[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 110 (Monday, July 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9626-S9628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         RELATIONS WITH VIETNAM

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, news reports indicate that President Clinton 
is on the verge of making a decision about normalizing relations with 
Vietnam. I understand an announcement may come as soon as tomorrow. 
Secretary of State Warren Christopher has recommended normalization. 
Many Vietnam veterans support normalization--including a bipartisan 
group of veterans in the Senate, led by the senior Senator from 
Arizona, John McCain. Many oppose normalization as well. Just as the 
Vietnam war divided Americans in the 1960's and 1970's, the issue of 
how to finalize peace with Vietnam divides Americans today.
  At the outset, let me observe that there are men and women of good 
will on both sides of this issue. No one should question the motives of 
advocates or opponents of normalization. We share similar goals: 
Obtaining the fullest possible accounting for American prisoners of war 
and missing in action; continuing the healing process in the aftermath 
of our most divisive war; fostering respect for human rights and 
political liberty in Vietnam.
  I can recall in, I think, 1969 attending the first family gathering 
of POW's and MIA's. Only about 100 people showed up. I think I may have 
been the only Senator there. And I promised that group that within 3 
months we would have a meeting at Constitution Hall, which seats 2,000 
people, and we would fill it up. And we did. And I remember wearing the 
John McCain bracelet for a couple of years back in those days when John 
McCain was still a POW.
  So I have had a long and I think consistent interest in the fate of 
POW's and MIA's starting way back when nobody knew the difference, when 
bracelets were not ordinary, nobody knew what a POW/MIA was for 
certain. And so it is something that I have had an interest in for a 
long, long time.
  The debate over normalization is about our differences with the 
Government of Vietnam, not with the Vietnamese people. The people of 
Vietnam have suffered decades of war and brutal dictatorship. We hope 
for a better future for the people of Vietnam--a future of democracy 
and freedom, not repression and despair.
  The debate over normalization is not a debate over the ends of 
American policy; it is a debate over the means. The most fundamental 
question is whether normalizing relations with Vietnam will further the 
goals we share. In my view, now is not the time to normalize relations 
with Vietnam. The historical record shows that Vietnam cooperates on 
POW/MIA issues only when pressured by the United States; in the absence 
of sustained pressure, there is little progress on POW/MIA concerns, or 
on any other issue.
  The facts are clear. Vietnam is still a one party Marxist 
dictatorship. Preserving their rule is the No. 1 priority of Vietnam's 
Communist Government. Many credible sources suggest Vietnam is not 
providing all the
 information it can on POW/MIA issues. In some cases, increased access 
has only confirmed how much more Vietnam could be doing. This is not 
simply my view, it is a view shared by two Asia experts--Steve Solarz, 
former chairman of the House Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific Affairs, 
and Richard Childress, National Security Council Vietnam expert from 
1981 to 1989. Earlier this year, they wrote:

       Vietnam could easily account for hundreds of Americans by a 
     combination of unilateral repatriation of remains, opening 
     its archives, and full cooperation on U.S. servicemen missing 
     in Laos.

  Again, not my quote but a quote by the two gentlemen mentioned. They 
conclude that,

       Whatever the reasons or combination of reasons, Vietnam, in 
     the current environment, has made a conscious decision to 
     keep the POW/MIA issue alive by not resolving it.

  This is a view shared by the National League of POW/MIA families 
which has worked tirelessly to resolve the issue for many years. It is 
also a view shared by major veterans groups, including the American 
Legion, the largest
 veterans group. The media have reported that the Veterans of Foreign 
Wars, the second largest group is supportive of normalization. Let me 
quote from VFW's official position adopted at its 1994 convention:

       At some point in time but only after significant results 
     have been achieved through Vietnam/U.S. cooperative efforts, 
     we should . . . move towards normalizing diplomatic 
     relations.

  A more recent VFW statement makes clear that normalization is not 
opposed by the VFW if it leads to a fuller accounting of POW/MIA cases.
  If President Clinton intends to normalize diplomatic relations with 
Vietnam, he should do so only after he can clearly state that Vietnam 
has done everything it reasonably can to provide the fullest possible 
accounting. That is the central issue. The United States has diplomatic 
relations with many countries which violate human rights, and repress 
their own people. But the United States should not establish relations 
with a country which withholds information about the fate of American 
servicemen. As President-elect Clinton said on Veterans Day, 1992, ``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'' on POW/MIA cases. Let me repeat: ``suspected of 
withholding any information.'' Let me repeat, ``suspected of 
withholding any information'' on POW/MIA cases. I hope the standard 
proposed by President-elect Clinton is the same standard used by 
President Clinton.
  No doubt about it, the Vietnamese Government wants normalization very 
badly. Normalization is the strongest bargaining chip America has. As 
such, it should only be granted when we are convinced Vietnam has done 
all it can do. Vietnam has taken many steps--sites are being excavated, 
and some remains have been returned. But there are also signs that 
Vietnam may be willfully withholding information. Unless the President 
is absolutely convinced Vietnam has done all it can to resolve the POW/
MIA issue--and is willing to say so publicly and unequivocally--it 
would be a strategic, diplomatic and moral mistake to grant Vietnam the 
stamp of approval from the United States.
  I ask unanimous consent that the article from which I quoted earlier 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           [From the San Diego Union-Tribune, Mar. 19, 1995]

              Prisoner Issue Continues To Taint Relations

            (By Richard T. Childress and Stephen J. Solarz)

       Although the U.S. trade embargo with Vietnam has been 
     lifted and consular-level liaison offices have been opened, 
     relations between the United States and Vietnam are far from 
     normal. The major remaining bilateral obstacle, the POW/MIA 
     issue, is still cited by the Clinton administration as the 
     primary impediment to normalization.
       Multiple intelligence studies from the war through today 
     conclude that Vietnam could easily account for hundreds of 
     Americans by a combination of unilateral repatriation of 
     remains, opening of its archives and full cooperation on U.S. 
     servicemen missing in Laos, 80 percent in Lao areas 
     controlled by the Vietnamese during the war.
       While joint Vietnamese-American efforts to excavate 
     aircraft crash sites and otherwise ``clean up the 
     battlefield'' will continue to provide some accountability, 
     it will not be enough. What is needed is a decision by 
     Vietnam's ruling politburo to resolve the core POW/MIA cases, 
     including those Americans last known alive in the custody or 
     immediate vicinity of Vietnamese forces. That decision has 
     not been made.
       Reasons offered for this have included a divided politburo, 
     a desire to exploit the POW/MIA issue for future financial or 
     political advantage, a continuing residue of hostility or 
     hatred toward Americans in Hanoi's ministries of interior and 
     defense, and a fear of embarrassment. Some also speculate 
     that Vietnam's leadership fears the United States will ``walk 
     away'' once the issue is resolved.
       Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, Vietnam, in 
     the current environment, has made a conscious decision to 
     keep the POW/MIA issue alive by not resolving it.
       This fundamental aspect of Vietnamese emphasis on the POW/
     MIA issue has been central from the Paris negotiations in 
     1968-

[[Page S 9627]]
     73 and through every administration since that time. Knowing it to be 
     the most sensitive issue to Americans of
      all the other bilateral humanitarian concerns, Hanoi has 
     consistently used it as the lodestar for leverage over 
     American policy. Similarly, the compelling nature of the 
     issue to Americans has caused it to be central in our 
     dealings with Vietnam over the years.
       This centrality to American policy-makers has, however, 
     engendered different approaches. These have varied from 
     concerted efforts to define the issue away and defuse it, to 
     confronting the issue directly in order to resolve it. Even 
     policy-makers who viewed the POW/MIA issue as a hindrance to 
     healing or normalization demonstrated its centrality by 
     expending much political capital in a failed attempt to prove 
     the contrary.
       Confronting the issue directly in negotiations has been the 
     only demonstrable path to progress. It is, ironically, the 
     path desired by the Vietnamese for reasons already outlined. 
     When Reagan administration officials reopened the POW/MIA 
     dialogue with Vietnam in 1981, the politburo was delighted. 
     Referring to the 1978-81 freeze in U.S.-Vietnam talks, 
     Hanoi's negotiators remarked that they ``didn't know we still 
     cared.'' That was also a challenge.
       While the Clinton administration has rejected linking human 
     rights directly to questions to normalization, that, too, is 
     a potential obstacle. Strong feelings for linkage exist in 
     some human-rights organizations, the American-Vietnamese 
     community, the labor movement and in Congress. Linkage may 
     not be desired as a matter of executive branch policy, but 
     initiatives are possible in the new Congress along with other 
     domestic pressures.
       In the mid-1980s, legislation was proposed to use Vietnam's 
     blocked assets to pay private claims, and significant lobby 
     pressure was put on the Reagan administration and Congress to 
     liquidate the assets. This initiative was opposed by the 
     administration and rejected by the Congress. The objection 
     then was that it would interrupt humanitarian cooperation, 
     that official claims of the United States government would 
     become secondary, and that such transactions should be 
     negotiated in the context of normalization discussions. 
     Sufficient funds existed to cover the private claims, and the 
     United States, as the custodian of the funds, was positioned 
     to settle them from a position of strength and leverage.
       Vietnam's near-term and long-term economic goals are 
     central to its leadership. High on the leadership's bilateral 
     list is most-favored-nation (MFN) status and eligibility for 
     the so-called generalized system of preferences (GSP), an 
     additional trade concession.
       But Vietnam's primitive economy and rudimentary trade 
     mechanisms hamper its accession to the General Agreement on 
     Tariffs and Trade and, accordingly, limit American 
     flexibility on commercial issues. In addition, various legal 
     and regulatory obstacles stand in the way. Some of the 
     relevant provisions can be waived through executive action; 
     under certain conditions legislation may be required.
       In any event, since it is Vietnam, the Clinton 
     administration should be reluctant to take any significant 
     steps without close consultation with Congress.
       Despite a significant loss of American leverage after the 
     trade embargo was lifted, one could argue that the United 
     States is again positioned for
      progress. This plateau allows the Clinton administration 
     some breathing room to hold firm; to insist on meaningful, 
     unilateral action by Vietnam to meet the four POW/MIA 
     criteria set forth by President Clinton and to advance a 
     Washington-Hanoi dialogue on human rights in Vietnam.
       In the interim, it is in both countries' interests that 
     Vietnam proceed with internal economic reforms. This would 
     assist Vietnam in further integrating into Asia generally and 
     the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 
     specifically. This long-term objective was shared in some 
     respects throughout each American administration since the 
     end of the Vietnam conflict.
       Such integration would also provide greater exposure of the 
     Vietnamese leadership to international economic and political 
     norms, perhaps reduce some Vietnamese paranoia and help 
     convince the Vietnamese that the POW/MIA issue is a ``wasting 
     asset'' for them that needs to be resolved. Integration would 
     also mesh with Vietnam's desire for greater international 
     acceptance. Finally, it would serve to lessen Vietnam's 
     perceived isolation as a potentially threatened neighbor of 
     an increasingly assertive China.
       However, American policy-makers also need to view this from 
     an internal Vietnamese perspective that would expect such 
     integration and acceptance to relieve pressure for political 
     reforms and improved human rights. Vietnam has boldly 
     endorsed universal declarations on human rights and attempted 
     to join the cultural argument between Asia and the West, as 
     if its political system were even comparable to those 
     advancing the argument in Asia.
       For the foreseeable future, Vietnam will have three major 
     objectives: continued political control under the Communist 
     Party, economic development that does not threaten such 
     control, and a sense of security in its relationship with 
     China.
       While political change is inevitable over time, it will be 
     due to internal factors, and American leverage will be at the 
     margins. Economic reforms have spawned divisions in Vietnam's 
     communist party and government, as well as regional tensions 
     between the North and the South. Recriminations are already 
     evident between reformers and hard-liners, and a significant 
     American role in the Vietnamese economic future will be 
     limited.
       After listening to wishful speculation about a ``new 
     tiger'' in Asia, spawned by young consultants, service 
     industries and lobby organizations with a vested interest in 
     lifting the embargo, American businesses are again looking at 
     political and economic realities they tended to ignore for 
     the past four years.
       Press accounts of Vietnam's economic potential before and 
     after the lifting of the trade embargo are strikingly 
     different.
       Overblown stories of ``the last frontier,'' ``the emerging 
     tiger in Asia,'' and the loss of business to foreigners were 
     common themes before. Now, the media is beginning to report 
     about corruption, unenforceability of legal codes, currency 
     problems, bureaucratic hurdles, arbitrary decision-making by 
     government officials, the paucity of infrastructure and the 
     reality that Vietnam, with
      few exceptions, is almost a decade away from real 
     profitability on an American business scale.
       Profits for American companies operating in Vietnam are not 
     likely for several more years. A lot of money is being spent 
     and very little is being made.
       Most experienced observers of Asia's geo-politics 
     recognize, as well, that Vietnam is not of real strategic 
     relevance to the United States in the 1990s. Nonetheless, 
     armchair strategists, military planners, and some in Congress 
     continue to argue otherwise, and worry aloud accordingly.
       Still, Vietnam is certainly looking for strategic solace. 
     Its historic fear of China is underscored today by Chinese 
     claims on island groups in the South China Sea, plus China's 
     burgeoning economic and political clout. Although elements of 
     Vietnam's current agenda are variously shared by ASEAN, 
     American military power and political commitments are not 
     designed to ameliorate arguments between China and Vietnam. 
     The United States facilitated the end of the proxy war 
     between China and Vietnam in Cambodia not by taking sides but 
     by opposing both unworthy claimants in an international and 
     regional context.
       The reality of the economic and strategic conditions now 
     and in the foreseeable future does not make Vietnam central 
     to American policy. The Vietnamese desire for real 
     normalization with the United States is recognized, but the 
     gap is wide and will remain so despite the wishful, almost 
     romantic thinking of some.
       Vietnam and the United States do have a unique relationship 
     forged through shared recent history. Both sides can regret 
     missed opportunities. And while the history of bilateral 
     negotiations is tortured, the significance of historic 
     antagonisms can only be muted by a credible effort to resolve 
     the POW/MIA issue, the only path to real healing and 
     normalization.
       In sum, fully normalized relations between the United 
     States and Vietnam are not on the immediate horizon. Vietnam 
     will remain, in an economic and strategic sense, of little 
     importance to the United States. Relations could conceivably 
     move forward in the absence of a real economic or strategic 
     rationale with significant progress on POW/MIA accounting 
     through unilateral Vietnamese action. The longer Vietnam 
     delays in this regard, the more likely normalization could be 
     linked to human rights concerns, as well. If this occurs, it 
     would be supported by those who, heretofore, believed Vietnam 
     would be able to forge a politburo consensus and finally end 
     the uncertainty of America's POW/MIA families.
       Normalized relations are quite logical in an ideal world. 
     Full normalization with Vietnam is desirable, but as a 
     practical matter is not possible or prudent as long as it can 
     be credibly maintained that Vietnam can do more to account 
     for missing Americans.
       If the Clinton administration proceeds with the elements of 
     normalization as an objective, rather than an instrument to 
     resolve bilateral issues, domestic and congressional 
     opposition is likely to increase. That, in turn, would 
     further reduce executive branch flexibility, and create a 
     renewed round of recriminations as well as a new gauntlet for 
     future negotiators.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I came over to address another issue. I 
listened to the majority leader's statement with regard to actions that 
may be taken by the President in the foreseeable future.
  I want to commend what I thought was an excellent presentation by my 
friend and colleague, Senator Kerry, as well as Senator McCain, on this 
issue on Sunday, as well as Senator Smith from New Hampshire who was 
talking about this issue, I thought, in a very constructive, positive, 
bipartisan way.
  I think for those who are looking to try to deal with an issue of 
this complexity, of this importance, Members would be wise to take a 
few minutes and review their presentations. I thought there were 
particularly convincing arguments to be made in favor of moving the 
process forward at this time, and I thought the statements 

[[Page S 9628]]
that were made by, as I mentioned, my colleagues Senator Kerry and 
Senator McCain that support that change were very compelling. I thought 
the observations of Senator Smith, which took a different view but, 
nonetheless, were related to the subject matter, were constructive as 
well.
  The country will be addressing this issue in the next several days or 
weeks. I think our Members would be wise to review their comments 
because they are individuals who have spent a great deal of time on 
this issue and, obviously, have given it a great deal of thought. The 
fact that they come from different vantage points in terms of many 
other different issues, both in domestic and foreign policy, and still 
are as persuasive on this matter, I think really reflects some very, 
very constructive and positive thinking.


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