[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9731-S9732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  OPPOSITION TO THE NORMALIZATION OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH VIETNAM

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I want to comment on something that 
the President did yesterday.
  The President normalized relationships with Vietnam. The President, I 
think, did the wrong thing. The President is not a veteran of any war. 
I have never been in military service. I do not presume to understand 
wars. But I do understand the commitments we made to the people who 
have been drafted and volunteered; that is, if they are missing in 
action, our Government is going to take all action necessary to make 
sure that we get information about them, and also, if you are taken as 
a prisoner of war, we are going to do everything we can to get you out. 
``Ye shall not be forgotten nor forsaken.''
  But yesterday there was a deafening roar that we heard all the way 
down here in the Nation's Capital--and that roar came from Wall Street. 
No. It was not about the Federal Reserve's decision to lower interest 
rates. It was because the Dow went through the roof, and it was because 
yesterday President Clinton announced that he will take steps to 
normalize diplomatic relations with Vietnam. And that is because it is 
driven not so much by a commonsense approach but because of corporate 
and commercial interests in America, and the profit motive was stronger 
than our humanitarian motives.
  Of course, that sent the tickertape cascading through the canyons of 
steel. The champagne flowed freely throughout corporate America. The 
powerful forces of business and profit have won an important battle 
over America's obligation to account for our missing servicemen. The 
only thing flowing among the MIA families who have not had answers was 
resignation and despair yesterday.
  This is a President whose term is marked by broken promises. I 
believe that when history recounts the Clinton years, many will reflect 
and call him ``Broken Promise President.''
  That is what he has done on this issue. Yesterday President Clinton 
broke another promise, and he made a grave mistake by doing it. His 
decision is wrong because it displays a gross injustice to Americans 
who have fought to defend our country's freedom. It displays an 
injustice to their families, who have waited vigilantly and who have 
endured a pain of uncertainty for the past 22 years.
  The President's action also reveals a dismal commitment to the men 
and women who are and have been members of the military, loyally 
serving their country because of this promise we have made to them that 
was not kept, that we shall not forsake nor forget them.
  We are going to have a State Department authorization bill before 
this body perhaps next week, and I will have more to say about that 
then. But I want to make just a few comments because I was on the POW/
MIA Committee.
  I said 3 years ago that on this issue of commercial ties and 
diplomatic recognition, that there was a steamroller moving through 
this town headed directly toward normalization of relations with 
Vietnam. This was despite the fact that an investigation was still 

[[Page S 9732]]
under way into the POW/MIA issue by the select committee that I served 
on.
  Corporate America is driving the steamroller. The avenues of its 
travels were largely underground. They were barely seen by the public. 
Government officials in all agencies in both branches of Government 
were busy paving the way for further advancement.
  The one potential roadblock was a resolution of the POW/MIA issue. 
But the roadblock was no match for the steamroller. The Select 
Committee on POW/MIA's was never able to reach a consensus on the issue 
of the possibility that men remain in Vietnam. Moreover, there was 
never a thorough, independent evaluation of each MIA case. There were 
lots of promises but never an evaluation case by case.
  There was also great hyperbole about Vietnam's extensive cooperation 
in resolving MIA cases. It is coming from the same ones who got all 
excited when the Vietnamese gave up pilot helmets and artifacts and 
generally useless photos and other information.
  Madam President, that was pure bunk at that time. Vietnam has 
cooperated in resolving MIA cases about as much as the Japanese 
cooperate with us in world trade. There sure has been a lot of 
activity, but it is all atmospheric--lots of scurrying around, lots of 
digging, lots of busy work. But look at the facts.
  Since our select committee finished its work, only 37 sets of remains 
have been recovered and positively identified. Eight of those were in 
1993, 26 in 1994, and only 3 this year. We are still listing 2,202 as 
missing. So where is the progress?
  The President said the following yesterday about the alleged 
cooperation of the Vietnamese, and I quote: ``Never before in the 
history of warfare has such an extensive effort been made to resolve 
the fate of soldiers who did not return.''
  If I could borrow from the President's words, I would have said it 
this way: ``Never before in the history of warfare has such an 
extensive effort been made to resolve the fate of soldiers who did not 
return and yet so little accomplished.''
  Those who have jumped on the steamroller argue that the best way to 
learn about the fate of the missing is to establish a presence in the 
country. I think that is a specious argument. It is devoid of rigorous 
analysis. That is a theory made out of whole cloth. There is no 
rational basis for it. In fact, it is simplistic.
  The only thing that we will get out of the presence in Vietnam--in 
the absence of full accounting--is a bunch of business deals.
  The only time Vietnam ever gave us any data on MIA's is when we 
played hardball like we think we ought to play hardball with the 
Japanese on trade.
  During the select committee's investigation, we learned that the 
Vietnamese had at least three categories of information.
  The first level is archival. This information is in museums and the 
like. Even the Vietnamese citizens have access to much of this 
information. This would include photos and helmets like we were given 
in the fall of 1992, and which some people went gaga over. This first 
level of information is, obviously, the least useful.
  Next, there are the provincial wartime records of shootdowns. This 
information is an accounting of the date, the time, and the location of 
each shootdown of an American plane. It is recorded out in the 
countryside at the provincial level. It also provided data on the type 
of aircraft and the status of pilots and the crew.
  These are official unit records of the antiaircraft corps of the 
Vietnamese military. The utility of this information is, among other 
things, that it would allow us to crosscheck the status of our MIA's 
with our own records.
  Finally, there is the national security information. These are the 
central committee-level documents, kind of like the Politburo 
documents. These contain, in essence, Vietnamese national secrets on 
United States prisoner-of-war information and activities.
  Before our committee learned of these levels of information, Vietnam 
consistently denied their existence. So did our crack investigative 
outfit on this issue, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Yet, somehow, as 
we pressed on, some of this information started to appear.
  In April 1992, when a delegation from the select committee went to 
Indochina, the Vietnamese denied to us the existence of the archival 
material.
  But just 6 months later, helmets and photos were sprouting everywhere 
and it was because the Vietnamese were being told give us data and then 
President Bush would lift the trade embargo.
  Of course, the trade embargo was not lifted because all of the data 
that supposedly showed their cooperation was not very useful in 
resolving cases.
  A year later, when President Clinton decided not to lift the economic 
embargo, lo and behold, we started getting some information from the 
provinces on shootdowns. But that information has remained spotty, and 
it came not through official channels but through humanitarian 
channels, the Military Joint Task Force full accounting.
  The point again is when we play a little hardball, the data flows. 
When we do not, it does not.
  As for the national security information, the Politburo information I 
was talking about, we have seen none, and this is notwithstanding the 
fact that our Government turned over to Vietnam millions of pages of 
our own declassified national security data on their prisoners and 
missing in action, as we should, as a result of the 1972 peace 
agreement.
  Establishing a presence and establishing big business in Vietnam is 
not going to get us access to those national security records. Anyone 
who thinks that it is, Mr. President, is naive. And unless we press for 
it, unless we get access to it, there is no way that we can say we have 
done everything we can for a full accounting of our missing in action.
  Mr. President, yesterday is a dark day for America. It was the day 
that President Clinton put an end to our Nation's pledge to those lost 
in battle, a pledge that says, ``Ye shall not be forgotten nor 
forsaken.'' This is a wound to the body politic that will not quickly 
heal.


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