Vietnam legacy in 2000 politics

The New York Times of June 19 and 21 has resuscitated issues of antiquarian interest in pointing out that Vice President Al Gore strode across the Harvard campus in 1969 in an army uniform and in suggesting that Texas Gov. George W. Bush (Yale ’68) may have been more interested in his university’s Skull and Bones Society than in the flesh of real people.

It is far from clear from thesee articles what the two candidates learned from their experiences during the war years and what impact, if any, that knowledge has had on their positions on contemporary Indochinese-American relations. What are some of the contemporary issues that bush and Gore should be addressing?

First and foremost is the military aspect of the U.S.-Vietnamese relationship, which impinges directly on U.S. relations with China. Since December 1978, Vietnam has been engaged in an on-again, off-again war with China both along its heavily forested frontier and in the offshore, oil-rich Spratly and Paracel Islands which both countries claim. A major portion of the modernized Chinese navy occupies at least one of those islands and its offshore waters. Since China represents a major threat to American interests in the South China Sea, e.g. the continuity of democratic government on Taiwan, what are the candidates’ positions on Sino-Vietnamese hostilities? On Vietnam’s ironic purported offer to lease Camranh Bay and other deep water facilities to the U.S. Navy?

A second consideration is economic. As University of Maine historian Ngo Vinh Long pointed out in a recent article, Vietnam has opened many sectors of its economy to foreign investment. In rapid succession, many Vietnamese industries have transformed from socialist enterprises to a free market to a “flea market,” with sweatshop conditions especially in factories managed by Taiwanese investors. In recent congressional discussion over granting most favored nation trading privileges to China, some legislators expressed concern over the United States’ tacitly approving sweatshop conditions in that free-wheeling economy. As our postwar trade with Vietnam expands, what do the major presidential candidates say about Vietnamese sweatshop conditions that are arguably as bad if not worse than those in China?

Another group of issues many termed the humanitarian legacies of the American-Indochina War. Some of these issues, such as the distribution of medical aid to Vietnamese who were deafened or lost limbs during the war, are well on teh road to resolution under the terms of the decade-old accord between former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. John Vessey and former Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach. Under that agreement, reached long before the lifting of the American embargo on trade with Vietnam, U.S. humanitarian organizations were permitted to ship medical aid to Vietnam. The Vietnamese governmetn, for its part, agreed to the establishment of an American military office in Hanoi staffed with forensic personnel with the ability to scour the countryside for remains of American personnel considered missing in action. Under the nearly simultaneous Amerasian Resettlement Act, the U.S. Congress funded the immigration to the United States of mixed-blood Vietnamese fathered by U.S. servicemen.

One humanitarian issue that remains unresolved is the residual presence of dioxin in the tissues of Americans and Indochinese who came into contact with the aerial herbicide Agent Orange, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Laotian acres laid waste by that weapon. If there is one issue on which virtually all American veterans of the Indochina War can agree, from Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace to the American Legion, it is for increased appropriations for Agent Orange research and treatment. For nearly 15 years, Dr. Arnold Schecter, of SUNY Medical School, has been in the forefront of Agent Orange research, diagnosing cases and doing basic research in Indochina and stateside. What positions do Bush and Gore take on increased subsidies for Agent Orange research and treatment?

Another implication of the Vietnam War in this presidential election is that nearly one million Indochinese-Americans have come to these shores since the war. Many are former boat people. More Indochinese-Americans than ever before will vote in the year 2000 election. For Vietnamese- and Laotian-Americans, Agent Orange is of particular concern: an unknown segment of their communities were involuntarily exposed to the herbicide. How will Bush and Gore respond to the needs of these constituencies especially in the key swing states like California?

Of the major presidential candidates this year, only Sen. John McCain, D-Ariz., has associated his wartime experience with the current realities of American-Indochinese relations. A prisoner of war who was repeatedly tortured for 5 1/2 years, McCain emerged as perhaps the major force in the U.S. Senate promoting reconciliation with Vietnam, on multiple trips back since his liberation. McCain has now dropped out of the race. Hopefully, Bush and Gore, like McCain, can move beyond their experiences of 30 years ago and address far more pressing issues of contemporary Indochinese-American relations.

Dr. Jonathan Goldstein, a professor of history at the State University of West Georgia, has taught courses on the Vietnam War in both Georgia and Maine. He is a summer resident of Glenburn.