Firmly Grasping a Hot Potato : Clinton is changing Vietnam policy in a bid to resolve the MIA issue

Vietnam still haunts the American soul, creeping into our collective consciousness in the form of lingering issues, particularly POW-MIAs, from an unpopular war. To help put the experience firmly behind us, the Clinton Administration is initiating a policy change on Vietnam. It is not likely to be a popular move, but one made with the calculated goal of expediting Hanoi’s cooperation on MIAs.

Clinton is building on Bush Administration plans for normalizing relations. A major component of the Bush plan was linking progress on MIAs with a step-by-step relaxation of U.S. sanctions. It’s been a slow and painful progress.

To acknowledge Hanoi’s somewhat improved cooperation on the issue and to encourage more, the Clinton Administration is no longer opposing loans to Vietnam. That clears the way for a French- and Japanese-led plan through the International Monetary Fund to refinance $140 million in Vietnamese debt. That would make Hanoi eligible for new loans from other international lenders, such as the World Bank.

Detractors complain that the Clinton action will eliminate any leverage the United States has left over Vietnam and is motivated by crass commercial interests of U.S. businesses anxious for a lifting of the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam. But the Administration is demanding the fullest possible accounting of the 2,226 Americans on the MIA list. Vietnam’s progress will be reviewed in the September reassessment of the U.S. trade embargo.

It’s been a touchy political issue for many elected officials, especially Clinton, who avoided the Vietnam War draft. But, acutely aware that the regime running Hanoi today ran the war, the President has crafted a policy “carrot.”

The communists have operated with a disingenuousness on the POW-MIA issue that has generated, deservedly so, U.S. mistrust and criticism. For nearly two decades, Hanoi has withheld information. Then suddenly last October it opened its MIA archive, whose existence had been suspected for years.

Hanoi’s past deceit has been deplorable. To gain trade and respect, it must do more.