander
in Chief and he ought to make a determination.
My association with Vietnam POW's and MIA's goes way back to 1970. In
fact, I wore my colleague, Senator McCain's bracelet around. I did not
know he would be a colleague at that time. I remember going to
President Nixon saying we have to do something about POW's and MIA's. I
remember going to a meeting in 1970 at Constitution Hall when only 30
people showed up, including two Members of Congress, to talk about the
plight of the POW's and MIA's. I remember promising the group of
families at that meeting that we would fill Constitution Hall in 90
days, and we did. The speaker at that time was Vice President Spiro
Agnew--a long time ago--and we filled Constitution Hall.
I ask unanimous consent that I may use my leader's time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Murray). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DOLE. And we filled Constitution Hall. I know it has been a long
time. It has been a long time, and sooner or later you just have to cut
it off.
I listened with great interest to the recitation of those still
missing from Korea and World War II. They were bigger numbers of
missing from those wars than from Vietnam.
Certainly, they made a lot of progress in Vietnam. But, on the other
hand, there are still some families out there who just would like one
last certification by the President of the United States that progress
is not only good, but that this is it: Vietnam is not withholding. They
are willing to accept that.
It is the families that have endured the pain of not knowing for 20
or more years. Families who deserve final answers. Let's finally have
an answer for Jane Duke Gaylor in El Dorado, KS, as to what happened to
her son, Charles Duke, a civilian technician missing from Pleiku,
Vietnam, since May 30, 1970. Answers to Mary Hall in Altoona, KS, as to
what happened to her husband, T. Sgt. Willis R. Hall at Lima Site 85,
overrun March 11, 1968. And answers to Carol Hrdlicka in Conway
Springs, KS, as to what happened to her husband, Col. David Hrdlicka,
shot down over Laos in 1965, and whose picture appeared in Pravda and
in Vietnamese newspapers in 1966.
In that time, there has been some progress--345 Americans have been
accounted for. But this progress only occurred after serious and
sustained pressure from the United States. The track records is crystal
clear: Vietnam has lied, concealed, and dissembled for 20 years. They
give up information and remains only when the Government makes a
political decision that it serves their political goals. And, as the
administration's decisions to support IMF loans to Vietnam in July
1993, and to ease the embargo in September 1993 show: The Vietnamese
strategy to control release of remains and information for political
leverage is working.
The Kerry-McCain amendment says the embargo should be lifted
expeditiously. The Smith-Dole amendment says the President should not
lift the current embargo until he makes a determination that Vietnam
has provided remains and information our own Government has reason to
believe Vietnam continues to withhold. If Vietnam has already fully
cooperated--as some of their supporters appear to believe--the
President can make this determination tomorrow.
If, however, Vietnam is allowing highly publicized searches of
already excavated crash sites, while holding back remains, crucial
documents, and information about cases our intelligence community
believes they could provide--we should not lift the embargo. And, if
Vietnam is holding back information as many credible observers believe,
lifting the embargo would be the worst possible decision. It would let
the Vietnamese Government know that the United States no longer
considers accounting for America's POW/MIA's a matter of the highest
national priority. It would let the Vietnamese know that the fullest
possible accounting is now on the back burner. And it would let the
Vietnamese know that business interests take precedence over the
interests of seeking knowledge about the fate of Americans who served
their country in a war too many are willing to forget.
I hope all Senators can agree that we should respect the views of the
families of those unaccounted for from the Vietnam war. They are not
unreasonable. They are not saying keep the embargo until after the
fullest possible resolution is obtained. What they are asking for is
simple: Do not lift the embargo until Vietnam provides information that
our own intelligence community says it can easily provide if Vietnam
makes the political decision to do it. What the families oppose is
payment in advance. What they support is reciprocity--a clear sign that
Vietnam has done what it can easily do to resolve their uncertainty.
Mr. President, the Smith-Dole amendment simply lays out a
determination by the President on Vietnamese-POW/MIA cooperation before
the embargo is lifted. I would hope all my colleagues could support it.
If POW/MIA cooperation is as good as many Senators stated last night,
they should be able to support this language.
I am not certain--I guess maybe some of my colleagues will vote for
both amendments. I do not know what they will do.
The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief under
the Constitution. He is going to make some findings. He is not going to
lift the embargo without making some findings on the issue.
I just suggest that all the amendment does is lay out a determination
by the President on Vietnamese-POW cooperation before the embargo is
lifted.
I do not know any reasons to oppose this amendment. I listened to my
colleagues last night, and certainly Senator Kerry of Massachusetts has
done precisely what he said he had done. He has been to Vietnam eight
times. He has flown all over the country and he has held 2 years of
hearings. The Senator from New Hampshire has done the same, as has the
Senator from Arizona, and many others.
But this amendment is simply an affirmation of President Clinton's
position, and this is what he said on November 11, 1992. It is his
quote:
I have sent a clear message that there will be no
normalization of relations with any nation that is at all
suspected of withholding any information. We must have as
full an accounting as humanly possible.
Our amendment simply asks the President to make a determination on
his own standard: is Vietnam suspected of withholding any information?
If he says no, that is the end of it.
Maybe the President will think things have changed since he made that
statement. Maybe the President thinks Vietnam is not withholding
information. Then he should welcome this amendment as an opportunity to
address the concerns of the families. Maybe there are not that many of
them. Maybe this is not a big issue. It is probably not going to win or
lose any election for anyone. But it means a great deal to some people.
Maybe they ought to give up. Maybe they ought to give up hope.
But I happen to believe, based on the information available to me,
that Vietnam is not being fully forthcoming. They are allowing a lot of
activity. We get a lot of activity around here a lot of times and do
not do anything. There is a lot of activity around here but nothing
happens.
But as President Clinton said in his letter to Senator Smith last
month, ``I will not accept mere activity by Vietnam on the POW/MIA
issue as progress.''
Supporters of normalization with Vietnam talked about remains turned
over in 1993. But remains alone do not provide a final answer to the
families' uncertainty--unless cases are resolved. According to
information prepared by the National League of Families, only three
Americans previously unaccounted for in Vietnam have had their status
fully resolved in the last year.
We need to compare apples with apples. Previous administrations
counted resolved cases--not unidentified remains--as a measure of
progress. Maybe some of the remains will lead to cases being finally
resolved in the future--I hope so. But it does not seem to me that
three resolved cases in 1993 is sufficient to justify a decision to
lift the embargo--especially when so many qualified experts say Vietnam
is holding back.
Can it truly be that difficult to provide the answers that Dr.
Kissinger sought in February 1973, when he presented over 80 folders to
the Vietnamese in Hanoi. Information contained in these folders--from
Vietnamese sources--proved that American POW's were at one time alive,
because their pictures were published in newspapers in Laos, Vietnam,
Russia, and other Communist countries. These are easy cases for Vietnam
to solve. The United States has waited far too long for these answers--
answers Vietnam could provide if it wanted to.
Let me quote Carl Ford, a career intelligence officer and senior
Defense Department official from 1989 to 1993:
The amount of information the Vietnamese could share with
us but are concealing and withholding is enormous. Everybody
knows the Vietnamese are holding out.
Richard Childress, NSC official throughout the Reagan years, said:
It is also clear that the Vietnamese have studiously
avoided giving us documents that would resolve many
outstanding cases.
Mr. Ford and Mr. Childress are not among those accused of harboring
conspiracy theories on the POW/MIA issue. On the contrary, they have
been savaged by many accusations over the years for being too soft on
Vietnam.
In my view, there is room for legitimate disagreement over the issue
of Vietnamese cooperation. The Smith-Dole amendment would allow the
President to make his view known before he lifts the embargo on
Vietnam.
I ask unanimous consent that several documents prepared by the
National League of Families, including a record of the Clinton
administration's commitments, and an article, entitled ``Will Clinton
Buy Hanoi's POW Charade,'' be printed in the Record after my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. DOLE. Let me say to my colleagues, lifting the embargo--if
Vietnam is holding back information and remains--is not about healing
the wounds of the past. Lifting the embargo will help heal those
wounds--only if we can all be assured that Vietnam is no longer
withholding information and remains for political purposes. Vote for
the Kerry-McCain amendment if you believe the embargo should be lifted.
But also vote for the Smith-Dole amendment if you believe the families
of those who served for this country deserve answers before the embargo
is lifted. Adoption of the Smith-Dole amendment will help achieve the
end we all seek.
So it seems to me that you have an opportunity here to, reinforce the
President's constitutional right to make policy--all we ask is a simple
determination. If he makes that determination, then we probably would
accept it.
Madam President, again I thank my colleagues on both sides of this
issue. They were there. We were not there. They understand it probably
better than any of us who were in earlier conflicts. But the question
is the same: When do we tell the families that it is over? Maybe it is
very important. I know there are a lot of economic opportunities in
Vietnam. A lot of businesses are very interested in this amendment, and
sooner or later the embargo is probably going to be lifted, but it
seems to me we are not asking much in the Smith-Dole amendment. We hope
it might have the support of my colleagues.
Exhibit 1
Memorandum to Members of the U.S. Senate
From: Ann Mills Griffiths, executive director.
Subject: Position on United States relations with Vietnam in
the context of POW/MIA progress.
Date: January 26, 1994.
The POW/MIA families urge your immediate support for the
Dole/Smith amendment to the Kerry/McCain amendment to S.
1281, the State Department Authorization Bill. Your support
will demonstrate that you have done your best on behalf of
the POW/MIA families and veterans in your state, to ensure
that the U.S. obtains the fullest possible accounting for
Americans still missing from the Vietnam War.
We back President Clinton on the need for full
implementation of the four criteria he outlined on July 2nd
and reaffirmed on September 14th of last year. Like him, the
POW/MIA families ``will not accept mere activity by Vietnam
on POW/MIA issues as progress.'' The families and our
nation's veterans want and deserve real answers. The
perception of ``progress'' now taking place is based largely
on increased activities, not results which account for our
missing relatives.
If Vietnam unilaterally provides the remains of Americans
and incident-related documents which the U.S. intelligence
community believes they are withholding, the National League
of POW/MIA Families is not opposed to reciprocal steps by the
U.S. to improve diplomatic and economic relations. We have
supported that approach since 1989 and advocated humanitarian
assistance since 1986. What we oppose are steps by the U.S.
to meet Vietnam's economic and political objectives before
their leadership authorizes unilateral actions which would
rapidly account for hundreds of Americans.
Our position on living POWs is that Americans were alive at
the end of the war, have not been returned, must be assumed
still alive without evidence to the contrary, and that the
Government of Vietnam can easily resolve these questions. If
Americans last known alive in captivity are no longer living,
their remains should be readily available to Vietnamese
authorities. Field ``searches'' are not necessary to resolve
these cases; a political decision by the Vietnamese
leadership is required.
____
Vietnam's Ability to Rapidly Account for Missing Americans
Family members, veterans and other League supporters
throughout the country oppose further steps to lift the U.S.
embargo or improve political relations until Hanoi makes the
decision to cooperate fully and stops manipulating this
issue. The League supports reciprocity, but not when Vietnam
is clearly withholding answers from the families.
One way of viewing what the U.S. knows and what Vietnam can
do is by looking at what Hanoi has not, but could have done.
U.S. intelligence and other data confirms over 200
unaccounted for discrepancy cases of Americans last known
alive, reported alive, or in close proximity to capture. In
approximately 100 of these cases, investigations have
reportedly been sufficient to confirm death. Hanoi knows that
these are highest priority cases, as they relate directly to
the live prisoner issue. If deceased, remains of these
Americans are logically the most readily available for
repatriation since they were captured on the ground or in
direct proximity to PAVN forces. Yet, Vietnam has purposely
avoided accounting for these Americans, allowing only
``investigations'' to determine fate, while signaling
availability of more data.
U.S. wartime and post-war reporting on specific cases,
captured Vietnamese documents concerning the handling of U.S.
prisoners and casualities, and debriefs of communist
Vietnamese captives, reinforced by U.S. monitored directives
and other reporting, formed a clear picture of a
comprehensive North Vietnamese system for collection of
remains and information dating back to the French-Indochina
War. Specific sources such as the mortician in 1979,
substantiated by others in the 1980's, highlighted remains
storage as a key factor in obtaining accountability.
During the war and since, the Vietnamese Communists placed
great value on the recovery and/or recording of burial
locations of U.S. remains. During the war, if jeopardized by
imminent discovery or recovery by U.S. forces, burial was
immediate to hide the remains, then disinterment when
possible, photography and reburial, or transfer to Hanoi if
feasible. Evidence of this process is confirmed by U.S.
intelligence.
Assessment of community-wide intelligence serves as the
basis for U.S. expectations that hundreds of Americans could
be rapidly accounted for with unilateral Vietnamese action to
repatriate remains. In 1986-87, the entire intelligence
community maintained higher estimates, but the numbers were
subsequently further screened to establish the most realistic
targets for the Vietnamese government to meet.
Forensic evidence serves as another basis for establishing
expectations. Roughly 65% of the 279 identified remains
returned from Vietnam since the end of the war have shown
evidence of both above and below ground storage. This is hard
evidence, confirmed by forensic scientists.
After two years of no results from the Vietnamese in 1979-
80, during a September, 1982 ABC ``Nightline'' program, SRV
Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach flatly denied holding any
U.S. remains, as had SRV officials throughout the Carter
Administration; Vietnam returned 8 stored remains in 1983.
Negotiations for a two-year plan in 1985 brought the largest
number of remains obtained to that point; nearly all 38
showed evidence of storage. In 1987, negotiations resulted in
the largest number of remains returned during one year, 62 in
1988, 30 of which were returned at one time. Nearly all were
virtually complete skeletons which showed clear evidence of
storage; there are more recent examples.
The total number of identified remains returned from
Vietnam with evidence of storage does not equal the number
reported stored by valid sources, nor come close to the USG
assessment of remains available for unilateral SRV
repatriation. Evidence of storage exists on remains returned
this year, but not yet identified; an important signal was
also sent by the SRV in a 1989 stored-remains repatriation.
Both instances revealed province-level storage/curation;
there are many other examples.
Vietnamese officials have also admitted storage of remains.
In 1985, following up an initiative through a regional
government, an NSC official met privately with a politburo-
level Vietnamese official during an NSC-led U.S. delegation
to Hanoi. The carefully drawn plan was for negotiations on
live prisoners and remains. The SRV foreign minister
indicated that no live prisoners were on the table for
discussion, but that the hundreds of remains discussed
through the third party were.
In order to test the scope of Vietnamese knowledge, two
specific cases were officially presented to SRV officials in
1985/86 with a request for their unilateral assistance; both
losses occurred in Lao territory under PAVN control during
the war. One was returned unilaterally in 1988, 98% complete
and stored above ground since the incident. Vietnam has
unilaterally repatriated stored remains from remote locations
spanning the entire war.
There is continuity today. In 1991 and 1993, the SRV
provided graves registration lists with names of unaccounted
for Americans. Inclusion of these names was likely again
purposeful, as was filtering through private channels
photographs of dead, unaccounted for Americans whose remains
have not yet been returned. Combat photography was directed
by the DRV/SRV government; DRV/PRG soldiers did not own
personal cameras, much less carry them. Regardless of mixed
or conflicting signals on both sides, these and other actions
by SRV officials are intended to signal the U.S. of remains
availability.
Information obtained from field operations after the war,
including recent Joint task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA)
activities, also reveals that central DRV/SRV authorities
systematically recovered American remains. Eyewitnesses
reported central authorities arriving to supervise remains
recoveries of Americans not yet accounted for. As long as
Vietnam continues to benefit financially and politically from
field investigations of these same cases, Hanoi has little
motivation to unilaterally repatriate remains now being
withheld.
____
Status of the POW/MIA Issue: January 12, 1994
2,238 Americans are still prisoner, missing and unaccounted
for from the Vietnam War. A breakdown by country of loss
follows: Vietnam 1,647 (North--602; South--1,045); Laos--505;
Cambodia--78; Chinese territorial waters--8. Over 80% of U.S.
losses in Laos and 90% of those in Cambodia occurred in areas
controlled by Vietnamese forces during the war. The League
seeks the return of all prisoners, the fullest possible
accounting for all missing Americans and repatriation of all
recoverable remains.
At the forefront of the League's efforts is resolving the
live prisoner issue. Official intelligence information
supports the fact that Americans known to have been alive in
captivity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia did not return at the
end of the war. In the absence of evidence to the contrary,
it can only be assumed that these Americans remain alive in
captivity today. As a matter of policy, the USG operates
under the assumption that U.S. POWs could still be held.
Archival research in Vietnam has produced over 20,000
documents, photographs and other materials related to U.S.
POW/MIA's; only approximately 1% of the new information
relates to missing for Americans. Unilateral Vietnamese
repatriation of remains has been the most productive means of
achieving accountability. Despite the extensive joint field
activities in Vietnam, only three Americans were accounted
for in 1993 from that process. The decreased number of
experienced specialists directly involved in the in-country
accounting process has brought justifiable criticism from the
families and veterans. The League believes that it is
imperative to have language-capable, knowledgeable personnel
conducting all aspects of joint field operations in all three
Indochina countries.
Joint field activities in Laos have been productive and,
increasingly, the Laos Government has permitted greater
flexibility while U.S. teams are in-country. In Cambodia,
joint investigations, excavations and surveys have now
resumed due to increased stability brought by the newly
established Cambodian Government. Unlike Vietnam where a
comprehensive wartime and post-war process for collection and
retention of information and remains is known to have
existed, joint field operations are crucial in Laos and
Cambodia.
Hanoi's calculated decision to withhold information on and
remains of America's missing continues unabated. U.S.
intelligence confirms that hundreds of U.S. personnel could
rapidly be accounted for through unilateral action by Vietnam
to repatriate remains and provide relevant documents. Despite
these facts, U.S. officials continue to praise Hanoi in an
apparent effort to persuade Congress and the American people
that the embargo should be lifted and relations normalized.
The League supports a policy of reciprocal steps by the U.S.
to respond to concrete results, but opposes meeting Hanoi's
economic and political objectives until their leaders decide
to cooperate seriously.
For the latest information, call the League's Update Line,
202/659-0133 24 hours a day.
statistics
As of December 15, 1993, 1,715 first-hand live sighting
reports in Indochina have been received since 1975. 1,694 of
these reports have been resolved, the majority of which
pertain to individuals who have since left Indochina
(returned POWs, missionaries or civilians detained for
violating Vietnamese codes). Approximately 25% were
determined to be fabrications. Twenty-one first-hand
sightings are still unresolved and are under priority
investigation using all available intelligence assets. The 21
can be further divided; 12 deal with reported Americans
sighted in a prisoner situation, and 9 in non-prisoner
situations. The years during which these 21 first-hand
sightings occurred is listed below:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pre-1975 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979-80 1981 1982 1983-91 1992 1993 Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POW................................. 7 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 2 12
Non-POW............................. 1 0 3 2 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of the Vietnam War, there were 2,583 Americans
who were listed as prisoner, missing, or killed in action/
body not recovered. As of January 12, 1994, 2,238 are still
missing or unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. Following is
a breakdown of the 345 Americans accounted for since the end
of active U.S. involvement in the War:
1974-1975: Post war year.............................................28
1976-1978: US/SRV normalization negotiations.........................47
1979-1981: US/SRV talks break down....................................4
1982-1984: 1st Reagan Administration.................................20
1985-1988: 2nd Reagan Administration................................145
1989-1992: Bush Administration.......................................96
1993 Clinton Administration\1\........................................5
\1\3 from Vietnam; 2 from Cambodia.
Over 90% of the 2,238 missing Americans were lost in
Vietnam or in areas of Laos and Cambodia controlled by
Vietnamese forces during the war. While unilateral Vietnamese
repatriations of remains have accounted for the vast majority
of the returned Americans, all but 3 of the Americans
accounted for in Laos have been the result of joint
excavations. The breakdown by country of the 345 Americans
accounted for since 1973:
Vietnam.............................................................280
China.................................................................2
Other\1\..............................................................4
Laos.................................................................56
Cambodia..............................................................3
\1\Recovered by indigenous personnel; 1 from NVN and 3 from Laos.
POW/MIA Commitments by President Clinton/Clinton Administration
December 10, 1993. The President, in letter to Senator Bob
Smith, (R-NH) distributed to attendees of Veterans Briefing
December 15th.
``* * * I have made achieving the fullest possible
accounting for our POW/MIAs the test of our relationship with
Vietnam. * * * I will not accept mere activity by Vietnam on
POW/MIA issues as `progress.'''
November 11, 1993. The President, during his address at the
Tomb of the Unknowns, Arlington National Cemetery,
Washington, DC.
``Our nation has a particular responsibility to pursue the
fate of our missing from the war in Vietnam. On Memorial Day,
I pledged here that our government would declassify and make
available virtually all documents related to those who never
returned from that war, and that I would do it by this day,
Veterans Day. I can tell you that last evening, the Secretary
of Defense completed that task. That promise has been
fulfilled. I know that our government, our nation together
have a solemn obligation to the families of those who are
missing to do all we can to help them find answers and peace
of mind.''
July 16, 1993. Deputy National Security Advisor Samuel R.
Berger in his address to the National League of POW/MIA
Families 24th Annual meeting.
``* * * The President understands that while the processes
underway in Vietnam are important, the litmus tests here are
concrete results and solid answers. * * * the President felt
that it was best to use the IFI decision as a vehicle both
for recognizing Vietnamese progress to date--and, more
importantly, pressing for further results. The President
specifically rejected suggestions that he lift the trade
embargo, partially or fully, even though that position
disadvantages American business. This is not a commercial or
diplomatic issue for the President, it is a moral one. * * *
The President will not move forward on any bilateral economic
or political steps--on the issues we truly control--until
there are further tangible results from the Vietnamese. * * *
Vietnamese efforts to date, while welcome, are not sufficient
to warrant changes in our trade embargo or further steps in
U.S.-Vietnam relations.''
July 2, 1993. White House Press Statement by the President
on U.S. Policy Toward Vietnam.
``* * * Our policy toward Vietnam must be driven not by
commercial interests but by the overriding purpose of
achieving further progress toward the fullest possible
accounting of our POW/MIAs * * * Progress to date is simply
not sufficient to warrant any change in our trade embargo or
any further steps toward normalization. Any further steps in
relations between our two nations depend on tangible progress
on the outstanding POW/MIA cases. We insist upon efforts by
the Vietnamese in four key areas: Remains: Concrete
results from efforts on their part to recover and
repatriate American remains. Discrepancy Cases; Continued
resolution . . . Laos: Further assistance in implementing
trilateral investigation with the Lao: Archives:
Accelerated efforts to provide all POW/MIA related
documents . . .''
May 31, 1993. During his address at the National Vietnam
Veterans Memorial, the President stated, ``Today let us also
review a pledge to the families . . . We will do all we can
to give you not only the attention you have asked for but the
answers you deserve . . . We are pressing the Vietnamese to
provide this accounting not only because it is the central
outstanding issue in our relationship with Vietnam, but
because it is a central commitment made by the American
government to our people. And I intend to keep it.''
April 23, 1993. During White House news conference.
Question: Before the U.S. normalizes relations, allows
trade to go forward, do you have to be personally assured
that every case has been resolved. . .
The President: ``A lot of experts say you can never resolve
every case. . . . But what I would have to be convinced of is
that we had gone a long way towards resolving every case. .
.and we're not there yet. Again, I have to be guided a little
bit by people who know a lot about this, and I confess to
being much more heavily influenced by the families of the
people whose lives were lost there or whose lives remain in
question than by the commercial interests and the other
things which seem so compelling in this moment. I just am
very influenced by how the families feel.''
March 22, 1993. Secretary of State Warren Christopher in
his address to the Council on Foreign Relations, Chicago,
Illinois.
Question: What will be the U.S. approach to end the embargo
in Vietnam?
Secretary Christopher: ``As you know, the United States has
had two primary preconditions to ending the embargo and to
the normalization of relationships with Vietnam. First was
their support for the United Nations peacekeeping efforts in
Cambodia, and on that score, I would say that Vietnam was
fulfilled its obligations.''
``The second precondition was that we would be satisfied on
the POW/MIA issue. . . . Our administration will be assessing
that progress very carefully to determine whether we can move
further down the road, or down the roadmap, to use the
technical term, toward normalization with Vietnam. . . .''
February 10, 1993: During the regular White House briefing.
Question: President Mitterand today asked the U.S. to lift
the economic embargo on Vietnam. Do you have any comment
about that?
George Stephanopoulos (Communications Director): ``All I
can say is we've genrally supported the roadmap policy. We
want to make sure that we have a full accounting of all MIAs,
and that's the policy we'll continue.''
February 3, 1993: White House official reaction on policy
toward normalizing relations with Vietnam, responding to a
Reuters News Agency inquiry.
``President Clinton has already stated we will only move
forward when there's the fullest possible accounting of all
those listed as missing.''
PRE-ELECTION COMMITMENTS
November 11, 1992: President-elect Clinton's address,
Veterans Day Ceremony, Little Rock, Arkansas.
``. . .as I have pledged throughout my campaign, I will do
my very best to make sure we have a final resolution of the
POW/MIA issue. . .I have sent a clear message that there will
be no normalization of relations with any nation that is at
all suspected of withholding any information. We must have as
full an accounting as is humanly possible.''
September 10, 1992: Issue paper, entitled ``Clinton-Gore on
Issues of Concern to Veterans.''
``Make resolution of the POW/MIA issue a national priority
by insisting on a full accounting of all POWs and MIAs before
normalizing relations with Vietnam; working with the Russian
government to reveal any information it has on Americans
held; and declassify pertinent government documents.
March 17, 1992: Signed letter from Governor Clinton to
League Executive Director Ann Mills Griffiths.
``Thank you for your thorough and helpful briefing on POW/
MIAs. This issue is certainly due proper attention and timely
action.''
[The San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 9, 1994]
Will Clinton Buy Hanoi's POW Charade?
(By Robert J. Caldwell)
The Clinton administration, citing ``progress'' in
accounting for more than 2,200 American servicemen still
missing in Indochina, is considering rewarding Hanoi by
further easing or even lifting the U.S. trade embargo against
Vietnam.
But if President Clinton's goal is what he says it is--
obtaining the fullest possible accounting from Hanoi of the
POW/MIA issue--lifting the embargo now would be a tragic and
profound mistake.
At best, it would reward the Vietnamese government for
doing a tiny fraction of what it could do to end decades of
anguishing uncertainty for America's POW/MIA families. At
worst, it would end hopes of obtaining more POW remains and
information from Hanoi by surrendering the last significant
American leverage over Vietnam's communist regime.
These are not the views of wild-eyed conspiracy theorists,
or POW/MIA families holding out unreasonable hopes, or
embittered critics of Hanoi unable to reconcile themselves to
the Vietnam defeat two decades ago.
On the contrary. These are the considered, professional
judgments of senior officials from five past administrations.
Most spent years intimately involved in POW matters, often in
direct negotiations with the Vietnamese. Taken together, they
represent a quarter century of experience and expertise
dealing with the POW/MIA issue from the varied perspectives
of the Pentagon, the White House's National Security Council,
the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National League of
Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.
All favor improving relations with Vietnam, including an
eventual end to the U.S. trade embargo and full normalization
of political/diplomatic relations with Hanoi. But all are
also unanimous in insisting that Hanoi has not done nearly
enough to justify lifting the embargo now.
``The amount of information the Vietnamese could share with
us but are concealing and withholding is enormous,'' said
Carl Ford, who served as deputy assistant secretary of
defense from 1989 to 1993. ``Everybody knows the Vietnamese
are holding out,'' added Ford, a career intelligence officer
who had principal responsibility at the Pentagon for POW/MIA
matters.
Richard Childress, the National Security Council official
who worked the POW/MIA issue for the Reagan administration
throughout the 1980s, concurs.
``No, and for several reasons,'' Childress said last week
when asked if he believed it was time to lift the embargo.
``The most basic one is that the Vietnamese haven't even met
the criteria President Clinton laid out for measuring
tangible progress.
``Clinton's first criterion was the return of remains (of
U.S. servicemen). They (the Vietnamese), in fact, have halted
the unilateral return of remains. I'm not sure we are
negotiating ... to get these remains. It is also clear that
the Vietnamese have studiously avoided giving us documents
that would resolve many outstanding cases (of missing
Americans),'' Childress added.
Ford, Childress and others who wonder what concessions the
Vietnamese have made during the past year have a powerful
case.
In July, the Clinton administration withdrew American
opposition to international development loans for Vietnam. In
September, Clinton lifted the ban on American companies
bidding for projects financed by these loans.
Hanoi's response? Of the 2,241 Americans still missing in
Indochina as of last year, the Vietnamese provided
information and/or remains sufficient to resolve only two of
these cases during all of 1993. This despite the headlines
proclaiming dramatic breakthroughs in negotiations with the
Vietnamese, and the supposedly unprecedented release last
year of thousands of POW/MIA documents and photos by Hanoi.
Painstaking analysis of this archival material by the
Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies has revealed that
only about one percent of the documents and photos pertain to
any American still missing.
Contrast these pathetically meager results with what U.S.
intelligence agencies believe, and in many instances know,
the Vietnamese government is holding:
The skeletal remains of several hundred American
servicemen, most of whom presumably died 20 or more years
ago. These remains, like others turned over to U.S.
authorities since 1974, are in most cases carefully stored
for use as bargaining leverage in negotiations with the
United States. (Anyone who thinks this is an implausible
claim presumably does not know that two-thirds of the 279
identified sets of remains already returned by Vietnam showed
evidence, confirmed by forensic scientists, of long-term
storage, both below and above ground.)
Documents and precisely detailed records sufficient to
resolve several hundred additional cases of missing American
servicemen.
Ann Mills Griffiths, executive director of the National
League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in
Southeast Asia, adamantly opposes lifting the trade embargo
now.
Griffiths, who holds a top secret security clearance and
was a member of the U.S. team negotiating with the Vietnamese
for most of the past dozen years, criticizes the Clinton
administration for praising Hanoi now while getting so little
in return.
``Look at the historical record. The Vietnamese have never
given up anything that they didn't think they had to give up
to accomplish their political objective. Right now they are
being commended and highly praised for allowing joint field
activities to increase and allowing American personnel to
travel to different parts of the country, always escorted of
course and with pre-approval required.''
She scoffs at the most recent accolades from Winston Lord,
Clinton's assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs,
Lord returned from a trip to Hanoi last month describing
Vietnamese cooperation as ``absolutely superb.''
``Excuse me, but `absolutely superb' when the U.S.
government knows that the Vietnamese are withholding hundreds
of sets of remains?'' Griffiths said. ``If people in the U.S.
government, such as Winston Lord, ignore the basic facts,
then either there is another agenda or there is great naivete
and they really believe in meeting Vietnam's objectives in
advance and hoping they will respond. That is a process that
has been tried before and it doesn't work; it has never
worked.
``I could paper my walls with (broken) agreements with the
Vietnamese. The only policy that has ever worked is a policy
of strict reciprocity. Which means concrete results first,
then the U.S. acts. We (the National League of Families)
support that,'' she added.
Griffiths' belief that the Vietnamese continue to withhold
massive amounts of information on missing Americans is
virtually a consensus view among those most knowledgeable and
experienced in negotiating with Hanoi.
``Everything we've learned in recent years tells us how
much more the Vietnamese are withholding,'' said former
Pentagon official Ford.
Ford, Childress, Griffiths, and others insist there is no
doubt that the Vietnamese continue to hold large numbers of
remains of American servicemen.
Griffiths put the numbers of remains at ``several
hundred.'' Ford said the consensus among U.S. intelligence
agencies is that the Vietnamese are storing 400 to 600 sets
of American remains, presumably for leverage in any future
negotiations Hanoi might find necessary.
Childress noted that the Vietnamese have yet to return
about half of the stored remains described to U.S. officials
by a defecting Vietnamese mortician in 1979.
George Carver, who served as special assistant for
Vietnamese affairs to the director of the Central
Intelligence Agency from 1966 to 1973, cited the continuing
withholding of remains and archival documents as ample reason
to defer ending the trade embargo.
``Our present haste to improve relations with Vietnam is
unseemly. There is a great impetus to get this (POW) thing
wrapped up and done with. But we should be holding their feet
to the fire. The Vietnamese haven't been forthcoming and
there are lots of valid POW questions yet to be answered,''
Carver said last week.
Among those questions, Carver believes, is the accuracy of
two Soviet intelligence documents discovered last year in the
Kremlin's heretofore top secret archives. Both documents
quote high-ranking Vietnamese officials as reporting that
Hanoi held hundreds more American POWs than it ever publicly
acknowledged or released in 1973.
At least two other U.S. intelligence documents plus
accounts from several Vietnamese defectors lend corroboration
to the Soviet reports.
``I place a great deal of credence in these documents,''
Carver said.
``It's clear the Russians think the documents are
authentic. My own sense is that these reports have the ring
of truth,'' said another high-level source, who requested
anonymity.
``The problem for the Vietnamese is this: There is
incriminating evidence in their files; evidence that some
Americans were alive at the time of the Paris Peace Accords
(in 1973) and were subsequently killed,'' he added.
The Pentagon's officially stated that about half of the
2,239 Americans still unaccounted for were killed in action
and/or died when they were captured. This leaves unresolved
perhaps 1,100 cases of prisoners of war or missing in action.
If Ford, Childress, Griffiths and others are right, Hanoi
could resolve half or more of these cases at any time merely
by doing what the Paris Peace Accords required 20 years ago:
The immediate return of all remains and full cooperation in
providing all necessary information on anyone not otherwise
accounted for.
Clearly, the Vietnamese haven't come close to telling all
they know about the fate of America's prisoners of war and
missing in action. And, just as clearly, the U.S. government
knows it but won't say so publicly.
Instead, the Clinton administration is engaged in what can
best be described as an elaborate charade. Last week, 84
American investigators and their Vietnamese counterparts
fanned out across northern Vietnam to excavate aircraft crash
sites, interview villagers, and otherwise ``search for the
missing.''
This is being billed as the largest joint search operation
yet and a positive sign of Vietnamese ``cooperation.'' In
fact, it is largely theater, a symbolic effort undertaken for
reasons of political symbolism and public relations.
Nearly all crash sites, especially in northern Vietnam,
were carefully excavated many years ago by Hanoi's own
military and security forces. Human remains were catalogued
and removed, along with anything else of value. The searchers
will find only what little the Vietnamese government wants
them to find.
``This is a game of perception rather than reality,'' Ford
said. ``The Vietnamese believe they can take us to the
cleaners. They believe they have already won, that they have
us going their way. But there is no evidence that carrots,
concessions offered in advance, ever work with the
Vietnamese.''
Childress agrees that the highly publicized field searches
in Vietnam are only marginally significant.
``They avoid the central problem, which is that the
Vietnamese (authorities) have the information we need but are
withholding it,'' he said.
Ford said he fears the Clinton administration is simply
giving up on further efforts to obtain a fuller accounting
from Hanoi. Moreover, he compared the government's current
lack of candor on Hanoi's actual level of cooperation with
the credibility gap that eventually discredited the U.S.
government's entire Vietnam policy during the 1960s.
``Maybe they think it is just too hard, that the Vietnamese
aren't going to give us anything more. But we can't say the
Vietnamese are doing what they said they would. That is a
lie. It's the Tonkin Gulf Resolution all over again. If the
Clinton administration doesn't tell the American people the
truth about this, we won't have learned a thing.''
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts controls 7
seconds.
Mr. KERRY. May I borrow some of the Republican leader's time?
Mr. DOLE. I yield 2 minutes of my leader time.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Republican
leader.
I say in response, quickly, this is not saying it is the end. This is
very important to remember. This is not saying it is the end. This is
saying to the families that the President will have the ability to
decide when to lift the embargo.
We are merely urging him to do it expeditiously. Obviously, he will
not do it if he is not satisfied.
But what the Smith-Dole amendment does is change the President's
policy. The President's policy today is four items: Increased operation
in the archives, discrepancy cases, trilateral commission, and the
remains. It is not the unilateral, fullest possible accounting of all
cases, which is the language in the Smith-Dole amendment.
So what they are doing is change the President's policy statutorily,
not leaving him discretion but, in fact, taking the very discretion
away they articulated they should leave him.
I suggest to colleagues this is a clear case here. We are choosing
between urging the advice and consent of the President or take from the
President the prerogative and defining precisely what the standards
will be by which he will make his decision.
I ask colleagues to recognize Vietnam is a country not at war today,
and 60 percent of the nation is under the age of 24. They know nothing
of the war except craters that they walk into and use for growing
shrimp.
We ought to make our decision on our best judgment of our field
commanders as to how we uphold our commitment to the families. I
respectfully suggest to all colleagues the families will be best served
by having Vietnam not cut off our access. The families will be best
served by having our soldiers continue to get the information.
Bob Smith may be correct. They might have something that we do not
have. But I guarantee you if they cut us off, we and the families will
never see it. We will only get it if our soldiers are able to continue
and if we are able to continue the process of investigation.
I thank the Chair and I thank the leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
Mr. DOLE. How much leader time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Four minutes.
Mr. DOLE. I yield 2 minutes to Senator DeConcini and 2 minutes to the
Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms].
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, I thank the minority leader for the
time.
Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Kerry second-degree
amendment to the McCain amendment. While I applaud the Vietnamese
Government for the real progress it has made on POW-MIA accountability
issues, repeated Vietnamese Government violations of international
human rights standards require that I oppose the lifting of sanctions
at this time.
I simply cannot in good conscience support any significant change in
the current United States-Vietnam political or economic relationship
that does not expressly link any change to progress on human rights. I
have great respect for my good friend from Massachusetts and my
colleague from Arizona, but they have not and cannot prove their
principal rationale for lifting the embargo. Senator Kerry, Senator
McCain, and other proponents assert that an ``in-country'' presence
would yield the optimum and most expeditious accounting of all
unresolved Vietnam POW-MIA cases. The proponents also assert that
American business should not be shut out of the economic opportunities
of the Pacific rim. And lastly, these proponents of lifting the embargo
assert that new pre-conditions to normalization of trade and political
relations between the United States and the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam threatens the economic health of our Nation and any further
progress on the resolution of POW-MIA cases.
Together, these valiant Vietnam veterans make a strong case with
apparently reasonable arguments. However, the proponents' position is
shortsighted and threatens irreversible harm to America's international
credibility on human rights. I ask my friends, what is the cost of
ignoring human rights? What about other nations on which we impose a
trade embargo? Shall we also tell Cuba that normalization is for sale?
I know it is not the intent of my colleagues to auction political or
economic normalization, but that is the effect of blind adherence to a
so-called Vietnamese normalization roadmap. Linkage between
normalization and human rights cannot be broken for domestic economic
purposes, nor can the linkage be broken for POW-MIA accountability
purposes.
As long as I have served in this body, Vietnamese cooperation on the
POW-MIA issues has been a prerequisite to economic and political
normalization talks, not normalization itself. The Kerry second-degree
amendment to the McCain amendment does speak to the issue of human
rights, except, seemingly as an afterthought in its last line.
Mr. President, America cannot pick and choose when it wants to demand
compliance with basic international human rights standards. Moreover,
it should not do so in this instance. Vietnam is an aspiring economic
dragon in Asia. Vietnam wants economic and political ties to America to
achieve that status in the community of nations.
I do not believe the Clinton administration has backed away from that
linkage. As Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific,
Winston Lord succinctly described the issue only last August 31, ``We
believe you can't have open economics and closed politics.'' Vietnam
cannot nor can any of my colleagues assert that any American
administration has unlinked trade and political normalization from
human rights. In fact, Vietnam and the United States opened discussions
on human rights on January 10, 1994, just 2\1/2\ weeks ago.
I assert that the linkage should be maintained and that the
administration should seek specific human rights improvements in this
new dialog. I believe the administration should attempt to secure the
release of all nonviolent political and religious prisoners and other
reforms to bring Vietnam's laws and practices into conformity with
international human rights standards. I also believe that the
administration should urge the Vietnamese to invite international
humanitarian organizations to provide their confidential services to
prisoners in Vietnam. At the very least, the administration should
support a resolution expressing concern over the imprisonment of
nonviolent political and religious prisoners in Vietnam during the
upcoming 50th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission
meeting in Geneva.
As Asia Watch noted in its newly released report on human rights
conditions throughout Asia in 1993:
Vietnam pursued market reforms and improved relations with
the international community at the same time it sought to
keep the lid on political and religious dissent. The two
objectives produced a mixed human rights performance.
If this administration accepts the Kerry-McCain amendment, what
message will it be sending to the Chinese or the emerging democracies
in the Commonwealth of Independent States? I contend that capitulation
to the development first policies of too many Asian countries is not
the right message. Political and human rights reform must not take a
back seat to economic development.
Some international human rights and humanitarian agencies have been
allowed restricted access to Vietnam. Some foreign delegations have
also been permitted to visit prisons, but on at least one occasion,
political prisoners were relocated during the visit. I should note that
it is alleged by Asia Watch that it was Senator Kerry's visit to a
high-security detention facility in Ho Chi Minh City in November 1992,
when political prisoners--including U.S. citizen Nguyen Si Binh--were
temporarily transferred out of the prison or warned to describe
themselves as common criminals.
Madam President, I struggled with this for many years and have gone
to Vietnam only once, not in the capacity of a military person but as a
Senator in 1986. In 1985 and 1986 the Veterans Committee conducted
hearings on this subject matter, and Senator Murkowski of Alaska and I
went there and talked to the foreign minister.
We asked to get and were first granted and then deprived of exactly
what the Senator from Massachusetts was able to get, and that is on-
the-ground investigation by military forces.
I struggled with this for many years and I, in conscience, cannot
vote to lift this embargo.
There has been some discussion here about an issue, but I do not
think it has gone into enough and that is the human rights question.
The question obviously of missing Americans and unidentified remains
and the failure of the Vietnam Government until more recently to
cooperate has been the most publicized issue. But the issue also is one
of human rights. For the United States to lift the embargo and not
address the issue of human rights with conditions to me is a mistake.
Our country has stood for human rights throughout the cold war with
the Soviet Union. It was the United States that consistently hammered
away at the Soviet Union and would not relent from the human rights
position as how it treated its citizens. The human rights position of
the Vietnamese Government is anything but good. You can look at Amnesty
International, at Asia Watch, or any legitimate organization that
monitors human rights, and you will see that this country is in severe
violation.
For all the reasons I have stated, I cannot in good conscience vote
for the Kerry amendment. I think it is an abrogation of our promises to
the POW/MIA families and an abrogation of our responsibilities to the
Free world in the area of human rights.
I thank the Chair and I thank the minority leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina has 2 minutes.
Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I want to ask a question of my friend
from New Hampshire.
Will he state again for the record the service organizations
supporting the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire and Senator
Dole, and of which I am a principal cosponsor?
Mr. SMITH. The American Legion, the VFW, Disabled Veterans, Veterans
of Foreign Wars, VVA, Amvets, the National League of Families, and the
Alliance of Families, among others.
Mr. HELMS. I would say to the Senator that, as Admiral Nance and I
were entering the Capitol just awhile ago, we met two distinguished
veterans of the Vietnam war. They implored me to support your
amendment. I told them I was glad to tell them that I am a principal
cosponsor of it.
Madam President, I strongly support the Dole-Smith amendment which
will maintain the existing restrictions on trade with Vietnam unless
and until the President determines that Vietnam has provided the United
States with the fullest possible unilateral accounting of American POW/
MIA's it can be reasonably expected to have.
This is not an onerous burden or a new requirement to be held over
Vietnam as some claim. The Dole-Smith amendment, and I am a principal
cosponsor of it, merely codifies the accountability standard President
Clinton set himself. The President has pledged to lift the embargo by
judging Vietnamese cooperation on the repatriation of remains, access
to archival records, resolution of discrepancy cases, and cooperation
on resolving cases in Laos. And, on December 10, President Clinton
reconfirmed that saying, ``we will not accept mere activity by Vietnam
on POW/MIA issues as progress.''
As this standard is similar to that of President Clinton's
predecessors, the Vietnamese have been aware of it for years. They know
very well what is required for lifting the embargo.
The Dole-Smith amendment is needed to maintain the integrity of the
accounting standard President Clinton set and the Vietnamese
acknowledged. If the administration intends to lift the embargo based
on this standard--as it has signaled it will do in the coming weeks--
then it must properly measure and grade Vietnamese results--not just
activity--on all four criteria. If Vietnam does not pass, then he
should not lift the embargo. Why must we rush to kowtow to the
Communist Vietnamese?
Similarly, if Vietnam's cooperation has been as unprecedented and
superb as the administration and others claim and Hanoi has given us
all remains and key information it presently has in its possession,
then the President should have absolutely no problem making this
determination and the embargo can be lifted promptly.
I know that some American businesses are raising the pressure for
immediate and unconditional lifting of the embargo by claiming they are
missing out on Vietnam's current opening. I also know that some
Senators and administration officials strongly believe that better POW/
MIA accounting can come through normalized trade and diplomatic
relations. While I strongly disagree with these views, I recognize they
are being circulated.
If these are such compelling reasons to lift the embargo and if the
administration truly believes such action will improve POW/MIA
accounting, then it ought to make the case for lifting the embargo on
these specific grounds--not accounting criteria.
In that case, the President needs to honestly tell the POW/MIA
families and the American public that he's changing the policy and
standards governing our relations with Vietnam. He needs to set forth
the reasons why he believes a new approach is superior. We will
listen--Americans are a very understanding people.
Instead, this administration is playing a dangerous con game that
ultimately will foster further public perception of POW/MIA coverups
and deception. That benefits no one. I believe the Dole-Smith amendment
is needed because the administration intends to justify lifting the
embargo on Clinton's four accounting criteria--not other reasons. Yet,
there is significant evidence from our Government's own intelligence
reviews that Hanoi has not returned all the remains and key information
it has presently in its possession and, therefore, has not provided the
level of cooperation required to get a passing grade on these criteria.
Now, I am from North Carolina--not Missouri--but, Madam President,
this administration has to show me that Vietnam truly has provided all
it can. The American public has the right to know if the Vietnamese are
still withholding remains. Have all four criteria really been met? I do
not trust the Vietnamese one bit. Vietnam is still controlled by a
Communist dictatorship--the same dictatorship that killed over 55,000
brave American men.
I remind my colleagues that Vietnam remains responsible for 2,238
Americans that are still prisoner and missing. Has the regime in Hanoi
changed so radically that we should now ignore its lengthy record of
deception and lies--and blindly trust it? No way, madam President, no
way. If President Clinton wants to trust Vietnam, then at a minimum
this Senate should require him to trust the Reagan way--that is
``trust, but verify.''
Lifting the embargo and normalizing relations benefit Vietnam far
more than the United States. The American people ought to get something
for this great giveaway. At the very minimum, they ought to get the
assurance that the communist Vietnamese Government really has given us
all the remains and other vital accounting information on missing
Americans it has readily available.
That is neither much to ask nor too much for Hanoi to deliver. The
Dole-Smith amendment requires the President to judge Vietnamese
cooperation and assure Congress that Vietnam has given us all it has
before the United States lifts the embargo.
Mr. WOFFORD. Mr. President, I support the normalization of relations
with Vietnam at the appropriate time, but what is the appropriate time?
I have listened carefully to my colleagues, most especially Senators
John Kerry and John McCain who have been deeply involved in the issue
of the American servicemen unaccounted for during the war in Vietnam,
who are distinguished Vietnam veterans, and who have spoken to me
personally about the issue of normalization. I greatly respect the
conscientious and hard work they have done on this matter and I respect
the judgment Senators Kerry and McCain have reached in favor of lifting
the economic embargo and normalizing relations with Vietnam.
Mr. President, I come from a State that sent many men to Vietnam. One
hundred and thirteen of them remain unaccounted for. I have talked with
veterans from across Pennsylvania and spoken with Representatives of
some of the families of those servicemen whose fate in Vietnam remains
unknown. For these people, the issue is very personal and very painful.
They fear that the fate of their loved ones will be forgotten in the
spirit of normalization.
I have conveyed the feelings of these Pennsylvanians to the
President. I recognize and am encouraged by the recent cooperation of
the Vietnamese--and there has been significant cooperation, in the
missions of Adm. Charles R. Larson, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific
Command, and Maj. Gen. Thomas H. Needham, Commanding General of the
Joint Task force for Full Accounting under the U.S. Pacific Command,
but questions still remain. We as a government have not yet
satisfactorily put to rest the fears of our Vietnam service families.
For these people, accountability for loved ones who were captive, or
who disappeared, is a constant, burning issue.
For example, let me tell you about the wife of one Navy pilot who
contacted my office. The Navy told her that her husband had been shot
down and lost at sea. However, years later, and with no explanation of
the inconsistency, they presented her with his identity card which they
said had been turned over by the Vietnamese in recent years. What about
him, and, what about her?
It is these wives, children, parents, brothers, sisters, and
comrades-in-arms who make me unready at this time to endorse
normalization of relations with Vietnam. Instead, I ask the President
to consider all the factors, including the views of our distinguished
Vietnam veterans in the Senate, and the reports from Admiral Larson and
Major General Needham when their mission is completed, so that we are
satisfied that we can do no more than we have done on the present
course, and that normalization of relations is more likely to yield a
fuller accounting.
However, Mr. President, at the same time, we cannot restrict
ourselves to the point that we deny ourselves the possibility to
develop other ways to achieve our goal, I think that would be the
unfortunate consequence of Senator Smith's amendment.
So, Mr. President, I will vote no on Senator Kerry's amendment, no on
Senator Smith's amendment, and no on Senator McCain's amendment.
Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I speak in support of the amendment of
the junior Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, urging the
President to end the economic embargo against Vietnam.
My decision to support Senator Kerry was not an easy one, for I have
strongly supported the embargo for many years. I, too, still walk the
slate path and touch names on the wall of friends who never came back
from Vietnam. I, too, want to leave no stone unturned in our efforts to
account for the missing. I, too, want simply to have the closure that
would come from a full accounting.
In America's relations with Vietnam, nothing is more important than
accounting for our MIA's. Let me repeat. Nothing is more important than
accounting for our MIA's. For MIA families, the war is not over, cannot
be over until the fate of their loved ones is known.
By imposing the embargo, we have subordinated the interests of some
Americans, those who would benefit from Vietnam's economic opening, to
those of the MIA families. That has always been the proper decision to
make.
Now, however, the situation is different. As Senator Kerry, Senator
McCain, Senator Kerrey--all decorated Vietnam veterans and others have
so eloquently explained, in support of this amendment our efforts are
showing results. The Vietnamese Government is cooperating. And, now
that Vietnam can get loans from the international financial
institutions and our European and Asian competitors are flocking to the
trade opportunities, our embargo has lost much of its effect. It is not
providing us leverage with a Vietnamese Government which is, by the
testimony of our search teams, cooperating.
The next step in our efforts to account for our MIA's is to flood the
country with Americans. As Adm. Charles Larson, Commander of U.S.
Military Forces in the Pacific, the officer in charge of our MIA
effort, stated upon his return from Vietnam earlier this month.
If we get more Americans * * * investing, traveling, and
participating, that will give me a network of information
that will obviously help me.
We have reached a point where the interests of our MIA families, our
businessmen, and our role as a superpower in the post-cold war world
coincide. United States economic engagement with Vietnam will improve
our ability to account for MIA's, provide jobs for Americans, and help
integrate a reforming Vietnam as a responsible player in Asia. That is
why this amendment deserves our support.
Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, today I rise in strong support of the
Kerry and McCain amendments and in opposition to the Smith amendment. I
am pleased to join Senators Kerry and McCain as a cosponsor of their
amendment urging the President to lift the United States trade embargo
against Vietnam.
As a member of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, I
understand that this issue evokes strong emotion on all sides. No doubt
the manner in which our government has handled the question of missing
servicemen from the war in Southeast Asia has caused great pain for
countless families whose loved ones were lost during the war.
Mr. President, we all feel for the suffering of these families.
Senators Smith, Kerry, and McCain all care very deeply about this
issue, as do I. All Senators--regardless of our position on these
amendments--agree that accounting for missing Americans from the war in
Southeast Asia must continue to be treated as a matter of highest
national priority. We all want to resolve the remaining POW/MIA cases
as soon as possible.
What we are debating today is how best to achieve that end.
The Kerry/McCain amendment says that in order to expand efforts to
obtain the fullest possible accounting for our missing Americans, the
President should lift the trade embargo expeditiously.
The Smith amendment says that it is too soon to lift the embargo. We
should wait until we have the fullest possible accounting before the
embargo is lifted.
Until now, I have agreed with Senator Smith that the United States
should continue the trade embargo against Vietnam in order to press for
the fullest possible accounting for our POW's and MIA's. However, Mr.
President, I believe we have now reached a point where the United
States trade embargo has lost its effectiveness as leverage with the
Vietnamese.
Over the past 3 years, the Vietnamese Government has substantially
increased its level of cooperation with United States investigators.
The Vietnamese have turned over more than 20,000 documents and
artifacts. Concrete progress has been made in accounting for the
remaining POW/MIA's.
At this time, I believe the best way to facilitate the cooperation
between the United States and Vietnamese Governments on this issue and
get the fullest possible accounting for our missing soldiers is to lift
the trade embargo. By opening the door to Vietnam, we will gain
additional access. The increased United States presence and
communication can only help to resolve the remaining cases. Our top
U.S. officials who have worked on this issue, including General Vessey,
support lifting the embargo.
It is important to note that we will not normalize diplomatic
relations at this time. Many issues--including progress toward
democracy, human rights, and resolving the POW/MIA cases--should be
considered before diplomatic relations are established.
Mr. President, I firmly believe that ending the embargo will, at this
point, assist in accounting for our missing servicemen from the war in
Southeast Asia. By taking this action, I hope we can help resolve this
painful issue, once and for all.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, this country has agonized for nearly two
decades over the plight of our missing in Vietnam. 2,239 Americans
remain unaccounted for in Indochina. For their family and friends, the
Vietnam war continues.
The 2,239 lost servicemen were my peers--they were of my generation.
I was in my early 20's at the height of the war. During my college
years I interned at the Seattle Veterans' Hospital where I helped to
care for the wounded returning home from Vietnam. It was a painful
experience I will never forget.
From that time on I have carried with me a very real and deep concern
for the plight of those who simply do not know for certain what
happened to their family members and friends who have never been
accounted for in Vietnam.
It is that very issue which overrides all others in today's debate.
The question the Senate struggles with today is how our Nation can best
serve the Americans who remain unaccounted for in Vietnam. Which path
will more quickly bring to closure the POW/MIA cases?
Some argue that we should remain isolated from the Vietnamese until
the last POW/MIA case is resolved definitively. This has been our
policy since the end of the war.
Many others, however, have come to the conclusion that it is time to
take a vastly different and new approach. The McCain/Kerry amendment we
are considering today argues that the embargo is no longer a useful
tool in making progress on the POW/MIA cases. Senator John Kerry, a
distinguished veteran of the Vietnam war, served as chair of the Senate
Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs and has studied this issue
exhaustively. Senator McCain, a former POW in Vietnam for nearly 7
years, brings his own remarkable perspective to this question.
These two Senators believe, as do I, that by lifting the embargo a
more positive atmosphere in United States-Vietnamese relations would be
established--an atmosphere which will take us further in achieving
Vietnamese progress on the POW/MIA question and other humanitarian
concerns than our present policy of isolation and disengagement.
For most of the last two decades we have maintained a very rigid wall
between this country and Vietnam. During that time, slow progress was
made in resolving our POW/MIA cases. This administration and the last
have considered taking a new approach, which has had some good results
in getting the Vietnamese to come forward with more information.
Our Nation owes a huge debt of gratitude to Gen. John Vessey, former
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a veteran of three wars
including Vietnam, for much of the progress we have made so far in
convincing the Vietnamese to open their files. It was General Vessey
who, in the process of carrying out his important work as our Nation's
special envoy on this issue, began to break the stalemate with the
Vietnamese and to finally get significant information from them on our
POW/MIA cases.
Today General Vessey supports lifting the U.S. trade embargo,
believing this approach is the only way to continue to make real
progress in obtaining a full accounting on our POW's and MIA's.
Lifting the embargo and allowing Americans to participate in the
social, cultural, and economic life of Vietnam serves other goals in
addition to the overriding concern of resolving our POW cases. I am
deeply concerned about the political and social repression carried out
by the Vietnamese Government. Our Nation must continue to insist that
the Vietnamese Government greatly improve its human rights record.
We must use the new leverage we will gain economically to help the
Vietnamese people achieve social and political freedoms. Enhanced
Western contact with Vietnam may well have the effect of reducing the
economic imperative behind Vietnam's communist system, possibly paving
the way for political liberalization in Vietnam. Economic prosperity in
Vietnam, we can all hope, will foster democracy. We did not achieve
that goal through war. I have every hope that we can do so through
peace.
As many have said during the course of this debate, by lifting the
embargo and allowing United States trade and investment with Vietnam,
not only do we help the Vietnamese people, but we also help our own
economy here at home. My State of Washington stands to enjoy a strong
trading relationship with Vietnam. Boeing, for example, estimates they
could sell well over 3 billion dollars' worth of commercial airplanes
to Vietnam if the embargo were to be lifted--creating high wage United
States jobs.
Asia and Europe are already actively engaged in Vietnam, which
undermines the American embargo and calls into question its continued
effectiveness in giving the United States leverage on the POW/MIA
cases.
Regardless of the action taken by the Senate today, the families of
the POW's and MIA's will continue to have urgent questions for the
Government of Vietnam, and also for our own Government. The United
States must intensify efforts to resolve the outstanding POW/MIA cases,
and must continue to insist on obtaining the fullest possible
accounting by the Vietnamese. President Clinton has been vigilant on
this issue, and has continued the task of allowing for the
declassification of over a million pages of Pentagon documents related
to the POW's and MIA's.
In addition, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that a tragedy of
this magnitude does not occur again. We cannot ask young men and women
to go to war for our Nation without providing them with the greatest
possible assurances that they will not be left behind. While it must be
acknowledged that in the aftermath of most wars there have remained
those who have never been accounted for, we owe it to our troops to
make their recovery our highest national priority.
In closing, Mr. President, let us vote to lift the United States
economic embargo against Vietnam, and usher in a new era of cooperation
with the Vietnamese people so that we can finally receive the fullest
possible accounting for our missing in Vietnam.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, at this point, I will vote against the
resolution to lift the trade embargo against Vietnam because I feel
that the United States should take the toughest possible stand on human
rights reform in Vietnam.
I have listened very carefully to Senator Bob Kerrey, his statement
today and his eloquent testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations
committee last year offered much to consider. I have also paid great
attention to the arguments of Senators John Kerry and John McCain. I
have tremendous respect and admiration for their leadership in the
relentless search for unaccounted POW's and MIA's. I am thankful to
them for the service they have provided to our country, and their
opinions and conclusions carry great credibility with me. For me,
however, the primary question has revolved around human rights reform
in Vietnam.
I am sympathetic to arguments that the embargo is a remnant of an era
past; that banning trade with the enemy is no longer an appropriate
policy. I believe we must close the chapter of the Vietnam war.
Furthermore, the cold war is over, the United States is building
bridges throughout Asia, and it no longer makes sense to refuse
diplomatic relations with any country in the international community.
Trade and economic relations, though, have been a successful lever in
achieving human rights reform. Indeed, linkage is a strategy I support
in China, Indonesia, the former Eastern bloc, and elsewhere. And while
I do not advocate severing entire trade relationships with nations that
have oppressive human rights record, I think we have an opportunity to
leverage reform in a country where we are discussing resuming a trade
relationship.
The Government of Vietnam has imprisoned those voices for multiparty
democracy, United States citizens who are accused of trying to start
alternative political organizations, advocates of nonviolent
opposition. It has suppressed monks who simply advocate freedom of
worship, controlled the movements of clergy, and threatened and
punished those whose who disagree with the party ideology on religion.
The state controls on media are repressive. International humanitarian
organizations are not even allowed to work in Vietnam.
I applaud the administration's recent establishment of a formal
dialog on human rights with the Vietnamese. There are a couple of
minimal steps I think we should demand before we establish trade
relations, including the release of all nonviolent political prisoners,
and access for international humanitarian organizations to the
Vietnamese prisons. Conditions for most-favored-nation status to
China--a far smaller piece of the trade relationship--are more
stringent than that.
In the future, I also hope the administration will work in the United
Nations to actively support resolutions authorizing a visit to Vietnam
by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions. I also expect the
administration will be working with our allies, including Japan,
Australia, France, and Canada to appeal jointly to Vietnam for human
rights improvements.
The administration has made a strong commitment to human rights.
Given our history in Southeast Asia, the conditions in Vietnam are of
special concern to America, and I support pushing to the maximum degree
for reform. I do not believe that at this point that can best be
accomplished by trade relations and business people.
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I know that some are troubled by the
prospect of lifting the United States trade embargo against Vietnam.
This is a very painful issue for many, in particular veterans and
family members and friends of American servicemen who are still
classified as missing in action. As one who served on the Select
Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, I have followed this issue closely and
have reflected on how we should best proceed in our relations with
Vietnam.
Above all, I am committed to a full and final accounting of the fate
of all former American servicemen. For 19 years, we have maintained a
trade embargo against Vietnam, making it clear to the Vietnamese
Government that without progress on the POW/MIA issue, there would be
no progress on the normalization of relations between our two
countries.
Mr. President, if I believed that lifting the trade embargo against
Vietnam would stand in the way of our quest for the truth, I would be
firmly against it. The evidence, however, leads me to conclude
otherwise.
As Senators Kerry and McCain note in their amendments, there has been
substantial and tangible progress in the POW/MIA accounting process. In
the last few years, as Vietnam has sought to join the family of
nations, we have seen a significant increase in the level of
cooperation by the Vietnamese Government on resolving the fate of
American servicemen unaccounted for during the war in Vietnam.
We have seen a dramatic improvement in access for the U.S. military
to look for remains of U.S. servicemen. We have had unprecedented
opportunities to question Vietnamese in villages and in the
countryside. These individuals sometimes have useful information about
the whereabouts of U.S. personnel more than 20 years ago. And, we have
seen more information from Vietnam's archives.
There are still more than 2,000 who are listed as unaccounted for,
many because we have yet to locate or identify their remains. Because
of the difficulties in doing that, the process of resolving these cases
will take many more years. We cannot know for certain how much more
information the Vietnamese have and to what extent they are truly being
forthcoming. However, if we are to make any more progress in resolving
these cases, we must have the continued close cooperation of the
Vietnamese Government.
Lifting the trade embargo will not impede our progress in this area.
In fact, lifting the trade embargo is an important step in ensuring
that we have continued access to Vietnam and continued cooperation.
Lifting the trade embargo will bring many more Americans into Vietnam,
opening up that country even more and significantly contributing to our
efforts there. After nearly two decades of no answers, we cannot risk
losing our access to Vietnam again. If we lift the trade embargo, we
are opening the doors to that country once and for all, in the hope
that we are ensuring access for years to come.
As the amendments state, United States senior military commanders and
United States personnel working in the field to account for U.S. POW/
MIA's in Vietnam believe that lifting the United States trade embargo
against Vietnam will facilitate and accelerate the accounting efforts.
We must defer to their expertise on this matter.
Ultimately, the decision to lift the embargo is the President's
decision. I know that he will consult not only with senior military
commanders in the field, intimately involved in accounting for U.S.
servicemen from the war, but he will also consult with the veterans and
family members of POW/MIA's who feel so deeply about this issue.
Lifting the trade embargo is not a full normalization of relations
with Vietnam, and we should move cautiously in this area, as we have on
the issue of the trade embargo. We must also recognize that we can use
our leverage with the Vietnamese to press them to improve their record
on human rights.
Mr. President, this is an opportunity for us to do something positive
to end this painful chapter in our history once and for all.
Vote on Amendment no. 1263
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, all time on this
debate has expired. The question is on agreeing to the Kerry amendment
No. 1263.
The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
who desire to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 62, nays 38, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 5 Leg.]
YEAS--62
Akaka
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boren
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Chafee
Cochran
Cohen
Danforth
Daschle
Dodd
Exon
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Gorton
Graham
Harkin
Hatfield
Hollings
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnston
Kassebaum
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Mathews
McCain
McConnell
Metzenbaum
Mikulski
Mitchell
Moynihan
Murkowski
Murray
Nickles
Nunn
Packwood
Pell
Pressler
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Simon
Simpson
Stevens
Wallop
Warner
NAYS--38
Brown
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Coats
Conrad
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeConcini
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durenberger
Faircloth
Feingold
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Heflin
Helms
Hutchison
Kempthorne
Lautenberg
Lott
Lugar
Mack
Moseley-Braun
Riegle
Roth
Sasser
Shelby
Smith
Specter
Thurmond
Wellstone
Wofford
So the amendment (No. 1263) was agreed to.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the
amendment was agreed to.
Mr. ROBB. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
vote on amendment no. 1266
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
vote on the Smith amendment No. 1266. The question is on agreeing to
the amendment. The yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will
call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 42, nays 58, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 6 Leg.]
YEAS--42
Brown
Bryan
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Coats
Cohen
Conrad
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durenberger
Faircloth
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Heflin
Helms
Hutchison
Jeffords
Kempthorne
Lautenberg
Lott
Lugar
Mack
Moseley-Braun
Nickles
Reid
Riegle
Roth
Sasser
Shelby
Smith
Specter
Stevens
Thurmond
Wallop
Wellstone
NAYS--58
Akaka
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boren
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Bumpers
Chafee
Cochran
Danforth
Daschle
DeConcini
Dodd
Exon
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Gorton
Graham
Harkin
Hatfield
Hollings
Inouye
Johnston
Kassebaum
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Mathews
McCain
McConnell
Metzenbaum
Mikulski
Mitchell
Moynihan
Murkowski
Murray
Nunn
Packwood
Pell
Pressler
Pryor
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Simon
Simpson
Warner
Wofford
So the amendment (No. 1266) was rejected.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. FORD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to amendment No. 1262, as amended.
The amendment (No. 1262), as amended, was agreed to.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. PELL. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, let me just say if I can very quickly,
the majority leader has announced that we will work late tonight on the
bill, and if we cannot finish the bill tonight we are absolutely going
to be here tomorrow working with rollcall votes until 3 p.m.
So I urge colleagues to bring their amendments to the floor, and we
will try to process them as rapidly as possible.
Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
amendment no. 1267
(Purpose: To reduce the amount of appropriations authorized for the
National Endowment for Democracy)
Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers], for himself, Mr.
Dorgan, and Mr. Brown, proposes an amendment numbered 1267.
Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At page 103, strike lines 1 and 2 and insert in lieu
thereof the following:
``racy'' $35,000,000 for the fiscal year 1994 and $35,000,000
for the fiscal year 1995.''
Mr. BUMPERS. A moment ago, the Senator from Florida [Mr. Graham],
came up to me and said, ``What is your amendment?'' And I said, ``It is
to cut the authorization of the National Endowment for Democracy back
to this year's appropriation level.'' He said, ``Oh, Bumpers, are you
on that again? You remind me of that story about the inmates in the
prison calling out a number and everybody just roared with laughter.
And somebody said, `What in the world is so funny about calling out a
number?' And they said, `Well, we have told the same story so many
times we just give them a number. And when somebody calls that number,
we know what the joke is and we laugh.'''
I have been on this now, I think this is maybe my fourth year, and I
wish to assure my colleagues that this is not designed to kill the
National Endowment for Democracy, although I make no bones about the
fact I will try to do just that this fall during the appropriations
process.
To give our colleagues some idea of how this started, back in 1983,
when we first set up the NED, it was designed to help end the cold war.
It was designed to try to promote democracy all over the world.
I wish to show my colleagues with a simple little chart what has
happened. In 1984, we appropriated $18 million for the National
Endowment for Democracy--$18 million. And you can see that for the next
7 years the appropriation level stayed at or below that $18
million, always in the name of competing with communism around the
world, particularly with Soviet communism. The cold war effectively
ended in 1990-91. Instead of the National Endowment for Democracy
claiming victory and saying, ``Is this not wonderful?'' I want you to
look at what has happened to their authorization level and their
appropriations--from $17 million in 1990 to an authorization level in
this bill of $50 million. The appropriation level for 1994, this year,
is $35 million. And if you go to $50 million authorized and you
appropriate $50 million this fall, that will be a 42.8 percent
increase.
Madam President, I chair one of the Appropriations subcommittees, the
Agriculture Subcommittee on Appropriations. And before we mark up the
agriculture appropriation bill this fall, I will receive a letter from,
I guarantee you, every Member of the U.S. Senate asking me for $1 to
$10 million in that bill. And in the past we have been able to
accommodate a lot of people. Senator Byrd says that in an ordinary year
he gets 3,500 requests just for the Subcommittee on Interior.
But do you know what this body is confronted with this year? It is
called a cap on discretionary spending. That cap is going to be the
same amount as last year with no inflation, and 1995 and 1996 are going
to be the same as this year with no inflation. I am going to have to
say, as will Senator Byrd and all of the other subcommittee chairmen of
Appropriations subcommittees, ``My colleagues, I am sorry. There is no
money for your home State.'' A Senator told me 2 days ago that he tried
to get $50,000 to keep a boys club open in his State, a boys club in a
ghetto area. And he could not get $50,000. And he picked up the paper
and found that there is a $43 million courthouse going up in his State
that he had not even sought.
You heard the State of the Union Address the other night where the
President said we should increase money for drug rehabilitation by an
almost exponential amount. Head Start is going toward covering every
single eligible child in America. Immunization levels are going to
almost double. The WIC program is going to be substantially increased.
You heard all of that list about these tremendous sums of money that
the President is asking for 1995. I want you to tell me where the money
is coming from when we have a discretionary spending cap of $540
million which is what it was last year. And he says you cannot cut one
dime from defense.
I want you to look at this--about a 150-percent increase in the NED
budget in 4 years. The people in this body are going to be asking me,
``Could I get $1 million. I have been trying to get $1 million for 5
years for some project for my State that has great merit.'' And we are
going to have to say no. One of the reasons we are going to have to say
no is because we are raising authorization from this year's
appropriation of $35 million to $50 million. Who else in the U.S.
Government is getting a 42.8 percent increase? Why, it is bizarre in
this day and time.
Do you know what the President said the other night that resonated
strongly to the American people more than any other single thing he
said? He said that the deficit for 1995 is going to be $120 billion
less than we projected. Some of that is going to be because of the
increased economy. Some of it is going to be because of spending cuts,
and a good big portion of it is because interest rates are so low we
are not having to pay as much interest on the national debt.
But you cannot have it every way you want it, Madam President. You
cannot increase all of those things he was talking about the other
night, and say not one dime to be cut from defense. You are not going
to be able to finance those things which come under the discretionary
spending cap and give the National Endowment for Democracy, which is
the greatest boondoggle since Adam and Eve, a 42.8-percent increase.
Who gets the money? That is one of the most interesting things of
all, and it is one of the reasons that I always lose. I lose every time
I bring this up for two simple reasons: No. 1 is because the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the Democratic National Committee,
and the Republican National Committee get all but 29 percent of the
money. That is the first reason I lose.
Do you know the second reason I lose? It is because of who is on the
board. The last time I fought this out, there was a Senator on the
floor defending this program saying it is the greatest thing since
night baseball. Lo and behold, I looked at the members of the board of
the National Endowment for Democracy and what do you think? That
Senator was on the board. Let me read some of them to you. They are
outstanding people. They are my friends.
Senator Lugar, not the person I just referred to, is on the board.
Tom Kean, erstwhile Governor of New Jersey is on the board. John Joyce;
James Joseph; Fred Ikle, who was big in the Bush administration; Steny
Hoyer, sort of my Congressman. I live in his district in Maryland,
great Congressman; Lynn Cutler, wonderful woman; John Brademas, former
Member of Congress, now president of New York University, a very dear
friend; Harry Barnes, Jr., former Member of the House who is now with I
think a public relations firm downtown; all fine people. And all with
some considerable political clout in this community.
So when you start looking at that, you can see why I have never won
on this issue. What is $15 million to this crowd? As I say, I am not
trying to cut the money now. I am simply trying to keep the amount of
money that we are going to appropriate this fall under control.
Do you want to know who this is, Madam President? It is 9.8 percent,
my party, the Democratic National Committee. They get 9.8 percent of
what is likely to be $50 million this fall. So you think David Wilhelm
does not favor this? Why, of course, he does. The National Republican
Institute [NRI], 10.7 percent; I do not know why we Democrats sit still
while the Republicans get almost a full percentage point more than we
do. I must tell you I do not understand why either one of them are
getting a red cent. But there is 20 percent of the NED budget right
there to the two national parties in the form of noncompetitive grants.
Here is the AFL-CIO, FTUI, 40 percent. Do you think Lane Kirkland is
not going to weigh in this fall? Do you think labor is not going to be
calling the Members of this body to say, ``Please do not vote with
Senator Bumpers, we need the money?'' CIPE, an arm of the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, whom I thought hated every kind of Federal spending; they
are getting 10.6 percent. And why they sit still for labor getting 40
percent is beyond me. But why the American people sit still for any of
these people getting a dime is beyond me. Why Members of the U.S.
Senate sit still for anybody getting this money is beyond me.
The House voted overwhelmingly last year to kill this. People of this
country are beginning to look increasingly to the House of
Representatives as the responsible party for spending cuts and budget
balancing. If it had not been for the House of Representatives, we
would never have killed the super collider. If not for the House of
Representatives, we would have never killed the solid rocket motor
program.
So why does the U.S. Senate, for a change, not do its duty and say to
the American people, ``me, too'' when it comes to spending cuts?
I am most reluctant, Mr. President, to get into all of the things
that have gone wrong with this program. But let me just give you a full
illustration. I have told you that the purposes of the National
Endowment for Democracy no longer exist. It is absolutely nothing short
of bizarre that the cold war ends and their budget triples after that.
In 4 years, look at the increases. Where is the money going? Here is
Business Week: ``In 1984, $20,000 of this money went to the AFL-CIO.
They sent it to a union in Panama during the Presidential elections.''
So what do you think happened then? They are promoting a guy named
Barletta, who is the military candidate for President in Panama. And
the Ambassador to Panama wrote to the State Department and said: ``The
Embassy requests that this harebrained project be abandoned before the
you-no-what hits the fan.''
November 17, 1984, the Washington Post:
$830,000 spent on a right-wing French students
organization, and then turned around and put $650,000 into a
white-collar workers union.
Two organizations that hated each other, on opposite sides of the
political spectrum. They gave one $830,000 and the other $650,000.
Surely to God, somebody is concerned about this.
New York Times, December 4, 1989:
$1.4 million secretly channeled through an overseas branch
of our unions to two center-right groups in France who were
opposed to Francois Mitterand,
Our friend.
Surely to goodness, somebody cares that we are sending $1.4 million
to the strongest opponent of Francois Mitterand in France, our friend.
How do you think President Clinton would feel about going to a meeting
with President Mitterand immediately after he discovered that the
taxpayers of this country put up $1.4 million to a group who were
adamantly opposed to his Presidency?
There are a whole host of these. I am not going to clutter the Record
with more and more of these, but the list is endless. If you want to
know where the money is going, come and see me or, better still, get a
copy of the March 1991 General Accounting Office study of this
organization. I want you to know that Dale Bumpers is not just making
these things up. You get a copy of the General Accounting Office
report.
Mr. President, I do not want to take a lot of time, and there are
others in the Senate who wish to speak and that I have promised the
right to speak. I just close with this: All of these years, I have
supported foreign aid. I say to the chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee that I think I have only voted against one Foreign Relations
bill since I have been here. I do it for a lot of reasons. I do it
because oftentimes it means economic assistance, and that translates
into agricultural products that are grown in my State-- self-interest.
I do it because I am a humanitarian and we are very lucky to live in
the United States, and people in other countries are not so lucky. So I
believe in helping our fellow man. It is a Judeo-Christian concept. I
do it because I believe in democracy, and I think when the United
States spreads $15 billion a year around the globe, it helps a lot of
countries to stabilize their governments. Democracy, somebody said in
Asia, invariably follows economic prosperity. So this is what we have
been promoting with foreign aid as long as I can remember--democracy.
Then there is the Agency for International Development, they spent
$296 million on democracy-building activities in 1993. Do you know what
that is for? That is to help people help themselves. It is to help
democracy take root and let them know that the United States is a great
Nation, because we are a democracy. We want people to emulate our
democratic principles.
The U.S. Information Agency. What do we do? We use powerful radio
signals to beam all over Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union, saying democracy is wonderful, why do you not emulate us?
And in the past--I emphasize ``in the past''--I have voted for that,
and especially when the cold war was raging. I thought it made a lot of
sense to give the people of Russia and the Soviet Union some hope. If
you want a piece of democracy in Russia, grab a corner on a Moscow
street and start preaching. And then $14 billion--I do not have it on
here, but there was $14 billion for foreign aid; $383 million for the
U.S. Information Agency; $296 million for the Agency for International
Development, all to promote democracy around the world. And then we
come with this little token thing, the NED. I thought those other
institutions were promoting democracy, but I find the National
Endowment for Democracy at the end of the cold war giving money to the
AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce. That is what did it according to
the proponents of NED.
Someone said to me, are you going to vote against the President? If
the President favors this, I certainly am. I do not know what he is
going to seek in his budget for NED, but I can tell you one thing. I am
going to try to take it out if there is anything in it.
I remind colleagues all I am doing now is saying please do not
authorize a 42.8-percent increase in a highly questionable program.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from North
Dakota [Mr. Dorgan].
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to stand today in support as
a cosponsor of the Bumpers amendment and hope very much that the Senate
will accept it.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield a minute?
Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield to my friend.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator
Nickles of Oklahoma, Senator Feingold of Wisconsin, and Senator Brown
of Colorado as cosponsors. Senator Dorgan is already a cosponsor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from North Dakota.
THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this debate, I suppose, will be cast as a
debate about foreign policy, about democracy and how to promote
democracy, about whether we support the furtherance of democracy in the
world. It is not that at all.
This is a debate, plain and simple, about whether we want to continue
to waste money. In fact, the amendment offered by the Senator from
Arkansas is far too timid. The amendment really ought to strip this
authorization, period. We ought not to be authorizing money for this
program.
The National Endowment for Democracy takes money from the American
taxpayers in order to duplicate work that is already being done
elsewhere. It is a flat-out waste of money. It confirms my long-held
notion that someone supports every dollar spent by the Federal
Government anywhere on anything. The people who benefit by a program
invariably support that program. They have been clever enough in this
program to do pretty much what they did in Star Wars. They moved that
Star Wars money all around America, parking it in universities,
research institutes, think tanks, and the like. All of sudden, every
Senator and every Representative had a constituent saying, ``you know,
you need to support that Star Wars program, because it benefits our
State or our district.''
It is the same thing now. You watch this debate, especially the
debate on the appropriation later this year. You watch who stands up
and supports this sort of thing. They have been smart. I do not deny
that. Some of this taxpayers' money in a taxpayer-sponsored program
goes to the National Republican Party, another part to the National
Democratic Party, another batch to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and
yet a bigger batch to the U.S. AFL-CIO.
Do you think those folks do not support this program? You bet your
life they do. They get money from it.
What is the National Endowment for Democracy? Well, it was conceived
in the dark days of the cold war when the Soviets were the ``Evil
Empire.'' A pall was over Eastern European countries. They struggled
under communism. The Communist boot was pressing on their chest. Here
in the United States, we worried about Central America and the troubles
in Nicaragua. You can go on and on and on. This program was conceived
in those dark days of the cold war as a response to threats to
democracy around the world.
I did not support it then. I did not vote for it then. Why? Even then
we did what we do now. We work to further democracy using nearly 900
million other dollars. The State Department, through the Agency for
International Development, the U.S. Information Agency, and the Defense
Department, spend nearly $900 million on precisely this mission.
Those who conceived of the National Endowment for Democracy said,
``Well, let us do it in another way. Let us give our political
institutions, our labor and business institutions, some taxpayers'
money so that they can further democracy.''
There is an unfortunate undertone to this NED debate. People think
that those of us who want to cut this program--and I think we should
abolish the program--that we just do not get it; we are too short to
see over the horizon; we just do not understand how the world works; we
just came to town driving pick-up trucks. We just cannot figure it out.
Furtunately, there are others who are wiser and more stable, and who
have a greater world view, and they understand exactly what this is for
and why it benefits the world.
Let me disabuse everyone of this notion. We do get it. If the NED
were about furthering democracy, if it were needed, if it were
efficient, and if the money was spent wisely, I would be the first to
stand and support it. But this is a boondoggle. This is waste in
Government. It should not continue.
In the past couple of months, I have taken some time to go down and
sit at D.C. Superior Court. I wonder if my colleagues have done that.
If they have not, they might consider it. Take a day and sit down in
D.C. Superior Court and then take a day and sit in an inner-city high
school in Washington, DC, and take a day and sit at a welfare office in
the inner city. You know what you come back with? You come back with
the notion that we face such profound, agonizing, wrenching, huge
problems that it is almost impossible even to describe them. I am going
to come to the floor and try to describe some of them soon.
But this challenge requires investment. It requires us to pay
attention to things that make life better and give opportunity to the
people in this country.
The President said the other night, in the State of the Union
Address, that he is going to propose cutting 300 programs--300
programs. Well, will NED be cut? No. This authorization comes to the
floor, and NED's proponents would have us increase its funding
dramatically. We are talking about doubling NED in just a couple years,
at a time when we face wrenching problems inside this country. I am not
talking about earthquakes, fires, and floods. I am talking about the
sea of human misery that exists all over the country. This very city is
the cocaine capital of the world and the murder capital of the world. A
million babies were born without two parents last year in our country.
We have all kinds of problems stretching our budget to the limit. We
are cutting Federal programs, and we have to do that. I am not
complaining about it. But this program, the one that provides
taxpayers' cash to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, the
AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--does this get cut? Do they
have a belt around this waist? No, not this one. On this one, they say,
``Heck, we do not have a budget problem. Let us just pour some more
cash into this program.'' They are pouring cash into a program that has
been widely and I think accurately criticized for its lack
accountability, its poor management of money, and its questionable
approach in the way it runs programs.
I know it is easy to criticize. But NED sets up conferences in
London, Tokyo, and Vienna that--look, I know why people support this,
but it is wrong. It is wasteful.
This amendment is far too timid. I said that when I started. We ought
to be here cutting it entirely. I suspect the Senator will. If he does
not, I will zero out NED in the appropriations bill, and we will have
another long debate then.
I am pleased that we have Senator Bumpers on the floor, not just on
this issue but on 6 or 8 or 10 issues, routinely saying ``These things
do not make sense. And we want you to stand up and try to defend them
because we believe they ought to be cut.''
My hope, Mr. President, is we can take this modest step, the most
modest of steps, to exhibit the least amount of fiscal discipline. This
amendment caps spending on NED for 2 years. If we do not have the good
sense to up this program, we do not have the sense to deal with this
country's vexing fiscal problems.
So I commend the Senator from Arkansas. I am anxious to hear the rest
of the debate and I am anxious to vote, I hope with the majority, to at
least cap this program at its current level.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. SARBANES addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Maryland
[Mr. Sarbanes].
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I like to find myself in the company of
the distinguished Senator from Arkansas when I can, because I enjoy
listening to him. Of course, it is easier to listen to him with a good
feeling if you agree with him; although it is also interesting to
listen to him when you do not agree with him, which happens to be the
case here today.
I want to address what seems to be a central premise of the argument
he makes here on the floor, because I disagree with it very sharply. He
said that with the end of the cold war, the purposes of the National
Endowment for Democracy no longer exist. We saw a chart that showed how
much funding was being channeled through the National Endowment for
Democracy. There was an increase at about the time of the end of the
cold war, and the argument was being made that this somehow was counter
to what one would have expected.
I submit just the contrary; just the contrary. The purposes for which
the National Endowment for Democracy was established have heightened
and intensified with the end of the cold war because the triumph of
democracy in large parts of Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe is far
from ensured.
Earlier, there was a period when we were trying to encourage
democratic forces within totalitarian societies. At that time, our
options were very sharply limited because of the kind of totalitarian
control that in some instances excluded those trying to help the
indigenous democratic forces, or in other instances only allowed them
to work at the margin.
Yes, there was had the collapse of the Soviet Union, but what came
out of that were greater challenges, not lesser challenges, for
building democracy. And so now we are faced with the task of trying to
strengthen fragile democratic governments and movements around the
world. It is a central part of President Clinton's foreign policy
vision.
In fact, the President wrote to us only a few months ago when we had,
in essence, this very same debate. I just want to quote him where he
expressed his very strong support for the National Endowment for
Democracy. Let me just quote President Clinton:
Supporting the worldwide movement toward democracy is one
of the best investments we can make in our own national
security. The National Endowment for Democracy has been one
of our most important and effective instruments for
supporting democracy abroad. Now, with new democracies and
democratic movements gaining strength, from the former Soviet
Union to Africa to Latin America, we need to make our support
for democracy an even higher priority.
Mr. President, I agree with that. A key component of this policy of
making our support for democracy an even higher priority is the
National Endowment for Democracy, an organization which offers
assistance to struggling democracies around the world, largely through
grants passed through the organizations which the Senator from Arkansas
discussed earlier--the two major political party organizations in this
country, the Chamber of Commerce, and the trade union movement. All of
them, of course, are very intimately involved in making democracy work
in this country and all of them, through the National Endowment for
Democracy programs, have played an instrumental role in trying to
develop and nurture and strengthen democratic governments and movements
around the world.
The President, in the course of setting his budget priorities, never
asserted that there were not some items that needed additional support.
What the President said is that he is squeezing the budget in order to
stay below the caps set by the Congress and he is shifting priorities
to put greater emphasis on those things that are most important. The
administration's emphasis on NED reflects the priority and the
commitment it attaches to this issue.
The National Endowment for Democracy has been providing vital
assistance to pro-democracy movements on every continent. Lech Walesa
has attested, in the strongest possible terms, to how essential that
support was to the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, to take but one
example. Pro-democracy forces in China, in Chile, in South Africa, in
the Middle East, in the new independent states of the former Soviet
Union--all have gained strength from the programs of the National
Endowment for Democracy.
I listened very carefully to the distinguished Senator from Arkansas.
Of course, he cited some abuses in the program. But I want to say to my
colleagues that a major effort has been undertaken over the last few
years to prevent any such departure from proper standards.
In fact, the Senator quoted a GAO report pointing out what they
thought were some weaknesses in carrying out the program. But he did
not quote the GAO followup report in which the GAO offered a positive
assessment of NED's response, noting the GAO's belief that if the
Endowment effectively carries out the actions it has begun and plans to
begin, then its endowment planning, evaluation, monitoring, and
financial control capabilities would be improved.
In other words, no institution is perfect, and the people at NED were
the first to recognize that. They have tightened up the control
procedures, the grant monitoring procedures. They have instituted these
new procedures at every stage of the grant process from receipt of the
proposal through award, monitoring, and audit to final closeout. They
have in fact taken extensive measures to respond to the GAO report
which the distinguished Senator cited.
So let us be fair. Let us recognize this significant and successful
effort to respond to some weaknesses that were pointed out and to
institute the very control and evaluation procedures that the GAO had
recommended.
That is what the National Endowment for Democracy has done. It is a
small, cost-effective, nongovernmental institution which provides
tremendous benefits for the amount of resources that it invests in
helping to make a safer world that is beneficial to American security
and economic interests.
Around the world, those who have been leading the fight for democracy
and for stability have repeatedly cited the help and the assistance
which has come from the National Endowment for Democracy as being
essential to their work--Yelena Bonner, the Dalai Lama, Oscar Arias,
Lech Walesa, Vytautas Landsbergis, and on and on. Around the world,
those who are carrying out the fight to establish and sustain
democratic institutions have pointed to this program as critical to
their efforts.
So, contrary to what my colleague has asserted, the end of the cold
war has not lessened the need for the National Endowment for Democracy.
It has in fact intensified the need, because the lifting of the
oppressive totalitarian control provides an opportunity to establish
democratic institutions and build democratic forces.
But that is not guaranteed. It is not a certainty that this is going
to happen. As we look around the world and see the challenge which
democratic forces confront, we ought to gain some deepened appreciation
of the task that lies ahead. We should applaud the effective work that
is being done through the National Endowment for Democracy, working
through the various grantees which include, of course, the two party
institutes, various labor movement organizations, the Chamber of
Commerce, and a number of indigenous human rights groups, women's civic
organizations, experts on conflict resolution, and others committed to
promoting the rule of law, fair elections, democratic culture, and
other essentials of democracy.
Let me address just one other point before I draw to a close. It was
asserted in the course of the debate thus far--and I notice my
colleague has a chart which will seek to assert this point further--
that there is an overlap or a duplication in the Government's
democratic development activities, because AID and the USIA also devote
part of their budgets to this activity. The conclusion that is sought
to be drawn from that is that the National Endowment for Democracy is
unnecessary or superfluous.
This argument was made this past summer when we had a debate on this
issue during consideration of the appropriations bill. At that time,
the Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development,
Brian Atwood, and the Director of the U.S. Information Agency, Joseph
Duffey, communicated with the Congress, and it is my understanding that
their position today is the same as was expressed then. I just want to
quote briefly from what they said at that time.
Democratic development is an essential part of economic
development and the preservation of peace, and a natural
concern of the American people. We believe that the National
Endowment for Democracy fulfills a distinctive and critical
role in promoting democratic development and building free
societies.
Like the National Endowment for Democracy, U.S. AID and
USIA are also engaged in helping to build democracy. But the
National Endowment for Democracy has a distinctive capability
for providing early and critical institutions and business
and labor groups--the elements of ``civil society'' upon
which the larger structures of democratic governance
ultimately must rest. NED and its institutes do this by
engaging counterpart groups and leaders from our own non-
Government sectors.
They then go on to say that a procedure has been established for
consultation on NED-funded programs prior to their implementation to
ensure ``that such programs are not duplicative of other efforts and do
not contradict U.S. national interests.'' According to the letter from
the heads of USIA and AID, and I quote:
``The three organizations''--this would be NED, AID, and USIA--
The three organizations each play unique and distinctive
roles in this area and are working closely with the other
agencies and with Congress to eliminate or prevent the
possibility of future duplication * * *
We would also remind you that there are some nations where
assistance is desired, needed, and can have a measurable
effect but where restrictions in law bar activities by U.S.
AID and USIA. The NED often is the only organization that can
establish a presence in such countries.
They conclude by saying:
Funding the National Endowment for Democracy is an
extremely cost-effective investment for the United States,
our allies, and the cause of freedom. Democratic movements
around the world have saved the United States untold billions
of dollars in defense spending alone.
So, Mr. President, that addresses the duplication or the repetition
contention. We have talked, of course, about the scrub-down of NED's
monitoring and evaluation procedures and financial controls that has
taken place as a followup to some of the criticisms that were made. I
want to commend them for responding in a positive and constructive way
in order to try to address that issue.
Let me underscore that NED, working through these institutes, is able
to maximize the involvement of people in the private sector, many of
whom engage in these democracy-building efforts. They engage in them
completely out of their own pockets. They get their expenses covered,
but they are giving of their time and effort and energy in order to
help build democracy in many of the countries where that opportunity is
now open to us for the first time.
Finally, I close with the observation with which I began, and that is
that the end of the cold war does not mean, as it has been asserted,
that the purpose for which the National Endowment of Democracy was
established no longer exists. In fact, the end of the cold war has
intensified the necessity for these kinds of activities. We have a very
large stake around the world in the success of these democratic
movements. It is critically important to us that in Russia, in Eastern
Europe, in the other states of the former Soviet Union, in Africa, in
Asia, and in Latin America that the movements toward democracy--in many
instances, very tenuous and very fragile--succeed.
The National Endowment for Democracy, working through its various
institutes, has made, by all evaluations, a critically important and
positive contribution to this effort. And now, at the very moment when
we have the opportunity to reap the benefits of the end of the cold
war, is not the time to step back.
The President recognized that. The President said:
Supporting the worldwide movement toward democracy is one
of the best investments we can make in our own national
security. The National Endowment for Democracy has been one
of our most important and effective instruments for
supporting democracy abroad.
Now, with new democracies and democratic movements gaining
strength from the former Soviet Union to Africa to Latin
America, we need to make our support for democracy an even
higher priority.
Mr. President, I urge the defeat of this amendment.
Mr. PELL addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Rhode
Island, Senator Pell.
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, this amendment raises an issue the committee
and the Senate have already debated and decided. In committee, an
amendment to eliminate funding for NED was defeated by a voice vote and
then later during Senate consideration was defeated by a 74-to-23 vote.
There is a reason the Senate has been so clear on this issue:
Eliminating funding for the National Endowment for Democracy is the
wrong thing to do.
The NED has played a valuable role in promoting democracy in a number
of nations where it has taken hold, where democracy thrives and where
it seemed unlikely just 10 years ago. The importance of NED in this
transition has been disclosed by the likes of Lech Walesa and Vaclav
Havel.
With its relatively small grants, the NED can have a profound impact
on strengthening democratic processes.
At the time of the Senate debate on the appropriations measure
sometime back, there was an outpouring of support for the NED,
including on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and New
York Times. I ask unanimous consent that two editorials supporting NED
funding from those papers be printed in the Record, together with a
letter from President Clinton to Senator Mitchell.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
What People Around the World Are Saying About the National Endowment
for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute
``The NED has proved to be one of our most effective means
for supporting grass-roots trade union, business and citizen
groups, which form the basis for democratic reform. By
fostering such reforms abroad, we not only project our own
values, we also increase our own security and create better
partners for trade and global problem solving.
``The promotion of democracy abroad is a cornerstone of my
Administration's foreign policy. It reflects our national
values and enhances our own security by expanding the
community of free nations. The work of the National
Democratic Institute has advanced this important goal and
made a difference in so many nations that are seeking to
build democratic societies.''--Bill Clinton.
``The work of the National Endowment for Democracy and its
affiliates in promoting civic education and the transition to
free market economics and pluralistic democracies has proven
to be extremely cost-effective. The money spent in promoting
democracy is money saved in responding to civil conflicts.
``I have been impressed not only with NDI's dedication, but
with its innovative and effective democratic development
programs. NDI is in the forefront of the worldwide democratic
movement and has contributed significantly to peaceful
political reform and the consolidation of democratic
ideas.''--Jimmy Carter.
``The National Democratic Institute has been one of the
first supporting actors in the democratic revolution in our
country. The Institute's practical advice contributed
significantly to our first free elections. We appreciate such
forms of mutual cooperation that could effectively help in
building new democratic societies of Central and Eastern
Europe.''--Vaclav Havel.
``. . . [I]t is vital, both to the United States and to the
future of democracy all through the developing world, for the
work of the NDI to continue. . . . NDI sent international
observer teams to both the 1988 and 1990 elections for the
National Assembly. Although no team of observers can
absolutely guarantee the freeness and fairness of elections,
the presence of the NDI had a chilling effect on overt fraud,
corruption and political violence. . . . NDI has become an
invaluable political resource in our country, helping us
through these very difficult days of our transition from
autocracy to democracy.''--Benazir Bhutto.
``. . . [E]limination [of the NED] will be a blow to the
emergence of democracy in many areas of the globe. Countries
making the transition to a democratic system of government .
. . face numerous obstacles which must be overcome. I have
personally been involved in this struggle in Albania where
the National Democratic Institute and the International
Republican Institute have been active since 1991. They were,
in fact, the first democrats from outside our long isolated
country to arrive to help us. They have proven to be the most
reliable friends. Their activities and support have been
extremely valuable in Albania's continuing emergence from
communism to democratic governance.''--Sali Berisha,
President of Albania.
``The National Endowment embodies America's broad-based and
bipartisan support for freedom. The Endowment's pioneering
programs are models of how democratic principles can be given
practical expression in every single region of the world.''--
Secretary of State, Warren Christopher.
``The NED helps democracy by means of small but life-giving
grants for trade unions, student groups, publications, legal
assistance for the persecuted, and other measures. It has a
record of success in helping democracy put down roots in
stony social soil.''--George Will, Syndicated Columnist.
``Iraqis fighting Saddam Hussein say one American
organization in particular helps keep alive their hopes that
democracy has a chance in their country. China's dissidents,
at home or in exile, know and bless its name--the National
Endowment for Democracy.''--A.M. Rosenthal, Syndicated
Columnist.
``Backers of NED point out that the Cold War might be over,
but the triumph of democracy in large parts of Asia, Africa
and Eastern Europe is far from ensured. All sorts of hostile
elements are ready to strangle democracy in the crib . . .
The Senate next month has a chance to undo damage [of the
House vote to kill NED] and keep the United States on the
side of building democracy in the world''--David Broder,
Syndicated Columnist.
``The closing of the Endowment poses a danger . . . which
can best be characterized by the proverb, `a penny wise, a
pound foolish.'''--Elena Bonner, Widow of Andrei Sakharov.
``The pro-democracy movements of many countries, including
China, are directly encouraged by NED's efforts. It is true
that the Cold War is over, but that does not mean that
democracy has been achieved. In fact, many countries in this
world are still ruled by oligarchic dictatorships, still lack
the freedom of speech, still have not meaningful elections
and still hold political prisoners. Therefore, NED's
functions are still absolutely necessary for the leadership
of the US in international affairs.''--Fang Lizhi, Chinese
astrophysicist.
``Lithuania's democratic forces need NED's assistance today
as much as they needed its help in 1989 and 1990 . . . the
return of anti-democratic regimes in Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet Union and the resurgence of imperial forces in
Russia is an ever-present threat not just to the citizens of
those countries, but also to those of the United States.''--
Vyautus Landsbergis, Former President of Lithuania.
``We, the Third World people in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America, still have a life-and-death struggle for democracy,
freedom and justice against ruthless dictatorships. The NED's
support for our struggles, in the face of severely limited
resources, is very crucial and could make a difference
between total victory and defeat for the democratic forces. .
. . [W]e have achieved much in our struggle because of the
support given by NED. . . . [R]educing or cutting of NED's
support would surely weaken to a great extent democratic
movements in general and our struggle in particular.''--Dr.
Sein Win, Prime Minister of Burma.
``Often mistakenly portrayed as an anti-communist relic,
NED is instead a pioneer of the pro-democracy activism that
emerged on every continent in the 1980s.''--Scripps Howard
News Service editorial.
``Because of what NED has done for Iraq since the Gulf War,
it has been possible for Iraqi writers and human rights
activists to get their ideas and aspirations into Iraq. . . .
Reports still reach me of the effect of this kind of work in
creating a new and enriching climate of ideas on issues of
democracy and the imperative for a central focus on human
rights in the building of a new order in Iraq. None of this
would have been possible without the backing of the National
Endowment for Democracy. . . . The work of the NED affects
millions of lives and must continue.''--Kanan Makiyn, Iraqi
author Republic of Fear and Cruelty of Silence.
``. . . [T]he democratic revolution in Ukraine is not yet
finished. . . . the help of the National Endowment for
Democracy is still very important for Ukraine. We are
grateful to NED for its contribution to the development of
democracy. That is the best proof of the American peoples'
devotion to democratic ideals.''--From a letter signed by
nine members of the Ukrainian parliament.
____
[From the New York Times, July 27, 1993]
Fix, But Don't Kill, the N.E.D.
In a surprising turnabout in June, the House of
Representatives voted to kill funding for the National
Endowment for Democracy. By Washington standards, the money
is trivial--$48 million--but the principle is scarcely petty.
Unless the Senate decides otherwise this week, it will mark
the end of the N.E.D., which was established during the
Reagan years to promote democracy abroad and is now supported
by President Clinton.
Opponents charge that the endowment is a cold-war fossil
whose mission has been compromised by its peculiar status as
a private foundation using public funds. They point with
alarm to dubious grants to right-wing trade unions or exile
groups favored by one or another of four ``core''
intermediaries who make the grants--the Republican and
Democratic parties, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce. But one can acknowledge the point and still wonder
if the right remedy is to scuttle the program rather than
repair it.
Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, who led the House
rebellion, called the endowment ``an insult to the
Constitution'' because it has provided tax money to private
groups to carry on foreign affairs. But there has long been a
workable partnership in disaster relief, without anyone
perceiving an insult. And the same House voted $127 million
to subsidize the overseas marketing of prunes, whisky, candy
and fruit juice, a form of private sector partnership it
found less offensive than helping democrats in post-Communist
and third-world countries.
It is nevertheless true that the endowment needs a
different structure. Mr. Clinton has defined promotion of
democracy as one of the pillars of U.S. foreign policy. It is
far better for both recipient and donor if American help is
openly provided. Those aims could be achieved, and
constitutional qualms met, if the N.E.D. was reborn as a
fully public institution answerable to taxpayers through
Congress or the President.
Why not give the N.E.D. a fresh charter under a blue-
ribbon, publicly appointed board directly empowered to
approve grants, thus removing private groups from the scene?
That's a more promising approach than abandoning the field
just when democrats elsewhere desperately need support.
____
[From the Wall Street Journal, July 26, 1993]
House Hobbles Democracy
The Cold War is over, but obviously we face an unstable
world, clearly portending a struggle of ideas and values. Yet
the House of Representatives voted to scuttle the National
Endowment for Democracy, a federally funded outfit that hands
out pencils, fax machines and used computers to exile groups
pushing to bring democracy to their embattled homelands. This
week we'll find out if the Senate duplicates this
preposterous move.
The House professed budget-cutting, saving the lordly sum
of around $48 million, or half the funding that goes to the
National Endowment for the Humanities (see above). It's also
about equivalent to what the U.S. spend on missiles alone
when it launched the June 26 strike at Saddam Hussein's
intelligence facilities. And the Agency for International
Development gets some $6.5 billion a year. A lot for Third-
World pork, but nothing for spreading American values.
In the confusing, regionalized years since communism's
retreat, NED's projects have proven particularly useful. The
endowment helps Iraqi exiles to fight for secular democracy
in their home; its funds helped pay for the distribution of
thousands of copies of Charter 91, the exiled Iraqis' draft
bill of rights, inside Saddam's Iraq. This year the Free Iraq
Foundation, an important center for Saddam's opposition
abroad, received $90,000 in NED money.
NED funds have also helped Ukrainians seeking to widen
political discussion in a nation currently led by the former
local chief of ideology; Lebanese interested in working on
conflict resolution; independent Vietnamese publishers who
produced tons of documents, cassettes and printed material
designed to alert information-deprived Vietnamese to the
breakdown of socialism in Eastern Europe; and Chinese
fighting for democracy in the airless atmosphere following
Tiananmen Square.
Writing from his Arizona refuge in support of NED,
dissident Fang Lizhi noted that ``it would be wonderful if
democracy did indeed grow automatically out of economic
development but history gives us, unfortunately, no such
guarantees.'' The publisher of the Vietnamese magazine Que Me
noted that through NED funding the periodical made ``real
headway in bringing a flow of information and democractic
ideas which was totally denied in Vietnam.'' Vytautas
Landsbergis, Lithuania's opposition leader, called the
democracy endowment's work ``crucial.'' Elena Bonner wrote
that cutting NED was ``penny wise, pound foolish.''
What escapes the endowment's opponents is the miraculous
economy of NED-style programs. Had the West spent a few tens
of millions producing some effective propaganda for the
airwaves around Belgrade during the 1980s, for example,
Slobodan Milosevic likely would never have gained his
Orwellian stronghold on the minds of Serbian nationals. Radio
Free Europe never made it into Tito's Yugoslavia because U.S.
lawmakers deemed the nation ``relatively democratic.''
This week promises to bring some interesting news on the
foreign aid front: Joe Biden has threatened to filibuster to
save the life of another effective information vehicle, Radio
Free Europe. Since Congress knocked NED off its version of
the budget legislation in June, the agency has received
numerous letters of support. NED also has some White House
friends who could be of help: until his recent ascendancy,
David Gergen sat on NED's board.
____
The White House,
Washington, July 27, 1993.
Hon. George Mitchell,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Leader: I am writing to express my strong support
for the $35 million in funding for the National Endowment for
Democracy recommended by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Supporting the world-wide movement toward democracy is one
of the best investments we can make in our own national
security. NED has been one of our most important and
effective instruments for supporting democracy abroad.
Now, with new democracies and democratic movements gaining
strength from the former Soviet Union to Africa to Latin
America, we need to make our support for democracy an even
higher priority. The $35 million appropriation now before the
Senate, while short of the $50 million I requested, would at
least enable us to increase our support for those who are
waging democracy's fight abroad.
I hope you will convey to the Senate my strong support for
the full $35 million appropriation for this important
program.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton.
____
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to defeat this
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition? The Senator from
Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter].
____________________