-Caveat Lector- Advocacy And Intelligence Index For Prisoners Of War/Missing In Action, Inc. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Bob Necci and Andi Wolos THE POW/MIA E-MAIL NETWORK (c) aiijul12.99a Prepared Remarks by Presidential Candidate and United States Senator Bob Smith (embargoed until 1:45 p.m. delivery before the) 30th Annual Meeting of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia June 18, 1999 Washington Marriott Hotel Washington, D.C. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for once again inviting me to address your annual convention. As I have told you in the past, this is always a time of mixed emotions for me. Of course, I'm always happy to see so many of you that I've come to know through the years. But at the same time, I'm sad that continued Vietnamese intransigence and the U.S. Government's foot-dragging on key elements of the POW/MIA issue causes you to have to convene this 30th Annual Meeting. Simply put, there has not been full disclosure by Hanoi about unaccounted for American POWs and MIAs. The facts speak for themselves. We have not had access to relevant POW information from the Communist Party Central Committee --including Politburo, Military Affairs Committee, and Secretariat level records from the war. Why can't we see the records of the internal briefings to North Vietnam's leadership during the war about how many POWs they had really captured? If they're not hiding anything, and they've told the truth all these years about how many POWs they really held, then why can't we see those documents? We also have not had access to prison records where some of your loved ones were known to have been held, and even suspected to have been held, during the war. We have not had full access to Vietnamese wartime reporting on American POWs captured along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, and at other locations in Laos, such as Lima Site 85, and Sam Neua Province where several U.S. personnel remain unaccounted for. And we have not had a convincing and complete response from the Vietnamese Government about the documents uncovered in the Russian archives in 1993 that indicated Hanoi held more U.S. POWs than they repatriated in 1973. Despite all of this, the President continues to certify to Congress that Hanoi is fully cooperating in good faith. As you may recall, this Presidential certification is necessary in order for funds to be spent for diplomatic relations. I'm really not surprised that the President keeps making this inaccurate certification in order to advance his normalization agenda with Vietnam. It's a sad irony that our U.S. Ambassador and Vietnamese Government officials are here in town this week lobbying for more U.S. taxpayer-subsidized trade benefits and working on a new trade deal, instead of rolling up their sleeves over here, and really spending time with you to discuss your concerns about the accounting effort for your loved ones. I was told this morning that last year, the Ambassador told you that you needed to be "more patient." Imagine that. This is only your 30th annual meeting -- how much longer are you supposed to be patient? This is really a sad and outrageous commentary on our foreign policy toward Vietnam, and our Government's commitment to the POW/MIA issue -- and you certainly don't need me to tell you that. I know how you feel, especially when you hear the rhetoric, as you have for far too many years now, about how this is our highest national priority with respect to Vietnam. If it's really been our highest national priority all of these years, and if Vietnam is truly and fully cooperating in good faith, then why are there so many remaining questions about more than 2,060 American servicemen who never came home from the war in Southeast Asia? You know the answer. You know the answer all too well. Despite all the work by dedicated military personnel working under our Pacific Command, jointly investigating and excavating crash sites and interviewing witnesses alongside Vietnamese Government personnel -- despite all those efforts, they are not going to bring many of you the final answers you deserve in the absence of serious high-level negotiations being conducted by senior policy officials which are focused on what Hanoi can still do unilaterally. Why should the League of Families have to go to Hanoi, as your leaders did last month, to beg for more unilateral cooperation? When I announced my candidacy for President of the United States in February this year, I made a pledge that I will repeat here today. If the American people put me in the White House, never again will you the families have to beg our Government and Communist Governments abroad for answers about your loved ones. Never again. Never again. You know me. And you know that in my case, actions speak louder than words, especially on this issue. You know how often I have stood alone in the halls and chambers of the Congress putting principle before profit with our Government's policy toward Vietnam, not the other way around. But you know, I never truly felt alone, because I knew that you, the families, appreciated what I've been doing and trying to do on this painful issue through the years, and I knew that the vast majority of those who served with your loved ones felt the same way. Let me take just a couple moments now to reference a few things that have happened the last year, and let you know some of the things I'm currently working to try to help all of you with the accounting effort for your loved ones. I know you've already been briefed by General Lajoie and the staff who support my work as Chairman of the Vietnam War Working Group on the US-Russia Joint Commission on POWs and MIAs. Let me just say that with the help of the Administration, and specifically Vice-President Gore's forthcoming contacts with the new Russian Prime Minister Stepashin, I believe we can make more progress on whether a Soviet plan to transfer knowledgeable Americans to the USSR in the late 1960s might have included American POWs in Southeast Asia. I have pursued this lead from the late Russian General Volkogonov for well over a year now, including in Moscow, and I'm going to stay on it until I'm satisfied that we know the answer about this plan and the extent to which it was ever implemented. As I mentioned earlier, some of you may recall that in 1993, we managed to obtain from the Russian Government copies of two Soviet military intelligence reports from the Vietnam War in which very high-ranking North Vietnamese officials were telling their own leaders, in secret, that they held a lot more U.S. POWs than the ones that they later released in 1973. I can tell you that since 1993, every piece of information the Russians have provided, from the current head of Russian military intelligence on down through the ranks, confirms that the Soviets judged these reports to be reliable in the early 1970s --that is to say, North Vietnam did, in fact, according to the Russians, hold more U.S. POWs than those who came home. Who were these POWs, and what happened to them? We still don't have answers from the Vietnamese, and once again, unfortunately, this Administration has not done nearly enough to press the Communist leadership in Hanoi. In fact, the Administration prefers instead to discount what the Russians have given us. The view of the Clinton/Gore Administration is that they know more about the internal situation in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War than the Soviet Union might have known, so we can't accept what the Russians have given us and what they tell us. I doubt any of you would accept that kind of view. I certainly don't. And it's even worse than that, my friends. And I'll going to tell it to you like it is. That's the way I am. When those Russian top secret reports hit the press in 1993, and there was a big uproar by everybody, President Clinton and Vice-President Gore had a meeting at the White House with the National Security Council, the State Department and the Defense Department. I am told by a trusted source whose credibility I have absolutely no reason to doubt that it was directed in that meeting that the revelations in these Russians documents about American POWs not be allowed to get in the way of normalization of U.S. relations with Vietnam. I'm a Vietnam veteran. I wore my country's uniform into a combat zone in the Gulf of Tonkin off of North Vietnam during the war. And I have devoted much of my tenure in Congress on the Armed Services Committee of both Houses to our men and women who now wear the uniform. I find it reprehensible that when faced with dramatic information bearing on missing U.S. servicemen, the White House response was don't let it interfere with lifting the trade embargo and establishing diplomatic relations with Hanoi. So where are we now with respect to these Russian documents. Some of you will remember that two years ago when the Senate was considering whether to confirm a U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, and agreement was struck between the President's National Security Advisor and the Senate Majority Leader. As a condition for letting that nomination go through the Senate, the Administration agreed to do what's called a national intelligence estimate on the Vietnam POW/MIA issue, with special emphasis on those documents from Soviet archives. That formal assessment, led by the CIA, was completed last year, and the full results of that assessment, which have not been declassified, raise very serious and troubling questions about the thoroughness and objectivity of the collection and analysis done by our U.S. Intelligence Community. I wrote a classified 200-page assessment this past November of what the Director of Central Intelligence came out with. I told the CIA Director in writing that believed his research was either shoddy or reflected a predetermined effort to discredit relevant information, and in either case, it was a sad commentary on his agency's commitment to the issue. And it's interesting that his report was distributed internally right about the same time that the President had to certify again whether Vietnam was being fully cooperative on the POW/MIA issue. The good news on this matter is that the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama and Senator Robert Kerrey of Nebraska, at my urging, have formally asked the Inspectors General of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense to conduct an independent investigation and to respond to the charges contained in my classified 200-page report, which I wish I could speak about in more detail, but, unfortunately, I cannot at this time. I can tell you that the investigation has been underway since April, and one of the things they're looking into is whether there was any inappropriate contact, as some have suggested to me, between the policymakers and the intelligence analysts on what the final estimate was going to say, to make sure it didn't conflict with Administration policy to Vietnam. I did ask last November for all of this to be declassified, so I could share it with you, but so far, I haven't received a response to that request. But I will keep at this, because you deserve to know everything our own Government knows that might relate to your loved ones, and you deserve a better commitment from our Intelligence agencies in my opinion. And last, but not least, one of the ways I'm going to keep at this in the days and weeks ahead is by drafting and working to pass new and comprehensive legislation on the POW/MIA issue. Simply put, too many documents remain classified on the POW/MIA issue, and we need legislation to correct this, and we need to make it easier for you to get access to this information. I know firsthand the uncertainty you've endured and how even the smallest bit of evidence can help relieve your burden. I lost my dad, a Naval aviator, at the end of World War II -- two days before my 4th birthday. I know the impact it had on me, on my brother, and especially on my mother who passed away a few years ago, and is now buried next to my dad in Arlington National Cemetery. You deserve better with respect to declassification of documents, so that will be the first part of my bill. And the second part is going to deal with integrating the POW/MIA issue, in a coordinated way, into our foreign policy objectives toward every country that might hold answers on unaccounted for personnel. Your Executive Director knows all too well how the elimination of the POW/MIA InterAgency Group in the Clinton/Gore Administration has resulted in so many missed opportunities to press the POW/MIA issue in Russia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia at the highest levels in a substantive way. We need to use our leverage, including our trade benefits, instead of always giving everything away without getting the fullest possible accounting effort that you deserve in return. It has been a privilege to work with you -- the POW/MIA families -- and I want you to know that I am going to continue to do everything I can to help keep this issue front and center in our dealings with the Communist governments in Southeast Asia. I'm only one person, but you know that together, we can go a long way. And if I make it to the White House myself, there will be no doubt about our nation's commitment to the accounting effort for your loved ones. You know my record and you know how personally committed I am to helping all of you. Thank you, and I'd be pleased to respond to any questions you might have. ********************************************************** DISCLAIMER: The content of this message is the sole responsibility of the originator. Posting of this message to the POW/MIA E-MAIL NETWORK(c) list does not constitute AIIPOWMIAI endorsement. It is provided so that you may be informed of current information. AIIPOWMIAI is not associated in any capacity with any United States Government agency or entity, nor with any nongovernmental organization. **COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only. [Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Advocacy And Intelligence Index For Prisoners Of War/Missing In Action, Inc. 1220 Locust Avenue, Bohemia, Long Island, New York 11716-2169 USA Voice: (1-516) 567-9057 Fax: (1-516) 244-7097 TDD: (1-516) 244-6996 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Necci) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andi Wolos) Website: http://www.aiipowmia.com/ DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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