There Comes a Time for Healing : Two decades after war’s end, Clinton rightly extends diplomatic recognition to Vietnam

It was time to move on. Twenty years had passed since the end of a war that saw a devastated Vietnam lose millions of its people, more than 50,000 American lives taken and tens of thousands protesting in U.S. streets. President Clinton made that move Tuesday by extending diplomatic recognition to Vietnam.

Flanking the President in the East Room of the White House were men who provided political cover. They included Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Navy pilot who endured more than five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a much-decorated veteran who returned from the war to help organize an anti-war veterans’ group.

Clinton’s action reflects a bipartisan effort. The Bush Administration started the process four years ago, telling Hanoi it had to release prisoners from its re-education camps, leave Cambodia and provide a full accounting of the Americans once held as prisoners of war and those missing in action. Vietnam did so, and Clinton wisely heeded suggestions from advisers such as Secretary of State Warren Christopher to start a new chapter in relations between the two countries.

There has been predictable opposition, most of it centering on claims that Hanoi has not been forthcoming in accounting for the POWs and MIAs. But the Defense Department says otherwise.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) worked themselves into a lather in resisting diplomatic ties. Orange County is home to tens of thousands of Vietnamese and their Americanized sons and daughters, but opinion among them differs as it does across the nation. A Times Poll a year ago found that most Vietnamese immigrants and refugees in Southern California favored full diplomatic relations.

Critics of Vietnam’s human rights record have a valid concern. Washington must continue to remind Hanoi that oppressing religion is intolerable. So is jailing dissidents merely for speaking out against the government.

The warriors of two decades ago now are middle-aged, yet Vietnam remains a bitter subject across America. Diplomatic relations can help improve understanding and heal the wounds. Closer ties will aid in creating a counterweight to an unpredictable China in Southeast Asia. Both nations will also benefit economically. It is in the interest of both to have a Vietnam moving toward democracy and improving the lives of its people.