[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 5 (Monday, February 8, 1999)]
[Pages 189-190]
[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

February 3, 1999

Presidential Determination No. 99-12

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, 1999, as contained in the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency 
Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, Public Law 105-277, 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

[[Page 190]]

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 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 with the Congress, 
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, 
including the full range of ongoing accounting activities in Vietnam, 
joint and unilateral Vietnamese efforts, and the concrete results we 
have attained as a result of these efforts.
    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