[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 10 (Monday, March 9, 1998)]
[Pages 377-378]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Memorandum on Vietnamese Cooperation in Accounting for United States 
Prisoners of War and Missing in Action

March 4, 1998

Presidential Determination No. 98-16

Memorandum for the Secretary of State

Subject: Vietnamese Cooperation in Accounting for United States 
Prisoners of War and Missing in Action (POW/MIA)

    As provided under section 609 of the Departments of Commerce, 
Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations 
Act, 1998, Public Law 105-119, I hereby determine, based on all 
information available to the United States Government, that the 
Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is fully cooperating in 
good faith with the United States in the following four areas related to 
achieving the fullest possible accounting for Americans unaccounted for 
as a result of the Vietnam War:
(1)         resolving discrepancy cases, live sightings, and field 
            activities;
(2)         recovering and repatriating American remains;
(3)         accelerating efforts to provide documents that will help 
            lead to the fullest possible accounting of POW/MIAs; and
(4)         providing further assistance in implementing trilateral 
            investigations with Laos.
    I further determine that the appropriate laboratories associated 
with POW/MIA accounting are thoroughly analyzing remains, material, and 
other information, and fulfilling their responsibilities as set forth in 
subsection (B) of section 609, and information pertaining to this 
accounting is being made available to immediate family members in 
compliance with 50 U.S.C. 435 note.
    I have been advised by the Department of Justice and believe that 
section 609 is unconstitutional because it purports to use a condition 
on appropriations as a means to direct my execution of responsibilities 
that the Constitution commits exclusively to the President. I am 
providing this determination as a matter of comity, while reserving the 
position that the condition enacted in section 609 is unconstitutional.
    In making this determination I have taken into account all 
information available to the United States Government as reported to me, 
the full range of ongoing accounting activities in Vietnam, including 
joint and unilateral Vietnamese efforts, and the concrete results we 
have attained as a result.
    Finally, in making this determination, I wish to reaffirm my 
continuing personal commitment to the entire POW/MIA community, 
especially to the immediate families, relatives, friends, and supporters 
of these brave individuals, and to reconfirm that the central, guiding 
principle of my Vietnam policy is to achieve the fullest possible 
accounting of our prisoners of war and missing in action.
    You are authorized and directed to report this determination to the 
appropriate committees of the Congress and to publish it in the Federal 
Register.
                                            William J. Clinton

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