THE WHITE HOUSE
November 17, 2000
7:00 P.M. (L)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I want to thank Senator Kerry for what he said and for what he's done all these years, and for being a wonderful friend to Hillary and me in many, many ways. And I want to thank Sandy Berger, and our whole team in the White House and State Department for supporting this trip from the beginning. And I want to associate myself with what Hillary said -- now that she's going to be a senator, I can just let her give the speeches and I can say, "I completely agree." And that will save everyone from having to hear two speeches. (Laughter.)
But I do want to say a couple of things, if I might. First, I, too, want to thank you for the endless hours you have put in in preparation for this trip, and for the work you have done representing our nation here in Vietnam.
I want to thank especially the Vietnamese nationals who work at our Embassy, and who, therefore, embody this new partnership we have worked so hard to build these last several years.
We started this process of reconstructing our relationship a long time ago, and I have been working at it now, with the people on this stage and others, for at least eight years. And I'm very grateful to all of them. But I want to take my time tonight to say a special word of thanks to Pete Peterson.
Most everybody I guess in Vietnam knows that he was a fighter pilot here, that he was a prisoner of war here. You may know that his wife was nine months pregnant with their third child when he came here. He was supposed to fly 100 missions, and he was shot down two-thirds of the way through. And by the time he got home, his son was six years old.
What you may not know is that when I met him, he was a congressman from northern Florida, and he represented a district in which, I promise you, was the only American in my party who would have ever been elected from that district. (Laughter.) Otherwise, any normal person would have had to be a member of the other party.
And I remember the times we spent driving through his congressional district, talking about his commitment to public service, and talking about how desperately he wanted us to have a new relation with Vietnam, and how he wanted to embody that, going beyond.
So when the time came for a new ambassador to be named, I literally only considered one person. America has I don't know how many, 270-something-million people -- I only considered one person to be our ambassador to Vietnam, and Pete agreed to do it.
Now, he gave all those speeches about letting go of the past, and looking toward the future, and all we can change is the future. So he -- one thing I like about Pete is he always practices what he preaches. So he comes to Vietnam, meets Vietnam and starts a new life. So you are the embodiment, madam, of the future for Pete, and we thank you, and we thank you for what you have done. (Applause.)
He traveled all over Vietnam, just like he traveled all over America, promoting this relationship. He worked on the POW-MIA issue. He worked to advance the economy of Vietnam. Three times he led the lobbying to get our Congress to support our Jackson-Vanik waiver. His enthusiasm is completely infectious.
I understand, Pete, today that CNN and BBC carried the signing of our bilateral trade agreement live at 3:00 a.m. Hanoi, and watch parties were held all over town. Now, that's pretty amazing.
I also want to thank him for the work he did to prevent injuries and accidents here with his safety campaign. And I want to express my sympathies, because I understand after you started this safety campaign, a mischievous television film crew caught you in a rare moment riding your motorcycle without a helmet. (Laughter.) Now, that's something all of us who have been in public life can identify with. (Laughter.)
I want to thank you for befriending the villagers in the area where you were shot down, and joining them to inaugurate a school. And I want to thank those of you who work in this Embassy, especially those of you who have extended your tours from two years to three. I want to thank the members of the American business community, apparently who have signed a resolution cautioning the new President not to change the Ambassador in Hanoi. (Laughter.) That's good advice to the new President. (Laughter.)
One of the most famous sayings of the Buddha is, "Never does hatred by hatred cease; hatred ceases by love alone." This is an eternal law. Even eternal laws have to be made real in the lives of particular people, and that is a law which has been made real in the life and service of Pete Peterson.
He doesn't know I'm going to do this today, but the Ambassador has been honored for his military service with the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Legion of Merit for heroism in the uniform of his country. I think his service as Ambassador to Vietnam is the most important service he has ever rendered to the United States. And so, in the presence of all of his co-workers and friends and many of their rambunctious children, which makes it even better, I am going to award Pete Peterson with the President's Citizen's Medal. And I would like the commander to read the citation and then bring the medal up here so I can give it to Pete. (Applause.)
(The citation is read.) (Applause.)
AMBASSADOR PETERSON: Well, I have been surprised before, but never so surprised -- and never so honored, may I add. President Clinton, I cannot tell you how much this means to me.
Working here as an American citizen, doing good things, after having been here doing things not so good at another time, is a rare opportunity for anyone. I really believe that America can help make Vietnam a peaceful, constructive nation for the foreseeable future.
No other nation has the compassion; no other nation has the capacity to do it. If America's not willing to do it, Vietnam would ultimately remain a third world country. And that's why this team is here, because they all share this belief. And we are deeply honored to have had the opportunity to serve our nation in carrying out that goal, but also to help the Vietnamese, the people -- you mentioned the FSN that we have -- they're so wonderful -- but the people of Vietnam who have their quality of life raised to new heights.
And so this medal means a great deal to me. But, believe me, I share it with all of my friends, and certainly all of our staff, both Vietnamese and American, because all of them have sacrificed in some way to make this relationship stronger, better, longer-lasting and creative.
So thank you very much for this incredible surprise. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much.
END 7:20 P.M. (L)
Amb. Pete Peterson, a former prisoner of war captured in Vietnam, is the first American ambassador to that country since the war.
American missing in action
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And finally, Mr. Ambassador, what's the current situation with the American missing in action? There were around 1,500, right, who were unaccounted for. What's the status of those people now and what do you think will -- when will that be closed, those cases be closed?
PETE PETERSON: I can't answer the timeline. We're working very, very hard and have been very successful, I might add. It's one of the untold stories in the nation, I'm afraid, and we're trying to get the word out to the extent and to the commitment that both nations have placed to the fullest possible accounting effort. There are roughly 1,500 cases in Vietnam that are not yet fully determined. However, we have enormous amount of information on every one of those cases. And I would suggest that we're making some major progress in that. We continue our excavations. And the Vietnamese cooperation on this is just excellent. In fact, I'm calling it a partnership now. They have 300,000 MIA's, and we're helping them make their determinations, they're helping us with our determinations and in that process, I think in the years ahead we will be able to conclude this very, very honorable, humanitarian effort.
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Ambassador Peterson has extensive experience in the private sector having formed Peterson and Associates, Inc., a general contracting company in Tampa, Florida and later served as the General Manager of Odom Tank Company, a general contracting firm located in Marianna, Florida. In 1984, he entered into a partnership to create CRT Computers, Inc., a currently active full service computer enterprise with facilities in Marianna, Florida.
Ambassador Peterson is a native of Nebraska, but has resided in Florida for more than 40 years. He is a graduate of the University of Tampa, Tampa , Florida and served on the faculty of Florida State University for over 5 years as the administrator of a specialized therapeutic mental health program at the University.
Ambassador Peterson is married to Vi Le and has two children, Michael of Jacksonville, Florida, and Paula of Bascom, Florida.
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Q Ambassador, here it is, 25 years after the war and the President of the United States is here dealing with the communist government of Vietnam, trying to establish cordial relations. With all due respect, sir, to you and to others who have served in the war, might not the families of those who perished in that war ask what did their loved ones die for?
AMBASSADOR PETERSON: Well, each of those families would have to answer that for themselves, of course. I would never try to preempt their feelings, because I know -- I know -- how they feel. My family, too, suffered greatly. In fact, I personally suffered every imaginable hurt and problem that one could, short of death.
But I am convinced that those who lost their lives, those who suffered here would be among the first to stand up and say, we don't want this to happen again. And that by constructive effort and engagement on our part, the United States can make sure that we do not have a circumstance arise that could give the opportunity for misunderstanding, and then therefore an opportunity for the renewal of a conflict either here or in the region.
So my view on it is that you have an opportunity here to prevent. And I know that those people who served here, I think every single one, even though they have painful memories, would engage with me and others to prevent any similar conflict in the future. And that's why I'm here.
Q It's such a sensitive topic about these MIA excavations and continuing search for our soldiers. Do you foresee a day when the administration, whichever administration it is, finally says, enough, rest in peace, let's withdraw, we'll stop?
AMBASSADOR PETERSON: No, I don't see any administration doing that. I don't see any politician doing that. I certainly don't see any ambassador doing that. And I don't see any military general doing that. The decision of fullest possible accounting -- and that is difficult to define, because there's no written word on that -- it has to be defined by the American people, and most assuredly by America's veterans and the families of those who were lost here.
Fullest possible accounting is a great descriptive, but it's incredibly difficult to define. And it has to be defined ultimately, in my view, by those who served here and by those whose lives were most deeply touched by our engagement here.
Anything else?
Q Not too long ago at least one Vietnamese official, military official, complained about the lack of cooperation from the United States' side in finding -- in searching for the missing North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Now with the release of these new documents or the transfer of these new documents by the United States, do you see that as a response to that complaint, or were these documents in the pipeline already?
AMBASSADOR PETERSON: No, it was clearly not a response. In fact, I'm aware of that statement and I just feel that that person was uninformed.
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