
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 1, 1993                   TAG: 9306010096
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CLINTON VISITS MEMORIAL

Amid angry taunts and applause, President Clinton on Monday called on Americans in a visit to Washington's brooding Vietnam Memorial to set aside the unhealed wounds of a war he bitterly opposed.

"Let us continue to disagree, if we must," Clinton told a crowd of about 4,000 gathered at the black marble monument for a Memorial Day observance. "But let us not let it divide us as a people any longer."

Clinton, who later knelt at the wall to trace the name of a fallen classmate, pledged he would accelerate the declassification of all records relating to missing soldiers in the war. The records, except for the "tiny fraction" that would compromise national security or invade some families' privacy, would be made available by Veteran's Day, Nov. 11, he said.

Clinton's tangled draft history almost wrecked his presidential campaign, and plans for this visit had provoked outrage among some veterans. His words mingled with chants of "Where was Bill?" and taunts of "Coward!"

As he began to speak, more than 100 uniformed veterans on a rise several hundred yards away swiveled in unison to turn their back on him.

But other veterans and family members applauded - some politely, some passionately. And the occasion offered another vivid reminder of how the country's most controversial war still divides 18 years after the last U.S. soldier withdrew from Southeast Asia.

Clinton at times looked uneasy but also appeared well-prepared for his detractors. "To all of you who are shouting, I have heard you," he said at the opening of his remarks. "I ask you now to hear me."

Speaking from a dais at the center of the wedge-shaped memorial, Clinton referred to the opposition of some veterans in a way that avoided reference to the controversy over his draft record.

Some veterans, he said, have "suggested it is wrong for me to be here with you today because I did not agree a quarter of a century ago with the decision made to send the young men and women to battle in Vietnam."

But, "can any commander-in-chief be in any other place but here on this day?" he asked. "I think not."

Jan Scruggs, the president of the foundation that built and maintains the memorial, congratulated Clinton after his remarks for his "courageous" decision to appear. Clinton was the first president to appear on Memorial Day at the monument, which is Washington's most popular memorial.

by CNB