[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7379-7380]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           THE 33RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE FALL OF SOUTH VIETNAM

  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, today is the 33rd anniversary of the fall of 
South Vietnam, where the North Vietnamese offensive that had begun in 
the aftermath of a vote in this Congress to cut off supplemental 
funding to the Government of South Vietnam. This was combined with a 
massive refurbishment of the North Vietnamese Army that allowed an 
invasion to kick off at a time when our South Vietnamese allies were 
attempting to reorganize their positions in order to adapt to the 
reality that they were going to get markedly less funding from the 
United States in their effort to grow their incipient democracy.
  I think it is important for us to look back on that event and to give 
credit where credit is due, and also to talk a little bit about the 
future of relations between our country and the present Government in 
Vietnam.
  Too often in today's school systems and in the discussions that 
examine the Vietnam war, we are overwhelmed by mythology. In many 
cases, we tend to assume this was a war between the United States and 
Vietnam. Nothing could be further from the truth. This was an attempt 
by the United States to assist a government in the south that had been 
formed with the idea that it would evolve into a properly functioning 
democracy, in the same way that we assisted South Korea when it was 
divided from North Korea, in the same way that we very successfully 
assisted West Germany when the demarcation line at the end of World War 
II divided Germany between the Communist east and the free society in 
the west. We were not successful in that endeavor in Vietnam for a 
number of reasons. But it would be wrong to assume that this was an 
action by our country against the country of Vietnam. It was an attempt 
to actually assist that country.
  There is a lot of talk about the domino theory and the heightened and 
unjustified warnings about what was going on in the rest of the region 
with respect to different efforts that were backed by the Soviet Union 
and Communist China at that point. But these were actually valid 
concerns at the time. Indonesia had suffered an attempted coup that was 
sponsored by the Chinese. We had a hot war in South Korea when North 
Korea invaded. This was a region in a great deal of turmoil, when you 
look back at the European powers that had colonies throughout Southeast 
Asia, which had largely pulled back after World War II because of the 
enormous costs of that war. It had shrunk back into their own national 
perimeters. The Japanese had colonized a good part of Southeast Asia, 
and after World War II they had withdrawn their forces. There was a 
good deal of turbulence, and there was a great deal of strategic 
justification for what we attempted to do.
  The bottom line is 58,000 Americans were killed in action or died of 
hostile causes during the Vietnam war. We should remember them with the 
validity that their effort deserves. Mr. President, 245,000 South 
Vietnamese soldiers fought alongside us and perished; 1.4 million 
Communist soldiers died in that endeavor.
  The events following the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, have never 
really been given the proper attention in terms of how we evaluate the 
history of what we attempted to do. One million of the cream of South 
Vietnam's leaders were sent into reeducation camps, and 240,000 of them 
remained in those camps for 4 years or longer; 56,000 of them died in 
the reeducation camps. This was the cream of South Vietnam's 
leadership--almost as many as we lost in the entire war. Two million 
Vietnamese were displaced, a million of them hitting the ocean, risking 
their lives in order to try to reach a better

[[Page 7380]]

life that would not be under the oppression of a government that had 
succeeded in conquering the south. Many of them came to the United 
States.
  Many of the families whose fathers and, in some cases, mothers had 
been in reeducation camps were able to relocate here and begin a 
different life. A Stalinist system took over in the north. When I 
started going back to Vietnam in 1991, that system was very much in 
place.
  We should look to the future. I believe there are two important 
things for us to keep in mind at this point in the evolution of our 
relations with Vietnam. First is that over a pretty rocky period of 
time, the Communist Government of Vietnam has made adjustments and 
positive contributions. This is not to say that we are in a perfectly 
beneficial relationship, but I have been pleased, since 1991, to 
participate in many of these endeavors to bring a more moderate society 
inside Vietnam and to assist in bringing in American businesses.
  Vietnam and Thailand, in my view, are two of the most important 
countries in terms of how the United States should be looking at East 
Asia and Southeast Asia with the emergence of China, the emergence of 
India, and the evolution of Muslim fundamentalism that spills over in 
Southeast Asia into countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and the 
south Philippines. Vietnam and Thailand are very important to us, and 
the relationships evolving between Vietnam and the United States are 
healthy and in the long term are going to be successful.
  The second thing we should remember is that there are many Vietnamese 
Americans in this country who suffered not only during the war, but 
after 1975. We tend to forget that with the reorganization of the 
society that occurred under Communist rule. I have spent a good bit of 
my life working to assist this refugee community in the United States. 
I also have been working to build a bridge between the overseas 
Vietnamese community and the ruling Government in Vietnam today. 
Through that bridge, we are going to have a much healthier society here 
and also a much more productive society in Vietnam.
  Today, I wanted to do my small part in making sure we in this country 
remember not only a struggle that had a great deal of validity to it--
even though it did not turn out the way many of us wanted it to--but 
also the positive aspects of our relations with Vietnam looking into 
the future.
  With, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I honor, as always, the words and 
wisdom of the Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WEBB. I thank the Senator from West Virginia.

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