Dornan Trying to Block Move to Normalize Vietnam Ties

In a split with fellow Republicans in Congress--Vietnam war veterans among them--Orange County’s Rep. Robert K. Dornan is opposing moves by the Bush Administration toward normalizing relations with Hanoi.

And while the conservative Garden Grove Republican is exchanging harshly worded memos with the State Department over the normalization issue, he is pressing ahead with legislation aimed at making it easier for former Vietnamese citizens to gain refugee status in this country.

Dornan, a former fighter pilot and television talk show host with a taste for controversy, is one of the few members of Congress who is not hesitant to make his voice heard.

Shaping U.S. Policy

And if his critics have sometimes dismissed him as long on rhetoric but short on substance, the 56-year-old congressman has in fact made himself a significant factor in the shaping of U.S. policy toward its former foe.

In combative correspondence with the State Department, as an official member of the U.S. delegation to a conference on Vietnamese refugees, and as a legislator who counts 78,000 former residents of Vietnam as constituents, Dornan has repeatedly made his weight felt in maintaining a tough line toward the communist regime that now rules all of Vietnam.

While two Vietnam veterans and fellow Republicans, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Tom Ridge (R-Pa.), are urging the Administration to move toward normalizing relations if Vietnam withdraws its occupying troops from Cambodia, Dornan is by far the most vocal--and strident--of those who oppose the move, several congressional aides said.

Some see Dornan as a rabid anti-communist whose bombastic style is rooted in an inability to move beyond the rhetoric of the Cold War.

But many see him as a serious player in the battle over Vietnam policy, whose interests in a wide range of issues, including Vietnamese refugees and missing American servicemen, transcend his anti-communist tirades.

Even McCain, a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for 5 1/2 years, acknowledges that Dornan, a strong and early supporter of George Bush during the 1988 primary campaign, has the ear of the White House.

“Obviously his opinion is respected over there,” McCain said.

But McCain insists that “the Administration’s decision (about re-establishing relations with Vietnam) will be based on a lot of other factors.”

A State Department official specializing in Far Eastern affairs said the Bush Administration is willing to move toward establishing normal relations with Vietnam “in the context of an acceptable settlement in Cambodia,” which Vietnam has occupied since December, 1978.

Such a settlement, the official said, must include withdrawal of Vietnamese troops, establishment of a popularly elected government, and provisions to prevent the return to power of the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for a bloody reign of terror in Cambodia from 1975 through 1978. Vietnam has vowed to remove its troops from Cambodia by the end of September.

Even if that occurs, Dornan is adamantly opposed to any rapprochement.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State James A. Baker III in May, Dornan wrote: “As you know, my Orange County, California, congressional district is home to the largest Vietnamese-American community in our country. . . .

“It would send shock waves throughout Vietnamese families nationwide if recognition of Hanoi’s government were to occur at all, let alone early, in the Bush Administration.

“Some voices in Congress will dovetail with Hanoi’s propaganda efforts designed to create the perception that Vietnam now fits into a new world socialist mold, which accepts a Vietnamese version of glasnost and perestroika .” Such an impression, Dornan said, is patently false.

The State Department’s response was largely disappointing, Dornan said.

In the second paragraph of a June 2 letter, Assistant Secretary of State Janet G. Mullins told Dornan, “Longstanding United States policy envisions normalization of relations with Vietnam, involving diplomatic recognition and an end to our economic ostracism,” once the Cambodia question is settled.

Dornan termed the letter “exceedingly weak,” and complained, “I have a good enough relationship with Jim Baker that he should have written me himself.”

However, Dornan said he believes continuing efforts to pressure the White House will pay off. He noted that even the Bush Administration formally opposed a move last year by McCain and Ridge to permit Vietnam and the United States to set up “interest sections”--a step in the direction of establishing full diplomatic relations--in each other’s capitals.

Furthermore, Dornan said, last month’s massacre by the Chinese army of protesting students in Beijing may persuade American leaders to take a slower approach toward recognition of what Dornan termed a brutal communist government.

“I think they’re going to be so obsessed with China now that they’re not going to have time to play games about (whether) now is the right time to start normalizing relations with Vietnam,” he said.

On another front, Dornan’s efforts to shape policy toward Vietnam have met with more immediate success.

The House last week approved a measure, which Dornan co-sponsored, that would for one year make it easier for emigres from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Soviet Union to earn political refugee status from the United States.

The legislation, authored by Rep. Bruce A. Morrison (D-Conn.), directs the attorney general to establish categories of Soviet and Indochinese emigres who will not be required to prove they are victims of political persecution in order to enter the United States.

Such proof is now required by the Department of Immigration and Naturalization before it will accept emigres as political refugees.

A Dornan-authored bill that would grant presumptive refugee status to any Vietnamese interned in a “re-education camp” is pending in the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

Recognizing Dornan’s interest in the refugee issue, the White House earlier this year named him to the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Indochinese Refugees, held in Geneva last month. Dornan was the only member of Congress named as an official delegate.

The continuing crush of refugees from Vietnam into adjacent jurisdictions, including Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong, has brought increasing pressure to stem the tide. The so-called “first asylum countries” have instituted screening procedures to separate victims of political persecution from what they contend are “economic emigres,” people who fled Vietnam in search of economic rather than political security.

Dornan credited the United States with preventing the delegates to the conference from adopting rules that would permit the host countries to deport those emigres already in residence who fail the “political-persecution test.”

“I said to the Dutch ambassador, and anybody else who would listen, ‘When did we ever drag anyone back across the border into a communist country?’ ” Dornan explained, his voice rising. “The Shah of Iran did it to a MIG pilot once, and the guy was executed with great fanfare.”