[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S7970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                EXCHANGE OF NAVAL ATTACHES WITH VIETNAM

 Mr. WARNER. Mr President, I rise today to recognize an 
historic event in our relations with our erstwhile cold war enemy, 
Vietnam. On May 7, 1997, that country and our own great Nation 
exchanged defense attaches. Senior Col. Vo Dinh Quang of the Vietnam 
Army was accredited as the defense, military, naval, and air attache to 
the United States. He is the first defense attache from Vietnam since 
1975, when the South Vietnam attache positions dissolved by default 
with the collapse of South Vietnam.
  The Corps of Foreign Attaches is a distinguished group of foreign 
senior officers who are accredited to the Department of Defense and the 
Department of State to officially and personally represent their 
defense secretaries in the United States with regard to military 
matters. Eighty-one countries around the world, allied and nonallied, 
are represented by over 100 navy, army, and air force officers living 
in the Washington, DC, area. Historically, this prestigious assignment 
has produced many flag and general officers who have subsequently 
become the equivalent of our service chiefs or Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff.
  A primary responsibility of the foreign defense attache, as 
recognized by the Vienna Convention, is to collect information and 
learn about the services of the United States. To assist in this 
effort, the U.S. service chiefs sponsor an aggressive information 
program which includes orientation tours to commands and related 
industrial facilities; service chief counterpart and other delegation 
visits; intelligence and operations briefings; and document 
dissemination. In turn, the attache provides Department of Defense 
decisionmakers with perspectives on developments within the attache's 
country and armed services.
  This is the office in which Senior Colonel Quang finds himself today. 
Born in 1932, Colonel Quang served in the North Vietnamese and 
Vietnamese Armies for a total of 27 years before being assigned to the 
Department of Foreign Relations within the Vietnamese Ministry of 
Defense. While serving in that capacity, Colonel Quang was a staff 
member of the Vietnamese Office for Seeking Missing Personnel. His 
responsibility was to interface with the United States concerning our 
country's servicemen who were still missing in action.
  Once a sworn enemy of the United States, Colonel Quang became a man 
who searched for the remains of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Now 
he serves here in Washington, representing his country as Vietnam's 
first post-war defense attache.
  In commemorating this historic event, I pray that this new 
relationship with Vietnam continues to prosper.

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