Odd Kerry Comments Before 1st Return to Vietnam in 1991 (20 Year Anniversary of Senate Testimony)

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE SUBJECT: PROSPECTS FOR NORMALIZATION OF US-VIETNAMESE RELATIONS CHAIRED BY: SENATOR ALAN CRANSTON (D-CA)

SEN. CRANSTON: It's now my pleasure to call on Senator John Kerry, who has been a leader in this area as in so many others. And it was a special reason and background for his deep interest in a more sensible policy toward Vietnam. John?

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this hearing which you and I talked about some time ago and which I'm glad is now happening. It's funny. You know, I really hadn't thought about this, and I just turned to my staff and mentioned, it just suddenly occurred to me as I sat here that this is almost to the month and day -- it was April 21st I think -- 20 years ago that I sat right in that chair in this room and testified about Vietnam as a recently returned veteran. And I don't know why I hadn't thought about it, but it just didn't occur to me. That's an extraordinary time ago, and who would have thought that 20 years later almost to the day, I'd be sitting up here looking back at that chair.

And once again, we're talking about Vietnam which can only underscore the degree to which this is unfinished business for this country. We keep hearing the President say that the statute of limitations has run its course, that the syndrome has been put to bed. But, for a lot of us, I can't help but question whether that's really true. I wish it were and I want it to be, but the syndrome does a lot of different things. It is clearly not just lessons about how you wage a war, and it is not just lessons about committing American troops, and once you've done it, making sure that you have a victory. It's obviously a lot more than that. It's about veterans who are still unemployed, about chronic unemployment, about Agent Orange, it's about homeless veterans who are too significant a portion of American society. But, as I think about the context of this hearing today, it's more than that. It's something very deep in America's psyche and consciousness. And I think when you look at the measure of what's happened since the 1960s, the ways in which the '60s and Vietnam which has become almost synonymous with that period, the way in which that has affected so much of our politics and of what's happening and of our culture, it's impossible not to recognize the full depths and full measure of what it means.

I will be leaving next week to go back for my first trip back to Vietnam. I will be in Cambodia and in Vietnam. And happened to be looking at Morley Safer's flashbacks the other day sort of as I do some reading and thinking about going back, and was struck in his writing about the degree to which his life and the life of so many other people were affected by this experience. I think it's really in that light that we have to measure today's testimony and our policy most importantly. It's been 16 years since those helicopters lifted off that embassy with an indelible impression left behind in those images, part of which obviously has been deemed to be part of the legacy and part of the syndrome.

I might add that I have been joined in the Senate, and there were in the Senate prior to my coming here other veterans -- Bob Smith is one, he's going to testify here today; Larry Pressler, John McCain, Chuck Robb, Tom Harkin, Al Gore -- some of whom saw a considerable amount of combat, some of whom were in country, but all of whom have different views. And I claim absolutely no special wisdom and no personal rectitude in this. Bob Kimmet (sp) understands it. Ken Quinn (sp) understands it. There are a lot of different people, some of whom are making policy who have different views on it. But, it just strikes this senator and this veteran that it is about time that we fashion a new roadmap for our dealings with Vietnam. And I think that the roadmap before was one which many of us questioned where it was leading. And many of us still question whether this new roadmap is new, and whether it leads to a destination other than Beijing.

It's clear to me that we have some unique national interests in improving our relations with Vietnam. First and foremost our own humanitarian concerns, which are at the core of who we are as a country, including as rapidly as possible, as complete as possible an accounting of the POWs and MIAs, and the facilitating of the orderly departure of Vietnamese refugees. I'm not going to go into the POW/MIA issue at length, but it is deeply rooted, as much as any part of Vietnam, in all of us. And there isn't anybody who doesn't believe that every family deserves that full accounting, whether it's 20 years later or not, and no matter what level of hope might or might not exist. And that has to be resolved.

But we also have economic interests and questions of our policy and its fairness. And today we're going to hear something about those economic interests, and I think they're terribly important to our policy. There are many of us who believe that the trade embargo is working contrary to American interests and contrary to our capacity to be able ultimately to resolve the POW and MIA issue. Now I'm not sure what the full rational calculus of our current objectives in Vietnam, as expressed by the administration, is or ought to be, but there's a legitimate question of whether or not the normalizing of relations with Vietnam wouldn't perhaps, if we move towards it more rapidly, assist us in the resolution of the Cambodian conflict, rather then making the resolution of the Cambodian conflict and the normalization dependent on each other.

It seems to a certain degree that we may be holding the people of Vietnam and our own relationship and our own benefits that we gain from it a prisoner not just to our feelings about the Vietnam War, but prisoner also to the Cambodian conflict and to relations with China and to choices that may not be totally within the hands of the Vietnamese to resolve.

I wonder also if there is some degree to which we are being maneuvered by the Chinese in this process. And I question what it is that the Chinese have done for us in recent times that make it so compelling that the roadmap have such a strong linkage to China. They have supplied arms to Khmer Rouge, the very group that is at the core of our policy in saying they cannot return to power, they have aided Pakistan's nuclear program, going against all notions of anti-proliferation, they have sold missiles to Syria and to Iran, they've built a nuclear reactor in Algeria, they've helped the Lybians with their chemical weapons, and they have given the world Tiananmen Square.

The list could go on. One cannot find the countervailing list for things that Vietnam has done to us or to the world. Yet we maintain relations with China. We do not have relations with Vietnam. We now have some signs of progress on the POW/MIA issue and the administration says that the Hanoi office will be temporary, the POW/MIA office. It seems to me that the best way to make it permament is to increase our commerce and communication with that country, and not to create a dependency, which perhaps cannot be fulfilled by that country.

So I will be interested today, Mr. Chairman, to hear the testimony concerning this roadmap of what it demands. And there are obviously many questions to ask about why we singled them out for this response as opposed to other countries. It seems to me that we may in fact, and I think there will be testimony today, diminish our own influence and reduce our own opportunities by virtue of the current policy that we pursue. We are the only nation in the world today not trading or dealing with Vietnam. The embargo is not recognized by these other countries -- the French, the British, the Germans, Japanese -- countless people vying for economic opportunity -- and our companies left on the outside.

And when you measure that against some of the other humanitarian interests and the value that we have always been taught that exists in communications and in relationships and in cultural exchanges and in including people rather than excluding them, it seems to me that is a contrariness in our policy towards Vietnam that can only be reduced to lingering feelings about the war itself.

So I look forward to my visit there. Obviously, I take a lot of different feelings back there with me, and I look forward to the testimony this morning. But most of all I look forward to the day when we can really say that the syndrome, the statute of limitations, the legacy, the relationship, whatever you want to call it, has indeed changed in full measure and that it becomes what many of us feel it ought to be.

SEN. SMITH: .... So my statement today rather strong, in no way impugns anyone's motives.

When we talk about normalizing relations, Mr. Chairman, with Vietnam, the first thing we have to do is examine the State Department's policy, long one, long established on this matter. Secretary Baker and Mr. Solomon, who will testify later, supports the policy, which is that normalization of bilateral relations with Vietnam, must be linked to a comprehensive political settlement in Cambodia, which includes UN verified withdrawal of Vietnamese troops. The pace and scope of the normalization process will be determined by the seriousness of Vietnam's cooperation on the POW/MIA and other humanitarian issues.

I want to talk specifically this morning about prisoners of war. Somehow we tend to put this issue -- I sense that this issue now is being placed aside for something bigger. There isn't anything any bigger than the missing prisoners of war; 2,200 plus US prisoners of war and missing in action from the Vietnam War. When we think of Vietnam today and the problems we immediately think of that matter. If you were to poll the American people today, and ask them what is foremost on their minds as a result of this issue, if you mention Vietnam, that issue would come to the top immediately, POWs and MIAs.

As long as the Vietnamese refuse to give us answers on our POWs, which we know they have, we know they have the answers, things will never be normal between our two countries, nor should they ever be normal between our two countries.

I know many Americans believe that an accounting of our POWs and MIAs ought to take precedent over any other issue. And I agree. Hundreds of families, thousands of veterans, including myself, Senator Kerry, Senator McCain and others, to them the tragedy of the Vietnam War will not end until Vietnam has accounted for these missing men and women. We know they have the ability to do it, and until they do, I repeat, relations will not be normal, ever, with Vietnam.

Over this past weekend, Mr. Chairman, the President's special envoy, Generaly Vessey reached agreement with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Thach on setting up a temporary MIA office in Hanoi. This is something the Vietnamese first proposed back in 1986. I don't have a particular problem with that in the sense that it will help to begin to get some answers. I commend General Vessey. He's a hard-working, dedicated public servant, who has worked very hard on this issue.

However, having said that, I'm not optimistic that this new office in Hanoi is automatically going to result in hundreds of MIAs coming home from southeast Asia, unless Vietnam gives us the complete access we need to account for our personnel; access to records, access to crash sites, and most importantly, access to the prison camp system, where many, many live sighting reports indicate POWs have been held and are still being held. General Vessey must insist on cooperation on this matter if this office is to succeed. Anything short of that is a failure.

Mr. Chairman, one thing I do fear. If you lift the trade embargo against Vietnam, it will result in very few MIA cases being resolved, if any. Some say the opposite. The only reason we received any cooperation at all from Vietnam is because they know that their cooperation, though it has been extremely limited, is nonetheless necessary before any hope of relations could improve.

You lift the trade embargo and you move toward -- and moving towards normalization will reduce the incentive for Vietnam to cooperate and to provide answers. They'll no longer view the POW-MIA issue as a high priority, because they'll be reaping the economic benefits of normalized relations with the United States. What would be their incentive? They've got what they wanted -- trade, commerce, recognition. Why give us any more information?

As a consequence, we will remove the only leverage we have, and indeed -- this may be somewhat controversial -- it's very possible that any evidence they have, including live Americans, may be destroyed once and for all, so that there will be no further embarrassment to the Vietnamese.

I'm not willing to take that chance. If we remove the leverage, the issue is going to be moved to the back burner -- POW issue -- and issues like trade and investment in Vietnam will move to the front burner. Mr. Chairman, what a disgraceful way to write the final chapter in this Vietnam conflict -- trade first, answers on POWs and MIAs second.

Only after our policy objectives are met and we've received a full accounting should we even consider trade and normalization. Lifting the trade embargo would be the worst tragedy of all for the families who have suffered uncertainty for years.

SEN. KERRY: Thank you very much, Senator Smith. Let me begin by saying that I think that your testimony and the comments of Senator Helms really underscore the importance of our being here today. And they underscore the degree to which this issue is very much alive, and perhaps that statute that we've talked about hasn't run. But I want to emphasize something. I want to emphasize it as adamantly and passionately as I know how, for those listening and the media and for others. And for the families particularly.

There is no difference between Senator Bob Smith, Senator John Kerry, Senator John McCain, Senator Helms on the issue of whether or not POW-MIA issue is paramount, first and foremost, and a critical impediment to the normalization of relations. And there can be no normalization until America is satisfied that that issue has been resolved.

Now, in my opening comments I made it clear, and I reiterate that that is a critical component. Lifting the trade embargo is not normalizing relations. No one that I know of, in the Senate at least, has suggested that we should willy-nilly, automatically normalize relations.

And indeed, there should be no embassy, no normalization, no office as such until that issue is resolved. The question, as I see it and as some others see it, is whether or not we further the goal of resolving the POW-MIA issue by shutting the door, or leaving the door shut, or by opening it somewhat.

That's really the issue here, to me at least. We can always stop. We can always re-insert an embargo. We can always stop trade. We always hold that sledgehammer over their head if the effort of the Vessey mission and this office is not showing progress. But it seems to me that once you get to a point -- and I talked at length with General Vessey yesterday -- where they have said, "We'll give you access to anything you want. We'll let you go anywhere. You have an immediate sighting, we'll go with you to the place. You don't even have to tell us where it is. We'll just go and look and see." Now that's been offered. It seems to me that when you get to that point in this discussion, that the question is, do you keep, as Senator Murkowski said, moving the goalposts?

Now I hear -- I don't have full measure -- full way of measuring it, but I understand that Vietnam's beginning to get pretty exasperated and is beginning to look to China, and that the capacity for Vietnam to cut a deal with China and say, "The hell with you. You don't want us? Okay. We cut our own deal here. We'll get the Japanese and the Germans the French and the British and a lot of other people to trade with," and you'll never get resolution of your POW-MIA issue because you're not going to be communicating with them. It works both ways. My question here, Bob, is whether we gain more by having businesses there who can track down questions, who can turn to a Vietnamese businessman and say, "Hey, what about this issue? We got this sighting here. What do you know about this? Did you ever see an American held anywhere? Did you ever know any Americans anywhere?"

It seems to me that if you open up the country a little bit, let the families go back, let the families go anywhere they want in the country and ask any question -- you go back, I'll go back with you. You have sighting reports, let's go back and check them out. It seems to me you've got more capacity to find out what's going on by at least progressing down this road rather than continuing to shut it.

So I mean, I just want to emphasize that as far as the other view is concerned, there's no reward here. This is not rewarding them for something. This is trying to further the interest of getting this issue resolved because 20 years is too long and those families deserve to have it resolved, as you and I know, and we've talked about it privately. Now I wonder how you react to that.

SEN. SMITH: .... If you lift the trade embargo, I understand that's not normalization but it is the first step. It's moving toward it. And I think that we ought to make it very clear to them that in order to move to that first step, they've got to resolve this.

I also believe that by putting, whether they be American businessmen or some other Western businessmen and women in Vietnam, the Vietnamese are not stupid. They are not going to leave any evidence that they have lying around for American businessmen to see it. They're going to destroy the evidence. They're going to either move these people to districts -- if they have live Americans they're going to move them where they can't be found or they're going to move the evidence, put it out of country, wherever. They're certainly not going to leave lying around for us to find.

SEN. KERRY: Well, can I ask you that question then? If they're not going to leave it around for us to find, then why -- what is in their interests to ever repatriate them? Why don't they just kill them and say, "They never were here?"

Why are they going to turn around and repatriate them at some point in time, because it's never in their interest. It's not in their interest for American businessmen to find them. It's not in their interest for anybody to find them.

SEN. CRANSTON: You said one thing that sort of suggested something I'm sure you did not mean, and I just want to clarify that.

Those of us who feel that we should get a new policy and that we should move toward lifting the trade embargo are not just interested in opportunities for Americans to make money in business there. We're concerned about the MIA-POW thing as you are. We're concerned about suffering there. We're concerned about America's national interest in that part of the world. Those are our concerns, not giving some Americans a chance to make some money.

SEN. HELMS: Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of trouble with foreign policy, ours and theirs and others, because so often it's an effort, and a futile one, to rise above principle. And I've had my disagreements with the State Department. I'm going to have them so long as I stay here. But the point, I think, that needs to be emphasized, John, is, that Bob Smith and certainly Jesse Helms -- in this case I'm not criticizing Vietnam as much as I am our own government. Now in 18 years and 3 months and about 23 days in the United States Senate, I must have gone to 50 meetings, maybe 100, and I've never heard as much double-talk as I have gotten each time when you try to reason or learn something from our government. And this is Democrat and Republican administrations. It's bipartisan folly. Now, if the administration -- my administration -- if they want this so badly, let them get cracking on this business that they should have been doing a long time ago, like 1973, the first year I got here. I came here wearing a POW bracelet and I still wear one.

This is an important issue. Maybe not in terms of politics, but in terms of what's right, what's principled.

SEN. KERRY: Mr. Chairman, I know we want to move on, and we do want to hear Secretary Solomon, and I think Ken Quinn (sp), who just recently was over there with General Vessey and had meetings on this issue, can obviously help shed some light on this.

I, first of all, want to thank Senator Murkowski. His work on this has been terrific through the years, and he has been diligent in trying to get an answer to it. Secondly, I just want to comment that -- and I say this as delicately as I can -- that I really see a certain inconsistency in your finding that, if a businessman is there, the Vietnamese will be smart enough to move people and to make adjustments so the businessman can't find him, but if we follow up on sightings and get somebody over there and look, they won't be smart enough to move and then they'll find them in that circumstance. It seems to me either somebody can be on the ground and find them or they can't --

SEN. KERRY: -- and there's a mutual benefit in having as many people there as you can in an effort to do that.

SEN. SMITH: A quick response to that. Your point is well taken, and I don't want to get into sources and methods, but you and I both know, Mr. Kerry, that there are ways --

SEN. KERRY: I understand, but it seems to me you enhance the other, and the latter I come back to a term Murkowski said, we're not talking about any rewards here or anything. Both of us see this as a way of furthering our ability to get the very answers that you and I want.

And my final comment on that is just to underscore the degree to which that is necessary. What? A week and a half ago, two weeks ago, when I was back in the state touring and doing town meetings, I'm in a town meeting in Southbridge, and for I think the third time in as -- about a week and a half or two weeks, a family was waiting for me outside afterwards to tell me about recent reports they have had about sightings. And all you need to do is spend one time, and I've done it many more than one time, looking into the eyes of a family and watching their reactions to these reports about sightings and understanding the degree to which it re-opens wounds and leaves just a total inability to have finality to this thing in their minds.

And you know, you can go down to the Capitol Rotunda. I remember when we were there with the Dalai Lama the other day I looked over and saw -- there's the black flag, POW-MIA flag. It flies in every state house, flies outside most public buildings. Flies in firehouses, police stations, is carried in parades all across this country 20 years later. And the first issue I will raise when I'm over there next week will be this, and I guess we all have to understand that you can't have normalization, obviously, until it happens. But, Bob, I really believe that there has to be a way for a government with as much good intention to resolve this issue as we believe there is to find a mutuality of approach to it and to put this issue to bed. It has got to be put to bed for the sake of those families, for the sake of this country and our politics, and in order to move on. And I think there's a way to do it.

SEN. KERRY: Mr. Chairman, no. I just have one quick question and it's very, very quick, but I also appreciate enormously both the testimony as well as the interest that John has in this. And I've appreciated the chance to talk with him about it a few times and look forward to doing so, I hope today before I head over.

But the -- just the quick question I have is, in your statement prepared, and I think you mentioned it here, you say something to the effect that we haven't reached the stage in our accounting of the POW-MIAs to suggest we should relinquish all the tools. Do you see a formulation here where if the current mission of General Vessey and the opening of an office begins to produce affirmatively, that you would see us moving on the basis of that affirmative action rather than waiting for the final resolution? I mean, is this something that you can see happening in the short term, I guess?

SEN. MCCAIN: I'd say to my friend that I'm either an optimist or a masochist on this issue, because we have had a lot of promises from the Vietnamese in the past on this issue, as you know. You know, "Come to Vietnam and look anywhere we want," and then we've tried to implement that and that hasn't happened in the past. But I do believe that this time if this office is set up as General Vessey and Foreign Minister Thach have stated in their official declaration, then I think we are on the road and if we see that people are able to come to Vietnam, able to travel where they want, in order to resolve the questions that they have remaining, then I think that's sufficient.

In all candor, I think you would agree with me that we will never get a full asccounting of each and every American. What we need a full accounting of is that every American has been accounted for that may be alive, and every reasonable effort has been made to make that accounting.

MR. SOLOMON: I'd make the following comment, and I've stated this in testimony repeatedly. Isn't it better from Vietnam's own point of view to have the international community, the UN, dealing with this issue rather than Vietnam in a position where it remains trapped? This question of "but we have to go back in if we're to prevent a disaster of the Khmer Rouge coming back." That's a fundamental issue, it seems to me, the Vietnamese have to take into account. And for those who want to do business in Vietnam it seems to me it's fair enough for a businessman to say do I want to start investing in a country that is still going to be carrying the burden of this kind of security obligation with what it means for what is still the largest army in Southeast Asia. And we come back to our policy, which is, I firmly believe, that the most reliable guarantees against the Khmer Rouge fighting their way back are built into the UN settlement process.

SEN. KERRY: Providing that the government of Cambodia, the current government, is capable of, or willing to agree to a process which has the Khmer Rouge part of it. Correct?

MR. SOLOMON: Which subjects the Khmer Rouge -- assuming they stand for office -- to the test of public opinion.

MR. SOLOMON: The UN will be overseeing the administrative operations of the current regime in Phnom Penh. That's the difference between the Paris Conference approach and the UN approach.

SEN. KERRY: Now I would acknowledge, obviously, as anybody would, that there is significant influence of Vietnam over Cambodia, but is influence equatable to control? Can the government of Cambodia not necessarily have sufficient fears of the Khmer Rouge return that no government can force them to sign, that you might see them defeated or thrown out before that, before they would actually sign?

MR. SOLOMON: Yeah, it's a very understandable fear. As you know, the people in Phnom Penh are part of the Khmer Communist movement. Many of them were part of the Khmer Rouge in the Pol Pot era and tried to escape all that violence.

Again, what we've tried to signal in our -- or communicate in our discussions with the representatives of the Phnom Penh authorities in our talks in Laos is that, again, we believe the UN settlement gives them protection. And, of course, in an election context Pol Pot isn't going to get much support. Hun Sen seems to be a very attractive leader. People who have met him found him charismatic. My brief encounter with him didn't give much opportunity to sense that, but presumably he has some political appeal. So presumably the election process doesn't put him at all at a disadvantage.

MR. SOLOMON: What I can say on that, Senator, is that this issue has been raised with us in a positive way by the Vietnamese side. They said that they sort of need something to move further on that issue. And, again, the roadmap is designed to embrace that issue in a positive way. And we're responding to that issue having been raised with us.

SEN. KERRY: I take it we would treat that issue much as we do other countries. I mean, China has political prisoners; we have diplomatic relations. Eastern European countries had prisoners. Soviet Union had political prisoners -- has. We have relations. Is this something that would prevent us from having relations?

MR. QUINN: Well, these are people to whom we feel considerable obligation. They are in many instances people who -- you know -- worked very closely with our forces when they were there, and who, because of -- they were -- the policies they followed and the positions they held in the government, are still being held in prison, so --

SEN. KERRY: -- I understand our concern for it, and we obviously shouldn't ever -- ever diminish our emphasis on it. On the other hand, if I were in Vietnam now listening to what you just said, I would see the goalpost still moving.

I became exasperated trying to make sense of it...whoever said he was intelligent? I didn't hear any cogent conclusions here...

and what 'statute' was he referring to - the statute of limitations over his past war crimes? statute of limitations for amnesty regarding his dishonorable discharge?

He's mostly whining about how he wants normalized relations, but scared to look the real vets in the eye and say it.

I can't believe he compared Chinese political prisoners to US POWs in Vietnam...

I think he's talking about guilt over the Vietnam War...

And this time he was very defensive about the Gulf War and the discussion of the Vietnam Syndrome...

thanks - hey, did you see the 'Butterfly Effect'? good movie about changing things in the past to fix the present...

the sKerry campaign must wish they had access to the past...or could cause the world's servers to crash "just for three weeks"...

Pretty much everything he has ever said in the Congress (especially in the 80's and early 90's) is arrogant and lazy....

Playing around on Thomas or Lexis can really give you a good feel for this guy --- and it's not comforting.

7 posted on 10/16/2004 1:25:47 PM PDT by Christian4Bush (John Kerry is a WMJD--Weapon of Massive Job Destruction. Vote Bush/Cheney 2004!!!)

what's Thomas, is it also pay?

Kerry has an amazing inability to frame a clear and concise English sentence. Maybe this is just "Senate-Speak." However, after struggling through this crap, I DID manage to find one simple, delcaratory sentence from Kerry:

SEN. KERRY: Okay.

Thomas is Congress' legislative database:

http://thomas.loc.gov/

Great for Kerry research. And there are still many gems of boneheaded statements to find.

The problem here is that he is pissing off the POW advocates by speaking around the issue and trying to focus on trade.

He can't go out and say that he doesn't really care that much and wants normalization now, so he speaks in circles and acts very defensive.

Sorry, for me it was:

"Blah, blah, blah, blah, Twinkie, blah, blah, blah, blah..."

this was the run-up to getting the sweetheart deals for his Forbes cousin in France, n'est ce pas?

Thanks -- puts this in perspective....

Here he's basically framing the issue for himself and getting ready to stab the POW/MIA advocates in the back.

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