News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: VFW Supports Communist Trading

Date: July 26, 1998

This just in from Dino Carluccio

Subj: VFW supports extended trade with Vietnam
Date: 7/24/1998 10:03:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Dino_Carluccio@smith.senate.gov (Dino Carluccio)
To: AIIPOWMIAI@aol.com

If you support the position of Senators Smith, Helms, Moseley-Braun, Reps. Rohrabacher, Gilman, Sam Johnson, Chris Smith, etc...against Jackson-Vanik waiver for Vietnam, then you disagree with the VFW national leadership position below, and instead support the position of the American Legion, VVA, NVVC, and countless vet. groups, refugee assistance groups, Vietnamese-American coalitions, pow/mia families, etc... If true, then pass this message along to others, and let your Congressmen know your views, and definitely let the author of this letter below, Mr. Dennis Cullinan, know too in addition to your VFW friends who would likely be surprised that this letter was sent to all Senate members yesterday, with an additional one sent to all House members. Mr. Cullinan's e-mail address is: dcullinan@vfwdc.org The House vote is scheduled for next Wednesday.

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Subject: VFW supports extended trade with Vietnam
Author: OPINION at Smith-DC
Date: 7/24/98 8:33 PM

July 23, 1998

United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Members of the United States Senate: This is written to express the views of the 2 million members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars regarding the impact of the President's renewal of Vietnam's waiver under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 on the Prisoners of War (POW) and Missing in Action (MIA) issue in Southeast Asia. The POW/MIA issue has been and remains a priority issue with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The VFW believes that if extending the waiver of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment for Vietnam will facilitate achieving the fullest possible accounting of our POWs and MIAs, then this extension should be supported. We do not believe that disapproving the waiver will result in improved cooperation from Vietnam on the POW/MIA issue. In fact, it may have the opposite effect. Although we believe that Vietnam has been cooperating with the United States in the full accounting process for missing Americans, we continue to urge both our own and the Vietnamese governments to improve cooperation on this issue.

The VFW has been conducting fact-finding trips to Vietnam since July 1991. Our trips to Vietnam have occurred both before and after the trade embargo was lifted and diplomatic relations were established. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, we have not seen any diminishing of US or Vietnamese efforts to account for our missing men. On our most recent visit to Vietnam and Laos, we saw no evidence that current US government policies on trade were resulting in any negative impact on the MIA accounting process.

On the contrary, we believe that current US trade policies may have resulted in both gradual improvements in U.S.-Vietnamese relations in general and proportional improvements in the effort to account for missing Americans in particular. A few positive examples are better overall U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation; the establishment of a Joint Document Center in Hanoi; creation of a Vietnamese unilateral archival research program which seeks to develop new information on specific loss incidents; cooperation on Trilateral Recovery Operations with the US and Laos; and, the Vietnamese government publicizing activities related to missing Americans.

Since there was no diminishing of the "fullest possible accounting" effort after the lifting of the embargo and establishment of diplomatic relations, it strongly suggests there will be no reduction of effort now that the Jackson-Vanik restrictions have been lifted. Based upon our observations and conversations we had with JTF-Full Accounting personnel and other US government officials during our visit to Vietnam, we believe that current trade relations with Vietnam have helped rather than hinder the full accounting process for missing Americans. Also, if we can reach our goal of the "fullest possible accounting" by improving or expanding U.S.-Vietnamese trade relations, then we ought to do so.

Sincerely,

DENNIS CULLINAN, Director
National Legislative Service