[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 109 (Friday, June 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6686-H6689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HANOI VISIT CANCELED
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. DORNAN. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today under
unprecedented circumstances. I had signed up for this special order
earlier in the week, had moved to cancel it this morning, because at
this moment I was supposed to be taking off from Andrews Air Force Base
on a congressional delegation to Hanoi. It was a delegation led by
minority Members in the other body, the U.S. Senate.
Any minute, a page, Madam Speaker, is going to bring out my passport
stamped this morning with a visa by the Vietnamese section, we do not
have diplomatic relations with Vietnam, with a visa to go to Hanoi on
this trip. Across my visa, I have just been informed by one of my
staffers who speaks Vietnamese is the word ``canceled'' and my visa was
canceled by a telephone contact of a U.S. Senator, a minority Senator,
who was elected to this House in 1974.
Now, I have the press waiting for me out on the grassy triangle
following the press conference by the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr.
Smith] on abuses in Communist China. I hope it goes long enough that I
can finish this special order and there will still be some press
waiting.
Within a few feet of where the press conference will take place is my
automobile with all of my bags in it. I packed five suits and enough
clothing for 5 or 6 days in Vietnam, Hanoi. I had packed only one piece
of reading, McNamara's disgraceful, evil book on Vietnam and how he
knew before he even sent the first Marines in there that he had no plan
or strategy for victory and would be squandering lives for whatever
length of time it took, and it took 5 years under him and another 5
years before we had decided we were going to desert the democracy in
South Vietnam.
Here is the press release which I will read, Madam Speaker, and that
I am giving to the press in a few moments out in front: ``For immediate
release, June 30, 1995,'' precisely 20 years and 2 months since the
Communist forces out of Hanoi conquered South Vietnam. We were unable
to do for South Vietnam what we did for South Korea or France twice.
``Dornan denied visa for Vietnam. Washington, D.C. U.S. Rep. Robert
K. Dornan, Republican, California, was denied a visa today by the
Vietnamese Government after Senator,'' I am going to leave his name out
at this moment, ``instructed the Vietnamese to deny Dornan's visa,
according to Vietnamese officials at the Vietnamese interest section in
Washington, D.C.''
I have just spoken to three eyewitnesses. One of them is an Air Force
sergeant, an E-6, who was at the Embassy 9 o'clock this morning until
11:30, when the Senator's call intervened, a minority Senator, and this
majority chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel had my visa
canceled. ``Dornan, chairman of the Committee on National Security
Subcommittee on Military Personnel, conducted oversight hearings last
Wednesday,'' 11 hours and 35 minutes of hearings, about a 30-year
record, I understand, four different panels, brilliant testimony, ``on
the conditions that the Clinton Administration had set for normalizing
political relations based upon resolving the remaining 2,202 cases of
Americans still missing in Southeast Asia. Dornan had requested to
participate in the minority Senator's led delegation, traveling to
Vietnam over the July 4 recess, in order to gauge the level of
Vietnamese cooperation and efforts to resolve the MIA issue, to
investigate human rights abuses and the severe crackdowns on the
advocates of democracy in now combined North and South Vietnam,'' all
of it under communism, ``and the crackdowns on religious leaders.
During his Wednesday hearings, Congressman Dornan received testimony
from U.S. Government officials, missing-in-action family members,
former government investigators,'' and here is the passport, Madam
Speaker. Thank you, Nathan, ``and a former prisoner of war which cast
doubts over administrative claims, Clinton administrative claims, of
superb Vietnamese communist cooperation or unprecedented Vietnamese
cooperation. U.S. Government officials from the Defense Department,
from the U.S. State Department admitted to Congressman Dornan's
committee that the Vietnamese were continuing to hold back key
documents, key records and the remains of prisoners who are known to
have died in captivity. The Senator who is leading a congressional
delegation to Vietnam during the July 4, recess,'' now I am quoting
from the Senator's own press release carried on the Associated Press
wires at this moment, ``to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this then-
Hill staffer's efforts to expose the so-called tiger cages where
Vietnam War,'' an old French prison out on an island in the mouth of
the Saigon River, used extensively after Saigon fell, for the torture,
death and abuse of people whom we had befriended and who had worked for
us and trusted the world's leading democratic superpower that they
would never be deserted.
They were put in these very small tiger cages years later. They are
called tiger cages because they are below the ground, similar to French
prisons all over their now-disappeared French colonial empire.
But, ``On Friday, Vietnamese officials in Washington informed
Dornan's office that the Senator,'' the minority Senator, ``leading a
single-party delegation now, because two staffers were also canceled
off this trip.'' A senior staffer of the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Gilman] was denied his visa. Again, Vietnamese were forthcoming at the
interference of the Senator's office, and a senior staffer of Colonel
Rohrabacher, a Marine major in the Reserve, who had been just recently
put on Chairman Gilman's staff, full chairman of International
Relations, he was denied a visa. They had been going for a week. They
are here on the Hill with their bags also.
[[Page H6687]]
I go to the back of the visa, I mean my passport, my official
passport. Here is the visa, today's date, and stamped across it in
three black blocks, the Vietnamese words for ``canceled,'' Da Hue,
``canceled,'' thanks to the U.S. Senator. That is what is
unprecedented. Their cooperation is not unprecedented. This is an
unprecedented act of treachery on this Hill. I have never heard of such
a thing.
I would never deny the most liberal Member in this Chamber, even if I
knew something about his personal conduct, I would not deny him coming
on a balanced codel anywhere in the world at taxpayer expense.
Having given up my Fourth of July with my nine grandchildren, a tenth
on the way, everybody that follows politics knows that I am running for
the Presidency back in the pack.
{time} 1500
This was my first real trip to New Hampshire, and when relatives of
POW's and missing in action begged me to go on this trip to Hanoi to
give it balance, I talked to my wife, and she said, ``Your job, my
husband, is to be in Hanoi, to try and seek some honorable resolution
to this, the most hurtful scandal in this Nation since the abuse of
Union prisoners at Andersonville in the Civil War.''
``This is an outrage,'' said Dornan. Yes, it is an outrage all right.
Who had been asked by veterans organizations, including the executive
director of the American Legion telling me to go, Carol Hrdlicka, who I
have known for 30 years. Her husband was my best friend in the Air
Force. I checked him out in the F-100 Super Sabre. He was the first F-
105 pilot shot down in Southeast Asia in Laos. He was only TDY from
McConnell Air Force Base, KS. He was shot down on May 18, 30 years ago,
last month. Carol begged me to go on this trip.
Victor Pockus' sister, Delores, begged me to go in testimony in front
of my committee. ``Why can't you, as a chairman, go on this Senate
CODEL, Congressional delegation, to Hanoi? Please go.'' She stayed
after the hearings imploring me to go.
I was rushing through visa status this morning, a visa for Garnett,
William Bell, a retired full career airborne ranger, fluent in
Vietnamese, that Lao language, the Thai language, who had been assigned
to greet our POW's from captivity on the ramp at the airport in Hanoi
when they were released. Every one of the four flights of--freedom-
flights we call them--came home. Bill Bell was there in February and in
March 1973.
Then years later, because of his intelligence knowledge and his
language skills, he was the first chief of office in Hanoi throughout
almost all of 1991, from its establishment date, through all of 1992,
the missing in action and POW office in Hanoi, and the best, the most
knowledgeable, chief that office has ever had.
He testified before. I asked him, ``Please call your wife who happens
to be Vietnamese down in Arkansas.'' This is a loyal son of Arkansas
who wore his Nation's uniform as an expert for over 20 years.
He said, ``My wife will understand. I'll have my baggage flown up
here,'' and his visa was denied at the Vietnamese communist section in
northwest Washington at the intervention of this same Senator's office.
I finish my press release saying:
I was asked by MIA families, Vietnamese-American constituents. I
represent as many Vietnamese as anyone in this country. I used to
represent more than anybody else, but, after the census I split them
with the gentleman from California, Dana Rohrabacher, who holds the
seat to the west of mine. It was one of Dana Rohrabacher's senior
staffers, I repeat, a reserve marine major that was also denied a visa
this morning, a few hours ago.
At this critical time, before this Congress, where we are debating
normalizing relations, for this Senator to deny the chairman of the
subcommittee of National Security and the chairman of an Intelligence
subcommittee--I am one of only two double chairmen in the whole House,
either party of course, and when I am responsible for the well-being of
our service people, to deny me to opportunity to investigate the level
of Vietnamese cooperation is certainly a slap in the face of all of the
families of our missing in action.
Dornan announced today that he is going to try to lead a delegation
to Vietnam. Now he is going to put later in the week. It seems to be
impossible. It is always up to the Vietnamese to do what they want with
or without diplomatic recognition, so I will try and put something
together in the August recess.
Now I want to tell my colleagues a story so that I can strictly
follow House rules and not upset our three parliamentarians, honorable
men, all of them; one of them an Air Force Academy graduate. I will
refrain again from using the name of the said Senator, but here is the
article from ``Life'' magazine where he violated House rules and used
Government film, and I checked it again with an honorable Member, the
minority, who is a two-star general in the reserve and who repeated his
words to me of 20 years ago.
Should I have gotten in a fist fight with this hill staffer who was
elected to Congress 2 years later to take back the Government film that
he had shot with a Government camera and that he sold to ``Life''
magazine for about $25,000, funding his victorious Watergate baby face
in 1974?
Here is the ``Life'' article, July 17, 1970. How they unearth the
tiger cages. There is his rather handsome face, a ex-naval officer and,
like me, a fighter pilot who straddled a J-57 Pratt-Whitney engine.
Like me, because we are the exact same age, peacetime pilots.
Eisenhower was our commander in chief when this Senator and I were on
active duty, so we never were in combat, although I flew 14 missions as
a journalist. He never flew one. But he told tall stories to Dave
Broder. It is in Dave Broder's book that he flew combat patrols in
Vietnam, and, when nailed for lying during his Presidential race at one
point in history, he said all fighter pilots exaggerate and lie.
No, we do not.
So, here are the pictures, the infamous tiger cages in 1970. Looks
like military barracks to me. All right; there is one of the below-
ground prisons. You know what we held in there? Terrorists who had
tried to kill the Secretary of State of the United States who had blown
up a restaurant. Remember that cover of ``Life'' magazine? Everybody
coming across the little gangway bridge to the Saigon River restaurant,
blood dripping off them, looking for all the world like Oklahoma City.
That was a bomb attempt to kill the Secretary of Defense of the United
States. They caught the man who set that bomb. They executed him.
Compatriots went to prison, and Jane Fonda named her son after the
captured assassin who was executed,
Troy, T-r-o-i. That is Jane Fonda's oldest son.
U.S. adviser, you have no right to interfere.
This was a big congressional delegation. Some of the Members whose
predecessors were on this trip told me about them. Never a word by this
member about the killing fields in Cambodia, 2 million people killed.
Never a word about the 68,000 people who were executed by death lists.
He probably does not believe it. Never a word about----
He is in the air right now, climbing out over Virginia, heading for
Hickam Air Force Base, HI, and then Guam, and then into Hanoi, a total
one-sided delegation with two key House staffers stripped of their
visas and a chairman of a military personnel subcommittee.
Unbelievable.
I will not put this in the Record because it may give the House a
problem, but I sure want people to go to their local libraries and read
this article of July 17, 1970.
Now, Madam Speaker and our excellent parliamentarians, let me use a
Jonathan Swiftian style here. The canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral in
Dublin, Ireland under an oppressive British Government, Protestant
Irishman who wrote ``Gulliver's Travels'' and always used metaphors in
a stylized way of getting his political points across, one of the
modern fathers of political satire, and a Swiftian style that was used
very well by Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, one of our more eloquent lady
Members, or Members of either gender, she quoted ``Animal Farm'' once
to get at our Speaker's lucrative prior book contract before he very
honorably, because he is an honorable man, canceled it all for a
dollar.
[[Page H6688]]
But I told Cynthia, ``Very clever to use `Animal Farm' to describe
this place so the parliamentarians couldn't gavel her down as Mrs.
Meek's, Carrie Meek's, had been gaveled down a few days before.''
So in the style of Jonathan Swift of the 1700's and in the style of
Mrs. McKinney of Georgia, let me use a series of supposes:
Suppose you had a House Member who came using money from ``Life''
magazine to this Chamber by selling Government-owned film because a
senior Member and a hero of the crusade in Europe under General
Eisenhower was not willing to get in a fist fight with him to get the
film back; suppose that Member came here and was a key man to cut off
not only military aid to the struggling--flawed, yes, but not as flawed
as the Communist government. When I left Saigon in August 1972, there
were 44 newspapers. To this day there is only one Communist paper. That
is what happens when Communists win.
Oh, to be sure, there was corruption, as we have had corruption in
our Government here from the Teapot Dome scandal, to Watergate, to
Whitewater. We have had scandals in our governments here in this
country. It is hard for us to point fingers at emerging democracies
given our background of slavery.
So, this new Member--suppose a new Member came here and worked to cut
off the economic aid with a Senator from California who is long gone,
who left in a cloud of controversy and scandal, corrupting money and
politics. Suppose this Member cut off all aid and cheered when, quote,
Saigon fell, unquote.
Suppose when I got here 2 years later I came to this very lectern and
talked about an honorable retired Marine who worked for the CIA who was
caught in Saigon April 30, 1975, was taken to the Saigon jail and
tortured for a year.
I went to his funeral in Arlington when his remains were returned.
His name was Tucker Gugerman.
Suppose I came to this well, did a tribute to Tucker Gugerman and
talked about how there was a live American in Saigon prison when they
were--when they were shutting down--when they were shutting down the
POW-MIA committee with a half a million dollar budget--shut down in
December 1976. This man was being tortured to death, his screams could
be heard all throughout Saigon jail, and I told his story here.
I went to Hawaii in middle 1977, my freshman year, with Congressman
``Sonny'' Montgomery. We picked up the first small boxes of our heroes'
remains, watched these boxes opened up at the central investigative
laboratory on the western edge of Hickam Air Force Base. I watched
Tucker Gugerman's box opened up, CIA, ex-U.S. Marine. It has not been
touched. He had not even unpacked. Yes, he went back to get his fiancee
out. He was already home free in Bangkok, and here was $265 and some
change. I remember that figure. Here was his trench coat fresh from the
cleaners, all of his civilian clothes all pressed neatly, all kept in a
box with his bones. When his bones were analyzed, the signs of torture
were so bad that some of the bones were damaged. It is hard to tell
when the flesh has been tortured and you have been tortured to death if
the bones are not broken.
And I came to the well and told that story, and suppose a U.S.
Congressman who had been a naval officer rushed to that lectern and
said in so many words he got what he deserved because he went back
chasing a girlfriend. That is why he went back into Saigon after the
Communists take over.
And suppose I had a confrontation at that desk right there and said,
``Your naval officers' white uniform is covered with the blood of these
MIA's.''
Suppose that man had been on that 10-member select committee that
turned back over $200,000 and shut down in December 1976, 3 weeks
before I raised my hand at that desk and took the oath of office
planning on doing something to the best of my ability to find out why
we left live Americans behind in Laos?
Suppose during the Sandinista debate the Communist Sandinistas, who
were running 16 concentration camps--suppose a Member came to that
lectern and said the Communist Sandinistas--he would not have called
them Communists--were the moral equivalent of the Boy Scouts of America
and then would begin to rattle off the Boy Scout attributes: kind,
obedient, gentle, trustworthy, and then his memory broke down and he
could not remember the other attributes of a Boy Scout.
Suppose I, together with Dan Burton, caught a Congressman down in
Nicaragua who had an Air Force airplane at your tax expense, all by
himself with an Air Force crew of three, a C-121 Learjet, all by
himself, and was going in to meet with the Ortega brothers, and suppose
I were to tell you that Dan Burton of Indiana said, taking the Lord's
name in vain understandably, you are not going into that blankeddy-
blank place without Congressman Dornan and Me, or I am going back to
the States, and having a press conference, telling the world that you
are licking the boots of these communist killers down here.
And suppose this congressman said, ``All right,'' by then a Senator--
``all right, you can come with us.'' and then told the Vietnamese--
excuse me, Freudian, told the Nicaraguan Communists, ``Don't let
Congressman Dornan and Congressman Burton come into our briefing. You
deny them, and I will pretend I want them in.''
And then suppose I told you that a Communist official with no accent,
bilingual, raised in San Francisco, named Robert Vargas, came out and
told me, ``We wanted you to come in. It was the Senator who didn't want
to you guys in there. We don't care if you come in. It's always your
Members who come in and tell us to block the State Department people.''
And suppose I told you that our intelligence people were able to
listen to conversations inside the Communist headquarters in Nicaragua,
and suppose I were to tell you, Madam Speaker and Mr. Parliamentarians,
that I have read the transcripts of what some sitting Members here and
this former Member now--supposedly a Senator talked over with Daniel
Ortega and Humberto Ortega, who were running 16 reeducation camps,
euphemism for concentration camps.
{time} 1515
Suppose I told you I read those transcripts and suppose I told you
that if we had had a declared war in Central America, which we did not,
which we did not in Korea and did not in Vietnam, that it would have
constituted high treason.
Suppose I told you that a former Member on this side who became a
Secretary of Defense and a former Member on this side who is now
chairman of one of our most important, key committees here filed
charges to investigate violation of security oaths by some of the
highest ranking people in this place down to some other people who had
been here and were serving in other bodies.
Suppose I told you there has been a pattern of such treachery by some
Members here that three Members of the minority party this morning in
this aisle, in those seats on this side of this aisle told me that this
Member was flat out a pro-Communist Marxist and the best thing that
ever happened to this Chamber was that he is gone from here.
Suppose I told you that that was the truth and I was willing to
polygraph on it.
Suppose I told you that you taxpayers and you, too, Madam Speaker and
the parliamentarians who all pay taxes, suppose I told you that on the
Fourth of July that I was willing to give up there is going to be
drinking and embracing and celebrating of the Communist victory over
poor pathetic South Vietnam, 68,000 people executed, some of them for
only typing on American GSA-supplied typewriters and believing in us.
Suppose I told you that there is going to be a celebration in Saigon,
and it will be Saigon some day again, just like Leningrad is St.
Petersburg and Stalingrad is Volgagrad, some day it will be Saigon
again, it will not be Ho Chi Minh City forever, as soon as the bamboo
wall falls like the Berlin wall in North Korea, the palm-covered prison
of Cuba goes free, some day China will go free, thanks to the efforts
of people here like Nancy Pelosi, we will see these remaining four
Communist countries in our lifetime, shortly now, within 10 or 15
years, they will all be free. You cannot stop democracy now and
liberty, it is on the rise.
[[Page H6689]]
Suppose I told you everything that I have just said is true and that
there is such a Member, that his own colleagues call him Marxist. And
suppose I told you at taxpayers' expense, with honorable Air Force
officers and enlisted men carrying luggage, is going to celebrate
meeting with General Giap and with the so-called liberated prisoners
from the tiger cages with much drinking and celebrating and hugging.
That is like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda arriving at the airport during
the war. Again, if there was a declaration of war, do you think she
would not have been tried for treason? What does constitute aid to the
enemy? Comfort to the enemy? What is an enemy without a declared war?
What is aid and comfort to the enemy? Is it leading a demonstration in
a foreign country? Is it traveling to a so-called peace banquet in
Moscow at the height of the war during one of the bloodiest periods of
the war? Is it what McNamara did, resigning on leap year day, February
29, 1968, the single bloodiest month of the entire conflict? Does that
constitute treason to say you are killing thousands of Americans and it
just was not worth it and then to have other people say they were
vindicated by this poisonous book that has ripped open the hearts and
the memories of mothers and fathers now in their 70's and 80's and
widows who have never remarried and children who are now in their 30's
that were little 8-year-old children when the war ended, like Colleen
Shine who testified so heartbreakingly in front of my committee on
Wednesday?
My colleagues, obviously everything I am telling you is not
McKinneyish; it is not Jonathan Swiftian. It is fact. I feel like Mount
Saint Helens on May 17, 1980, the day before the big explosion.
I am going to get justice here. I am going to get justice for all the
Vietnamese who were tortured to death in those so-called reeducation
concentration camps. I am not going to forget our noble cause, as
Ronald Reagan called it, to keep South Vietnam as free as South Korea,
flawed but much better than a Communist tyranny.
I got an urgent release that the press conference has started without
me out on the grassy triangle. I want to close by thanking the staff
again. I have done this as much as anybody I guess, but you folks are
the greatest to stay all night and take us through 38 votes in 3 days,
amazing. It will be back to this well. I am going to seek justice.
I will tell you this: This ex-member here, now a Senator, is from a
Bible Belt State. The first State through a caucus probably that will
probably pick the
next President of the United States. I am back in the pack. I know who
will win in Iowa on Lincoln's birthday in 1996, this coming February.
I will tell you, if you are from Iowa, you know most of this
material. I cannot believe what you have sent to represent your
country. I hope you enjoy your Fourth of July in Iowa and New
Hampshire, because you are going to have U.S. Senators and, God forbid,
the three House Members from the minority, one of them a distinguished
Army captain from the D-Day period. I hope they are not toasting the
terrorists and the Communist victors who brought such human rights
abuse and grief to all of Southeast Asia, including Cambodia and Laos.
Including Laos, where I swear to you on my honor we left live Americans
behind. Three by name: Gene DeBruin, CIA; my best friend, David
Hrdlicka, U.S. Air Force; Charlie Shelton, shot down on his 33d
birthday, April 29, 1965, a prisoner of war, so declared until a few
months ago, last prisoner of war, prisoner of war moved to presumptive
finding of death without a shred of evidence. I guess I go to my grave
and, if I live as long as my father at 84, that is going to be 22 more
years of trying to find justice for what we tried to do in Vietnam.
I tell you now that Adm. Tom Moore is correct when he called Robert
Strange McNamara a war criminal. I do not have to treat him with kid
gloves, because he has never been elected to anything in his life and
is not a member of this or the other body or ever has been.
I tell you that the greatest military writer extant today, Col. Harry
Summers is correct when he called Robert Strange McNamara ``raw evil.''
The only person, with all the mistakes, he even criticized the great
West Pointer General Westmoreland, but he said they all made mistakes
of judgment. He said McNamara was raw evil.
When a commander in chief, who avoided the draft three times, I am
not using the word ``dodged'' although that is in my heart, who avoided
the draft three times and had his draft induction day, July 28, 1969,
politically suppressed, when a person like that who loses 19 rangers in
Somalia without their gunships or one lousy tank, when he had four
tanks at Waco, two Abrams, two Bradleys, when a person like that says
he is vindicated by a war criminal, what does that make that person?
I am going to go over with the parliamentarians how I can recoup my
honor from January 25 of this year, when I used the expression ``aid
and comfort to the enemy.'' I know it is in the Constitution. I know
there is a technicality when war is not declared. But I am going to
discuss every dictionary definition, British and American, of aid, of
comfort and of what constitutes an enemy.
I will be back to relive that moment. And if the parliamentarians,
who we were nice enough to hold over from the Democratic 40 years, rule
against me, I will appeal the ruling of the Chair. And if I do not win
a vote from my side of the Chamber, the majority, as a double chairman,
I will resign from this Congress on the spot, if I do not win a vote
from my own colleagues on appealing the ruling of the Chair.
When I tell you that Clinton gave aid and comfort to the enemy in
Hanoi by his Moscow trip and his demonstrations in London, where they
were called the fall offensive, so named by the same Communists in
Hanoi that will be toasting Americans today----
announcement by the speaker pro tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Morella). The Chair would caution the
Member to be very cautious of any statements about the President of the
United States.
Mr. DORNAN. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I know I am pushing the
envelope, but then I used to fly supersonically. I will revisit this
floor.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would like to also point out for
the Record something that the Representative does know, just to remind
him, that personal references to Members of the other body, even though
not mentioned by name, when it is very clear to whom the references are
made, should be avoided, and this is something that had been mentioned
on February 23, 1994, by the Chair.
____________________