[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E661]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E661]]


  CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 3019, BALANCED BUDGET DOWN PAYMENT ACT, II

                                 ______


                               speech of

                         HON. ROBERT K. DORNAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 25, 1996

  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, we are discussing the fiscal year 1996 
omnibus appropriations bill in which an important provision to withhold 
funding for expanded diplomatic relations with Vietnam until. the 
tyrannical Communist government of Vietnam provides a full accounting 
of our POW/MIA's was rendered ineffective by compromise language. The 
original language of the provision, which was cosponsored by myself and 
distinguished colleagues, Ben Gilman, Bob Barr, and Jack Kingston, 
called for the Vietnamese to ``fully cooperate'' in providing answers 
to voluminous intelligence reports and analysis in the possession of 
the United States Department of Defense that is related to more than 
400 POW/MIA cases where the service men were last known alive or known 
to have perished under Vietnamese Government control.
  In three hearings before my subcommittee, United States Government 
analysts repeatedly testified under oath that the United States 
Government knows that the Vietnamese Government is withholding volumes 
of records and documents related to missing American heroes in Vietnam 
and Laos. The words ``fully cooperating'' was originally accepted by 
House and Senate appropriations conferees. Tragically this important 
specific terminology was, at the last minute, watered down to ``Elmer 
Gantryesque'' charlatan's rhetoric: ``cooperating in full faith.'' In 
their needless desperation to cut a deal during the waning hours of 
negotiations with the White House, congressional negotiators apparently 
believed that the fate of missing American heroes and the pleas of 
their families for an honest accounting were an issue to be bartered 
with the ``triple draft-dodger-in-chief.''
  Mr. Speaker, I am supported by esteemed colleagues and friends such 
as Senator Bob Smith and the ``Gary Cooper'' of this legislative body 
former POW Sam Johnson, in our determination to hold the White House 
totally culpable. The President must prove, based on United States 
intelligence analysis in our possession, whether the Vietnamese 
Government has fully accounted for all POW/MIA cases and returned all 
remains of fallen heroes in their possession, before any more tax 
dollars are spent on expanding relations with the brutal and tyrannical 
Communist dictators in Hanoi.

                          ____________________