O.C. Lawmakers Will Battle On Over Vietnam

Twenty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the battle against that country’s government rages on for two Orange County congressmen.

One of them, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) fires his most heated political rhetoric at Vietnam’s “war criminals” who he says have not accounted for all of America’s missing servicemen. He also targets President Clinton for avoiding the draft and “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” by leading anti-war protests in the late 1960s.

The other congressman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) is more forgiving of Clinton, calling his past “irrelevant.” But what he cannot forgive, he says, are the alleged human rights violations committed by the Vietnamese government, which has not released all of its political prisoners. On this issue, he maintains, Clinton has “been the worst enemy of human rights in our history.”

Together, both congressmen epitomize the harshest opposition and criticism Clinton is likely to face as he establishes diplomatic relations with the Vietnamese government.

On the eve of what many consider the most important foreign policy announcement by the Clinton Administration, Dornan joined other conservative congressmen in front of the Capitol on Monday to denounce the move.

Wearing his “POW” necktie and a POW/MIA bracelet that he designed in the late 1960s, Dornan said that renewed diplomacy would remove any incentive for the Vietnamese government to return the remains of American servicemen. The U.S. military says 2,200 American servicemen are listed as missing in Southeast Asia, including 1,600 in Vietnam.

Rohrabacher, who was unable to attend the press conference because he was en route from California to Washington, said later that he is equally committed to blocking the move.

“I will do everything I can to stop normalization until I feel they have been fully cooperative on the POW/MIA issue and have given us some sign they are willing to open up in the human rights department,” Rohrabacher said.

The stage for normalized relations was set four years ago when the Bush Administration offered economically strapped Hanoi a road map to full diplomatic ties that depended in part on a better accounting of servicemen listed as missing during the war.

The Clinton Administration contends that much progress has been made on this issue, and that more servicemen could be returned if the countries established full diplomatic relations. In the past two years, 167 sets of remains have been returned to the United States from Vietnam, including 99 recovered on joint U.S.-Vietnamese field expeditions. The 68 others were turned over unilaterally by Vietnam.

But Dornan and Rohrabacher are not satisfied with those figures and say Clinton has moved too quickly on the diplomatic front.

While both were ardent anti-Communists during the Cold War, the congressmen view Vietnam from slightly different perspectives.

Dornan, a fighter pilot during peacetime in the 1950s, long ago took on as a personal crusade a better accounting of the missing servicemen.

Now, as chairman of the House military personnel subcommittee, Dornan has gained the congressional authority to act on the issue. The 1996 Defense Authorization Act recently approved by the House included Dornan’s bill to standardize procedures for POW/MIA investigations and to require that certain information be turned over to the service members’ families.

His subcommittee also held an 11-hour hearing in late June on a better accounting system of those still missing. Among the witnesses was Carol Hrdlicka, the wife of a former Air Force colleague of Dornan, who said she believes government officials deliberately kept from her information that may have proved her husband, Col. David Hrdlicka, was still alive. Dornan and Col. Hrdlicka served as pilots together.

“The families have been psychologically tortured by the Communist government in Hanoi right up to this moment,” Dornan said during the news conference Monday. Clinton’s decision to establish diplomatic ties with Vietnam “is a disgrace,” Dornan added.

Hoping to keep the POW/MIA issue in the forefront, Dornan said he planned to hold additional committee hearings and will try to bring to the witness table two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and Lawrence S. Eagleburger.

He also has already co-sponsored a bill with House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman (R-New York), to prohibit funding to “establish and maintain diplomatic relations or to advance economic relations with Vietnam.” Gilman said there will be a committee hearing Wednesday to discuss the bill and he will push for quick passage if Clinton goes forward with diplomatic relations.

Rohrabacher, a member of the House International Relations Committee, has spent much of his congressional career defending “freedom fighters” and those whose human rights have been violated by oppressive governments.

Rohrabacher has played a high-profile role in attempts to save Harry Wu, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen who was arrested by Chinese authorities last month and now faces possible execution on espionage charges.

A recent trip to Southeast Asia included a stop in Thailand, where he met with war refugees from Myanmar, formerly Burma.

On Vietnam, Rohrabacher is again stressing the alleged human rights violations committed by the Vietnamese government.

“The MIA issue is not the only issue at hand,” Rohrabacher said in an interview Monday. “We also have to be concerned with human rights and the fact that there has been no progress made on human rights in Vietnam.”

In a situation he compared to Vietnam, Rohrabacher noted Monday’s unexpected release of an opposition leader in Myanmar. He credited the release to Congress’ refusal to cooperate with Myanmar until it moves toward democracy.

“Shouldn’t we make a demand on Vietnam that political prisoners be released and that there be some progress on human rights?” Rohrabacher said. “If we don’t, we are just giving them something for nothing.”

Rohrabacher said the driving force behind diplomatic relations with Vietnam is American businesses--including many in California--that would receive “taxpayer subsidies” to do business in Vietnam.

“We shouldn’t be subsidizing businesses in Vietnam,” Rohrabacher maintained. California businesses, he added, “should be setting up the businesses in California.”