[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 28 (Monday, July 17, 1995)]
[Pages 1217-1219]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Announcing the Normalization of Diplomatic Relations With 
Vietnam

July 11, 1995

    Thank you very much. I welcome you all here, those who have been 
introduced and distinguished Members of Congress and military leaders, 
veterans, others who are in the audience.
    Today I am announcing the normalization of diplomatic relationships 
with Vietnam.
    From the beginning of this administration, any improvement in 
relationships between America and Vietnam has depended upon making 
progress on the issue of Americans who were missing in action or held as 
prisoners of war. Last year, I lifted the trade embargo on Vietnam in 
response to their cooperation and to enhance our efforts to secure the 
remains of lost Americans and to determine the fate of those whose 
remains have not been found.
    It has worked. In 17 months, Hanoi has taken important steps to help 
us resolve many cases. Twenty-nine families have received the remains of 
their loved ones and at last have been able to give them a proper 
burial. Hanoi has delivered to us hundreds of pages of documents 
shedding light on what happened to Americans in Vietnam.

[[Page 1218]]

And Hanoi has stepped up its cooperation with Laos, where many Americans 
were lost. We have reduced the number of so-called discrepancy cases, in 
which we have had reason to believe that Americans were still alive 
after they were lost to 55. And we will continue to work to resolve more 
cases.
    Hundreds of dedicated men and women are working on all these cases, 
often under extreme hardship and real danger in the mountains and 
jungles of Indochina. On behalf of all Americans, I want to thank them. 
And I want to pay a special tribute to General John Vessey, who has 
worked so tirelessly on this issue for Presidents Reagan and Bush and 
for our administration. He has made a great difference to a great many 
families. And we as a nation are grateful for his dedication and for his 
service. Thank you, sir.
    I also want to thank the Presidential delegation, led by Deputy 
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Hershel Gober, Winston Lord, James Wold, 
who have helped us to make so much progress on this issue. And I am 
especially grateful to the leaders of the families and the veterans 
organizations who have worked with the delegation and maintained their 
extraordinary commitment to finding the answers we seek.
    Never before in the history of warfare has such an extensive effort 
been made to resolve the fate of soldiers who did not return. Let me 
emphasize, normalization of our relations with Vietnam is not the end of 
our effort. From the early days of this administration I have said to 
the families and veterans groups what I say again here: We will keep 
working until we get all the answers we can. Our strategy is working. 
Normalization of relations is the next appropriate step. With this new 
relationship, we will be able to make more progress. To that end, I will 
send another delegation to Vietnam this year. And Vietnam has pledged it 
will continue to help us find answers. We will hold them to that pledge.
    By helping to bring Vietnam into the community of nations, 
normalization also serves our interest in working for a free and 
peaceful Vietnam in a stable and peaceful Asia. We will begin to 
normalize our trade relations with Vietnam, whose economy is now 
liberalizing and integrating into the economy of the Asia-Pacific 
region. Our policy will be to implement the appropriate United States 
government programs to develop trade with Vietnam consistent with U.S. 
law.
    As you know, many of these programs require certifications regarding 
human rights and labor rights before they can proceed. We have already 
begun discussing human rights issues with Vietnam, especially issues 
regarding religious freedom. Now we can expand and strengthen that 
dialog. The Secretary of State will go to Vietnam in August where he 
will discuss all of these issues, beginning with our POW and MIA 
concerns.
    I believe normalization and increased contact between Americans and 
Vietnamese will advance the cause of freedom in Vietnam, just as it did 
in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I strongly believe that 
engaging the Vietnamese on the broad economic front of economic reform 
and the broad front of democratic reform will help to honor the 
sacrifice of those who fought for freedom's sake in Vietnam.
    I am proud to be joined in this view by distinguished veterans of 
the Vietnam war. They served their country bravely. They are of 
different parties. A generation ago they had different judgments about 
the war which divided us so deeply. But today they are of a single mind. 
They agree that the time has come for America to move forward on 
Vietnam. All Americans should be grateful especially that Senators John 
McCain, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Chuck Robb and Representative Pete 
Peterson, along with other Vietnam veterans in the Congress, including 
Senator Harkin, Congressman Kolbe and Congressman Gilchrest, who just 
left, and others who are out here in the audience have kept up their 
passionate interest in Vietnam but were able to move beyond the haunting 
and painful past toward finding common ground for the future. Today, 
they and many other veterans support the normalization of relations, 
giving the opportunity to Vietnam to fully join the community of nations 
and being true to what they fought for so many years ago.
    Whatever we may think about the political decisions of the Vietnam 
era, the brave Americans who fought and died there had noble motives. 
They fought for the freedom

[[Page 1219]]

and the independence of the Vietnamese people. Today the Vietnamese are 
independent, and we believe this step will help to extend the reach of 
freedom in Vietnam and, in so doing, to enable these fine veterans of 
Vietnam to keep working for that freedom.
    This step will also help our own country to move forward on an issue 
that has separated Americans from one another for too long now. Let the 
future be our destination. We have so much work ahead of us. This moment 
offers us the opportunity to bind up our own wounds. They have resisted 
time for too long. We can now move on to common ground. Whatever divided 
us before let us consign to the past. Let this moment, in the words of 
the Scripture, be a time to heal and a time to build.
    Thank you all. And God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 2:03 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Gen. John W. Vessey, Jr., USA 
(Ret.), Special Emissary for POW/MIA Affairs; and Deputy Secretary of 
Veterans Affairs Herschel Gober, Assistant Secretary of State Winston 
Lord, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense James Wold, members of 
the Presidential Delegation on POW/MIA Issues.