THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 8, 1995 TAG: 9507080395
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
With a White House announcement expected within days, some Vietnam veterans and family groups are making a last-ditch lobbying effort to stop President Clinton from normalizing relations with Vietnam.
``It's outrageous. The government in Vietnam is an illegal government,'' said Diane Van Renselaar, a representative of POW-MIA families.
``As far as we're concerned, it's a terrible mistake,'' said John Sommer Jr., executive director of the American Legion. The 3.1 million-member group is the country's largest veterans organization.
All of Clinton's top national security aides, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher, have recommended that he establish normal ties with Vietnam, and a ``decision memo'' on the subject has been drafted.
The New York Times reported Friday that Clinton had decided to approve the memo as early as next week.
State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns has cited what he described as a ``new level of cooperation'' with Vietnam on the MIA and POW issue.
But some veterans and family groups angrily reject such claims, contending that Vietnam has not lived up to the demands for an accounting that Clinton had set as a condition for normal relations.
The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, an influential POW-MIA group, admonished its members last week to ``Call, telegraph or write the president now! We must stop normalization. If you already have called and written, do it again and again.''
League Executive Director Ann Mills Griffith - asked Friday what her battle plan was - replied, ``Truth. We've got the facts.''
Sommer said the American Legion plans a similar strategy. ``I am sure there will be a lot of communication going to both the president and Congress,'' he said.
``Once the relations are normalized, it will be very difficult to have anything to use as leverage'' to gain cooperation from the Vietnamese on the issue of MIAs, Sommer said.
Some critics focused on Clinton's objection to the war in the 1960s and branded him a hypocrite.
``I think it's despicable for someone like Clinton, who refused to fight in the war, to turn around and normalize relations,'' Van Renselaar said. ``It's a national disgrace.''
If Clinton goes along with his advisers' recommendation, Republicans likely will make it a campaign issue.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich told CNN on Friday, ``This is not the time to be cozying up to dictators.''
And Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., said at a news conference in St. Paul, Minn., ``I don't share President Clinton's views on normalizing relations with Vietnam.''
Not everyone in Congress shares that view, however.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Vietnam war prisoner, favors normal ties. ``I think it's very important for us to recognize that the war is over,'' McCain said in May after meeting with Clinton at the White House. ``What I think we need to do is look forward as a nation to the healing process.''
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., another decorated Vietnam vet, stood beside McCain that day and also praised the Vietnamese efforts at solving the MIA cases.
And not all veterans groups are opposed.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars, for instance, said in a resolution approved last month that it would go along with normalization if it furthers the fullest possible accounting of the more than 2,200 U.S. servicemen still missing in Indochina.
``It was a tragedy all around, but I think it's time to put it behind us,'' said U.S. Army Col. Stuart Herrington, who served on the Joint Military Team in Vietnam and is now at an Army staff college. ``It's a good time to drop it and move on.'' by CNB