Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 11, 1995 TAG: 9507110085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The future U.S. ambassador will be the first to return to Vietnam since Graham Martin left the former U.S. Embassy in Saigon by helicopter in April 1975 with an American flag tucked under his arm.
Clinton's action, which is to be announced this afternoon in the White House East Room, comes as Congress is returning to work from a holiday recess and before the Senate could debate competing resolutions about whether the United States should formally recognize its former enemy.
Influential POW-MIA groups, which have condemned Clinton's decision, are to receive a special briefing before today's announcement. There are 1,619 Americans listed as missing in action in Vietnam.
``We still think it's a bad idea,'' said Phil Budahn, a spokesman for the American Legion, whose 3.1 million-member group is the country's largest veterans organization. ``We're convinced that diplomatic relations is the sole lever that we have to pry information from Vietnam about the whereabouts of missing Americans.
``The agony of the families is not over.''
The Clinton administration is hoping that full diplomatic relations will help American businesses tap into a growing and potentially lucrative market and make it easier to travel between the two nations.
Because a U.S. liaison office already is operating in Vietnam, some officials said today's announcement carries more symbolic and historic value than practical effect.
But Irwin Jay Robinson, founder and former president of the Vietnam-American Chamber of Commerce, said Clinton's decision is certain to enhance economic ties between the two nations.
``I think the short-term impact will be more favorable than people expect,'' he said. ``There are lots of American companies who will not want to go into a foreign country that is not recognized by the U.S. government. It's primarily symbolic, but I think it will have some cathartic effect on American businesses that have been holding back.''
Clinton, whose avoidance of the draft during the Vietnam War became a focal point of his 1992 presidential bid, is certain to draw political heat, but he has powerful allies to blunt the political fallout.
Former President Bush, whose administration began the process of reconciliation, supports normalization, as do decorated Vietnam War veterans in the Senate, including John McCain, R-Ariz., and John Kerry, D-Mass.
``It is profoundly in the interests of the people who fought with us, the people that I went over and others went over to try to fight for democracy and for their future, to have us involved,'' Kerry told NBC News over the weekend. ``And we should be there with the American flag in Hanoi, in Ho Chi Minh City, expressing our interests with respect to the future democratization, human rights and other issues.''
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., and Sen. Robert Smith, R-N.H., are backing legislation that would bar funding for a new U.S. Embassy in Vietnam, but a nonbinding resolution to support normalization is expected to pass.
by CNB