[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 7 (Monday, February 21, 1994)]
[Page 315]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Electronic Mail Message to Prime Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden

February 16, 1994

Dear Carl:

    I appreciate your support for my decision to end the trade embargo 
on Vietnam and thank you for all that Sweden has done on the question of 
the POW/MIA's.
    I share your enthusiasm for the potential of emerging communications 
technologies. This demonstration of electronic communications is an 
important step toward building a global information superhighway.
    Sincerely,
                                                          Bill

Note: The President's message was released as part of a statement by the 
Press Secretary announcing the first Presidential correspondence with a 
foreign head of state using electronic mail. The text of Prime Minister 
Bildt's message to the President follows:

Dear Bill,
    Apart from testing this connection on the global Internet system, I 
want to congratulate you on your decision to end the trade embargo on 
Vietnam. I am planning to go to Vietnam in April and will certainly use 
the occasion to take up the question of the MIA's. From the Swedish side 
we have tried to be helpful on this issue in the past, and we will 
continue to use the contacts we might have.
    Sweden is--as you know--one of the leading countries in the world in 
the field of telecommunications, and it is only appropriate that we 
should be among the first to use the Internet also for political 
contacts and communications around the globe.
    Yours,
                                                                Carl