Clinton Lifts Vietnam Embargo to 'Resolve the Fate' of MIAs : Trade: President says economic considerations did not affect decision to end 19-year ban. He warns that sanctions may be reimposed if Hanoi does not continue cooperation.

By PAUL RICHTER and MICHAEL ROSS

Feb. 4, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

WASHINGTON —

Taking a historic step to close the wounds of a divisive war, President Clinton on Thursday ordered an immediate end to the 19-year trade embargo against Vietnam.

Setting aside any economic rationale, Clinton asserted that he made the move entirely as a means of resolving remaining questions about the fate of missing U.S. soldiers.

“I am absolutely convinced it offers us the best way to resolve the fate of those who remain and about whom we are not sure,” he said at a White House ceremony. “I have said that any decisions about our relationship with Vietnam should be guided by one factor and one factor alone: gaining the fullest possible accounting for our prisoners of war and our missing in action.”

Vietnam’s help in answering these questions has recently produced “substantial progress” in accounting for missing soldiers, he said, adding that “we would lose leverage if there were no forward movement” in relations between the two countries. And if the Vietnamese slow their efforts regarding the missing, the embargo may be reimposed, Clinton said.

The step, still short of normalizing relations, culminates years of anguished public deliberation over a conflict that has continued to sow bitterness and division nearly two decades after its conclusion. Although many Vietnam veterans had pushed for a lifting of the embargo, major veterans groups were quick to condemn the move by a commander in chief who avoided military service.

“We think that the advice given to the President was wrong, and we told him that,” said John Sommer, director of the Washington office of the American Legion, after meeting with the President and other veterans leaders at the White House. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, Vietnam Veterans of America and Disabled Veterans of America, also represented at the meeting with Clinton, opposed the embargo’s end as well.

But despite the protests of veterans and groups representing families of missing soldiers, the broader public mood may have been suggested last week, when the Senate voted 62 to 38 to urge the President to lift the ban. Other lawmakers, including some Vietnam veterans, signaled their support Thursday for Clinton’s action.

“This was the right decision,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a highly decorated Vietnam veteran who headed a yearlong Senate investigation into the POW-MIA issue. “The President can be proud of the fact (that) he took the extra year to make sure we got more (information) from Vietnam. And we got more.”

Also hailing the decision were Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam, and Gen. John W. Vessey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an emissary to Hanoi on the issue.

The end of the ban is expected to produce a quick boost for some U.S. companies and, by one estimate, may generate an added $9 billion in trade this year alone. U.S. officials will open a “liaison office” in Hanoi to oversee American interests.

The action also creates the possibility that the United States, which has lost military bases in the Philippines, may be able to forge an important strategic alliance in Southeast Asia to offset the influence of China, one of the world’s few remaining Communist nations.

Clinton declared last July that he would maintain the embargo until Vietnam proved its willingness to help provide a full accounting of missing servicemen. In citing progress on that front, Clinton pointed to four factors:

* Since last July, the remains of 39 American servicemen have been recovered.

* The number of inadequately explained “discrepancy cases” has fallen from 135 to 73.

* Vietnam and Laos have stepped up their cooperation in searches for remains along their common border.

* The Vietnamese have released important documents from their archives, including from antiaircraft units along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and from a “military political unit,” officials said.

U.S. officials said that they have other incentives, short of a resumption of the embargo, to ensure continued Vietnamese cooperation. The nation still wants full diplomatic relations with the United States, entry into international financial institutions in which the United States is especially influential and assistance from U.S. programs that promote trade.

Clinton said that his Administration has 500 people working on the search for Americans missing in Southeast Asia--”more than any other Administration.”

He denied that his own lack of service in the military played any role in his decision. Indeed, although Clinton marched against the war as a student, he indicated that he had special feelings for the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam.

Asked about his own history, he said: “Everyone my age, whether they were in Vietnam or not, knew someone who died there. . . . And I think people in our generation are more insistent on trying to get a full accounting, more obsessed with it.”

Clinton said that all his senior military and diplomatic advisers and all his Cabinet members involved in the issue had urged that the embargo be lifted. Economic motives were so far removed, he said, that the Administration did not even conduct a study of the trade consequences of the action.

It was perhaps a measure of the war’s lingering bitterness that a number of the President’s critics made a point of stressing his avoidance of the draft.

“Bill Clinton refused to serve in Vietnam, protested the war and has no military experience. Yet he thinks he understands Vietnam better than the families who have endured years of uncertainty, national veterans organizations . . . and the majority of former POWs who sacrificed years of their lives in captivity,” said Sen. Robert C. Smith (R-N.H.), a Vietnam veteran who led the unsuccessful opposition to last week’s Senate resolution on the embargo.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) also denounced the move, calling it “the wrong decision at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.”

While representatives from four veterans organizations attended the White House meeting with Clinton, the nation’s largest POW-MIA family group, the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, was so angry that its representative, Ann Mills Griffiths, boycotted the session.

The President has “clearly broken” his promises on the conditions for lifting the embargo, she said.

“He (Clinton) didn’t have the guts to fight in Vietnam, and now he’s shown that he won’t fight to bring our POWs home from Vietnam,” said Dolores Alfond, the sister of a missing serviceman and president of the Seattle-based National Alliance of Families. “President Clinton has sold out the morality of the American people for a few pieces of silver.”

“He lied,” said J. Thomas Burch Jr., chairman of the National Vietnam Veterans Coalition, a federation of 75 veterans and POW-MIA family groups. “All of the campaign promises he made to us about not lifting the embargo until there was a full accounting were just campaign rhetoric. He has betrayed our country and abandoned our men, and Vietnam veterans will do all that we can to assure that America elects a different President in 1996.”

The family and veterans groups also took issue with Clinton’s contention that significant progress already has been made in accounting for the missing.

Richard Childress, a former Ronald Reagan Administration official who oversaw the POW-MIA issue as director of Asian affairs on the National Security Council from 1981 to 1989, said that the Administration “worked very hard to create an aura of real cooperation” on the POW issue. But he said most of Hanoi’s cooperation to date has been cosmetic.

“Yes, they’ve been turning over documents, but what (the Vietnamese) are giving us are summary documents. The originals are still there,” Childress said.

U.S. officials will need some weeks to write regulations to govern trade relations between the countries. But the business community was quick to predict broad and immediate effects from the easing.

“Everything you can think of, they need,” said Eric Rehmann, managing director for the Vietnam America Trade & Investment Consulting Co. in Washington.

Vietnam is hoping to rebuild roads, bridges, telecommunications systems, ports, airports and hospitals. Because the George Bush Administration decided to permit limited business contacts, such U.S. firms as Bank of America, IBM, Caterpillar, DuPont, Motorola and Phillip Morris already are licensed to do business there.

Hours after Clinton’s announcement, American Express and United Airlines announced plans to begin operations in Vietnam.

Some companies are worried about whether they will get there ahead of European and Asian competitors. But experts said that, even if business prospects are not as bright as some would portray them, there should be a substantial boost to the U.S. economy.

* NEW CHALLENGES: End of embargo opens up more opportunities for U.S. A7

* RELATED STORIES AND GRAPHICS: A5-7, D1

Beginning a New Era

President Clinton lifted the 19-year-old trade embargo with Vietnam on Thursday, formally opening the way for commerce with Hanoi. He cited Vietnam’s progress in searching for U.S. servicemen missing during the Vietnam War.

Immediate Impact

* Unrestricted commercial ties.

* Emergence of American businesses in Vietnam. Commercial sales to Vietnam had been permitted since April, 1992, but only for those products that met basic human needs.

* Likely resumption of flights by U.S. airlines directly into Vietnam.

POWs and MIAs

* Since July, remains of additional 39 Americans have been recovered.

* 2,238 U.S. servicemen are still unaccounted from the war.

* Veterans groups feel betrayed and think this will hinder efforts to find more.

* Clinton says action will result in more information on POWs and MIAs.

What’s Next

* Opening of U.S. liaison office in Vietnam.

* Continued monitoring of human rights violations.

* Washington must issue regulations governing trade and investment in Vietnam for U.S. companies.

* Possible establishment of full diplomatic relations.

Researched by MARK PLATTE / Los Angeles Times

Business Connections

Here is a list of U.S. firms with representative offices open or licensed to open in Vietnam. They are ranked by date of licensing. California companies are with an asterisk (*) and in boldface.

1. VATICO (Vietnam America Trade & Investment Consulting Co.) (consulting)

2. Ashta International Inc. (consulting)

3. Bank of America*

4. Citibank

5. Philip Morris (cigarettes and processed foods)

6. General Electric Technical Services Co. (heavy equipment)

7. Baker Hughes, Inc. (oil field services)

8. Baker & McKenzie (law firm)

9. L.A. Land Resources (construction)*

10. Otis Elevator

11. VIIC (Vietnam Investment Information and Consulting)*

12. International Business Machines