20 Years of Isolation Is Enough : Clinton should recognize Vietnam now and not drag the issue on

Four years ago, the Bush Administration supplied Vietnam with a road map to full diplomatic relations between Washington and Hanoi. The requirements included leaving Cambodia, closing the brutal re-education camps and helping to account for Americans still listed as missing in action or once held as prisoners of war. Vietnam has lived up to its part of the bargain. It is time for the Clinton Administration to follow suit.

Normalization of relations would have enormous symbolic significance, effectively writing an end to a war that devastated both countries. It also would engender opposition. The POW-MIA lobby continues to claim that Vietnam has not done enough, though U.S. officials who have done extensive investigation in Vietnam argue otherwise. A number of Vietnamese who fled their homeland after the war, many of them now living in Orange County’s Little Saigon, also oppose recognition.

The concerns are understandable, but 20 years after the American helicopters lifted off the U.S. Embassy in the city even today more often called Saigon than Ho Chi Minh City, it is time to start a new chapter.

It would not be easy for this President, who ducked military service and demonstrated against the war. It would raise that issue again at a time when the presidential campaign has already begun. But we all would be better off getting this change out of the way now and moving on.

The benefits to the United States of full diplomatic relations include increased business and a counterweight to Chinese ambitions in Southeast Asia. As the reaction to former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara’s book showed this year, the Vietnam War is still an emotional issue across America. It should be. More than 50,000 Americans died there. So did more than 1 million Vietnamese.

Three U.S. senators who fought in Vietnam favor normalization--Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was a prisoner of war for more than five years; Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), who lost a leg there and won the Medal of Honor, and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). President Clinton should take advantage of the political cover they offer and forge a new relationship with Vietnam.