News-Info-Alerts

Re: Hanoi Welcomes McCain

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: December 31, 2002

"Hanoi welcomes ex-POW McCain

Fallout from a comment he made in 2000 seems to have been forgotten by his hosts, who hail him for his help to their nation.

This is not Sen. John McCain's first visit to Vietnam. In this photo, taken April 25, 2000, McCain shakes hands with a Vietnamese man along the shore of Lake Truc, from which the Arizona senator and former POW was rescued after his jet was shot down over Hanoi, North Vietnam, in October 1967.
The Associated Press

The Associated Press
Dec. 31, 2002

HANOI, Vietnam - Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, received a warm welcome from Hanoi leaders who praised his efforts to promote reconciliation between the former enemies, officials said yesterday.
McCain, R-Ariz., is in Vietnam on a personal trip, his first since he caused a stir in 2000 during the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War by declaring the "wrong guys" had won.

McCain and his family were in Vietnam for a private vacation, a U.S. Embassy official said. McCain arrived in Hanoi on Friday and was scheduled to travel to Danang and Ho Chi Minh City before leaving Thursday.
The state-run English-language Vietnam News reported that McCain met with Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who praised the senator's efforts to promote implementation of a trade agreement last year that lowered tariffs and opened Vietnam wider to foreign investment.

McCain, held for nearly six years as a prisoner of war, has been an outspoken supporter of normalizing diplomatic ties and helped push through the trade pact.

But he caused a fuss with comments during his visit two years ago.

"I think that they lost millions of their best people who left by boat, thousands by execution and hundreds of thousands who went to re-education camps," McCain told reporters during the 2000 trip as he toured Ho Chi Minh City, which was known as Saigon when it was the capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam.
His remarks irritated the Hanoi government.

But McCain has since redeemed himself in Vietnam's eyes by backing the country's efforts to fight a move by the American catfish industry to levy tariffs on imported Vietnamese catfish.

Catfish farmers in the Mississippi Delta have claimed Vietnam is dumping fish at below-market prices. The farmers' lobby successfully fought to prohibit Vietnam's use of the "catfish" label.

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