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CapitolHill GeoPageWhen the last United States forces left South Vietnam on March 29, 1973 in over-stuffed helicopters and crowded aircraft carriers, it was to be the closing of book whose chapters lasted through four presidencies. When North Vietnam successfully invaded South Vietnam and captured Saigon on April 30, 1975, an embargo originally placed on the north by the United States was extended onto the entire, newly-named Republic of Vietnam. That embargo, ordered by President Richard M. Nixon, stayed in place until President Bill Clinton dropped it on February 3, 1994. Explaining why President Clinton dropped the embargo when he did might best be explained by using Roger Hilsman¹s political process model because it allows for the inclusion of forces outside the usual governmental bodies in the decision-making process.
President Clinton has asserted on numerous occasions that the only reason he improved any relations America had with Vietnam was solely in the context of achieving the fullest possible account for Americans held as prisoners of war (POW) or missing in action (MIA) from the Vietnam War. With closer analysis, I hope to prove that President Clinton's explanation involved a lot more than MIAs and POWs, but was resultant of power center influences on policy-making. Before applying the model, though, a brief discussion of the history between the United States and Vietnam as well as Vietnam's relationships with the Soviet Union, China and Japan will make things easier when these factors are discussed later. A look at American veterans' groups during the embargo period will also prove helpful.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in negotiating the Americans' cease-fire, announced that the United States was prepared to normalize relations with Hanoi on March 26, 1976. Though nothing ever came of it, Kissinger's intentions at the time were pure and simple; he wanted to assure a safe return for any American POWs or MIAs remaining in Vietnam. Kissinger's recommendations were ignored, because of an impending election and the bureaucratic upheaval that followed his announcement.
Realizing that America would never support its former enemy, Vietnam searched elsewhere and found a strong ally in the Soviet Union. On November 3, 1978, the two nations signed a treaty of friendship, opening all of Vietnam's harbors and rivers to the Soviets. This move, coupled with the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam in late 1978, kept President Jimmy Carter's administration from dealing with the Vietnamese, as Cold War politics and American idealism played critical roles in executive foreign policy making throughout his and his successor's administration. The United States was not prepared to deal with any ally of the Soviet Union nor make peace with a nation which was starving millions of innocent Cambodians and had a dominant position in Laos.
By the time President Ronald Reagan came into office, the Vietnamese had become a major military force thanks to the Soviets, sporting the fourth largest army in the world with an estimated strength of one million men. Throughout his administration, Vietnam's association with the Soviet Union further strengthened, as near the end of his first term, Soviet troops staged an amphibious landing on the coast of central Vietnam in an effort to help drastically reduce travel time to the Straits of Malacca, where the vast majority of strategic materials used by the West must pass through.
A few years later, Vietnam made an announcement that changed its place in the global economic community. ³As communism seemed to be collapsing elsewhere in the world, Vietnam flung open its doors to foreign investment² (Gibney 1995, 38). In 1991, with the Cold War fading away, the United States, still interested in bringing home any remains of POWs or MIAs, made its first diplomatic contact with the Vietnamese since the embargo was placed. President George Bush, on April 26 of that year, in what the New York Times described as a ³small but symbolically significant² move, gave Vietnam $1 million in economic assistance. President Bush further laid out the plans for the opening of Vietnam to America for President Clinton to follow when he allowed American businesses to hire employees in Vietnam just before the end of his presidency.
Vietnam and communist China, however, normalized relations that same year, agreeing to open border crossing points and open diplomatic ties; the two essentially put aside centuries of bloody conflict in the name of the free market. China overlooked two recent conflicts with Vietnam for the ability to enter the untouched market of Vietnam, something the United States took nineteen years to do. ³Chinese forces had crossed into Vietnam in 1979 in reprisal for Hanoi's invasion of Cambodia in late 1978. The two countries also clashed in 1988 over the strategic Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.² (Edward 1995, 1).
Adding to the prospects of the United States never getting a place in the Vietnamese market with the embargo still in place came a Japanese loan of $370 million on November 6, 1992, leading to approximately one billion dollars in economic investments. Resulting from this heavy came huge gains for Japan, whose ties with Vietnam strengthened for every new factory opening.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, powerful veterans' associations were lobbying against any normalizing of relations with Vietnam until all American POWs and MIAs were accounted for. The two biggest groups, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) had a history of being influential in American foreign policy making. As talks about dropping the embargo strengthened, the American Legion pressed the Clinton Administration to maintain the embargo. ³They argue[d] that Vietnam [was] still hiding information about the fates of 2,230 Americans missing in Indochina and that lifting the embargo would remove any pressure on Hanoi to cooperate² (Greenhouse 1994, 8). In a letter to the President, Bruce Theisen, national commander of the 3.1-million-member American Legion, wrote, ³To lift the embargo now would eliminate any remaining leverage we have to attempt to encourage real cooperation² (Greenhouse 1994, 8). Two years earlier, the previous national commander, Dominic D. DiFrancesco, voiced to President Bush his ³extreme concern that the embargo might be lifted² (Crossette 1992, 3).
Of major importance for using the political process model is to identify the bureaucratic power centers whose influences make for policy changes as well as measure their power, prominence and preferred goals. In an effort to show each power center's impact on the decision, I shall go over each power center individually before discussing how, combined, they were responsible for President Clinton's action of February 3, 1994:
President Bill Clinton Having come into the presidency just after President Bush had already begun the normalization process, President Clinton, who had been accused of dodging the Vietnam draft during his campaign, waited until the fire died down a bit to continue Bush's policy. Clinton cited in late 1993, after an interagency meeting on the matter, that an assurance on the struggle to account for American MIAs and POWs was the only thing keeping him from dropping the embargo, though many state officials noted that lost American investments after the Vietnam War, totalling close to $27 million, may have been another factor as well. Those state officials were not very far off; President Clinton's position on the Vietnam matter, which, during his time as President-elect reflected Kissinger's original intentions, was being swayed by corporate America.
As president, the power that Clinton had in getting the embargo on Vietnam dropped was not as absolute as many would tend to believe a president's power in such international decision-making would be. The economic ramifications from a dropped embargo or America's weaning presence in the Pacific were never publicly discussed as issues behind dropping the embargo, only the prospect of more information on POW/MIA remains (Jehl 1994, 1).
Knowing that China was growing larger in the Pacific economic community or every new move made by Deng Xiao Peng and that Vietnam's marketplace was already being dominated by other Pacific countries, Clinton knew that to get the embargo on Vietnam dropped he had to strengthen his public stance on the matter to garner enough votes on Capitol Hill and appease veterans' groups to get his pending proposal passed. It was a brilliant political strategy ³that was cobbled together largely by Winston Lord, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, who persuaded Hanoi to provide enough answers to the vexed question of prisoners of war and servicemen still missing to enable Clinton to win support of important public figures who had the credibility on Vietnam that he had not² (Apple, Jr. 1994, A:7). Lord's strategy effectively enabled Clinton's goal of getting the embargo dropped by making Clinton's public stance on the matter clear to the public, though Clinton's true intentions had to have brought Vietnam's relationship with China and America's place in the Pacific into his scope on the matter.
Clinton was aware that, ³strategically, the big issue in Asia is the containment of China, whose military might, and appetite, will grow as China grows² (Friedman 1995, A:20). He was also aware that China's recent advances, the impact of its acquisition of Hong Kong as well as its heavy investments in Vietnam would have been a blow to the United States and its chances of ever dominating the economic system of the Pacific. ³The end of the Cold War... created an East Asian power vacuum in which Vietnam plays a key role. Swollen by an astonishing economic boom of its own, China appear[ed] eager to muscle into that vacuum² (Fedarko 1995, 42). President Clinton, in continuing with American foreign policy, wanted the United States to once again have a prominent place in the Pacific. According to analysts Robert Manning and Paula Stern just before American businesses began entered the Vietnamese marketplace, ³American military and economic power in the Pacific region is waning. Economic opportunities are too great to pass up² (Manning 1994, 79). Clinton's position on the matter was strong, but his political strength was lacking, forcing him to make appeasements for America's powerful veterans' groups by promising to send a delegation including Lord, the same man who came up with his political strategy in the first place, to Vietnam to further research the POW/MIA issue and discuss the matter with the Vietnamese government. Also among the delegation was Senator Bob Kerry of Nebraska, whose involvement in the dropping of the Vietnam embargo will be discussed later.
American Veterans' Groups Simply stated, government officials listen to American veterans' groups. As Max Cleland, a Veterans' Administration executive for President Carter once put it: ³[V]eterans' group start out in a special category... the average member of Congress puts the veteran on a pedestal² (Keller 1980, 1627). Normally, veterans' groups agree on big issues, adding more pressure to government decisions. In the case of the Vietnam embargo though, the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), America's third largest veterans' group, went against the American Legion's and the VFW's view on the matter, though families of Vietnam veterans still missing went along with the two political powerhouses.
The American Legion and the VFW were very powerful lobbies whose positions on the Vietnam embargo were to keep the United States out of Vietnam until all soldiers still unaccounted for were returned, an almost impossible proposition. Looking at sheer numbers alone, their political strength is easily measurable. In 1990, the American Legion had three million members in close to 16,000 posts around the country as well as two off-shoot organizations. ³An associated organization is the American Legion Auxiliary, composed of women who are close relatives of Legionnaires or of deceased veterans, and of women who have served in the armed forces during peacetime. The auxiliary had approximately 1 million members in 1990. The Sons of the American Legion, with a membership of about 107,000, includes male descendants, adopted sons, and stepsons of Legionnaires and deceased veterans² (Grolier's... 1994, CD-ROM). As far as the VFW is concerned, its 10,000 posts boasting approximately two million members as well as a Ladies Auxiliary are enough to make any politician listen to a VFW lobbyist. The political clout of the two combined was enough for any politician to go along with a view the two supported, one of which was their shared view on the American policy towards Vietnam.
The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, though still against the dropping of the embargo, had strength not in numbers, but in pathos and protest. Standing in front of the White House holding their well-known black flag depicting an American prisoner of war with a bowed head, members called wanted the embargo in place. After it was apparent that the embargo would be dropped though, the League changed its stance on the matter and announced that it was in favor of a halt in the decision-making process until they were convinced a dropped embargo would help. One day before the President was to sign the bill dropping the embargo, the League's national director announced plans to ³go to Vietnam and Œdetermine whether and under what circumstances the League could support lifting the embargo'² (Lippman 1994, 23). The move, however, was too late, as President Clinton signed the bill the next day, ending the 19 year embargo on Vietnam.
The VVA, however, stood in support of the President throughout the whole ordeal. When the issue of whether to back the embargo dropping or not heated up in late 1993, a top VVA agent publicly backed President Clinton in a New York Times editorial in which he noted Vietnam should not be subject to anachronistic foreign policies by the United States. The VVA was in favor of a dropped embargo because it would make it easier for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to go back to Vietnam and come to grips with their anxieties. Concerning their power in influencing the issue, the VVA's strong ties to Vietnam veterans in Congress and large membership made them a force to be heard by Congress, though it might not have been as loud as the American Legion's or the VFW's. Corporate America
Obviously, corporate America had to play a role in President Clinton's dropping of the embargo on Vietnam. ³Hanoi's leaders had launched an economic-reform program called doi moi in 1986. After a halting beginning, the regime began aggressively removing central controls and subsidies in 1989. None too soon. When Soviet aid suddenly vanished two years later, the newly unshackled economy showed unexpected resilience, and last year (1992) it was growing at a robust 8%² (Hornick 1993, 43). American businesses were complaining to the government that the revenue being lost by them since 1989 was close to $6 billion a year, at the same time, salivating at Vietnam's minimum wage, which is approximately one-fifth that of the United States' (Baum 1994, 77). On matters concerning Vietnam, however, corporate America's voice was not very loud. It was not until Vietnam grew into an economically burgeoning state that corporate America's voice began to raise and politicians began to listen.
The President's Export Council (PEC), a group from private business, Congress and several government departments, which advises the White House on international trade, was very much in favor of dropping the embargo as soon as discussion on the matter began to emerge: ³In a letter to President Bush on March 4, 1992, the chairman of the council, Heinz C. Prechter, wrote: ŒIt is the Council's belief that the United States will lose substantial competitive ground in Southeast Asia in the immediate future if we do not begin some relaxation of the embargo on Vietnam'² (Crossette 1992, 3). Prechter, chairman and chief executive officer of ASC Inc., a supplier of auto accessories, who had accompanied President Bush to Asia earlier in the year, was among the 250 people to give $100,000 or more to the Republican Party in 1988 (Crossette 1992, 3), thereby making him a force to be reckoned with in any matter he wanted to be. When the face of the PEC changed after Clinton's election, the same urging messages about Vietnam emerged, keeping its views on the embargo the same.
As the debate pressed on though, and a new President emerged, American corporations began asking for more than just ³some relaxation². Businesses wanted the United States to not only drop the embargo, but to offer Vietnam most-favored nation trading status, thereby allowing trade and shipping between the countries to be easier and less expensive.
To get their agenda passed through Congress though, corporate America had to cut down on what it wanted to get acceptance by House and Senate leaders. Convinced that an embargo dropping alone was a good enough first step than any, businesses began backing the moves laid out by President Clinton in an effort to finally break into the Vietnamese economy, hoping it would lead to more.
By the time President Clinton announced his intentions on dropping the embargo, Vietnam was one of the world's leading developing nations, boasting nearly 71 million consumers and had a thriving economy for the first time in decades; the demographic and economic capabilities of the small nation had not been explored by the United States in close to 20 years. Up to that point, American investments in Vietnam were purely speculative on prospects of the embargo being dropped, an early example being United Airlines buying the rights to the air route to Ho Chi Minh City in 1986. Into the Bush Administration, these investments turned into the setting up of business and the hiring of employees though there was no use for them until President Clinton formally dropped the embargo.
Congress Bombarded with lobbying efforts by the PEC, multinational corporations, the America Legion, the VFW, the VVA and outside forces like Ross Perot, who was against dropping the embargo, Congress also had to deal with Vietnam veterans within its own ranks on both sides of the floor to come up with a view on the matter. In the end, a vote on the Senate floor was the only method in truly finding out where the Senate stood on the matter. In the past, Congress had kept away from Vietnam for good reason; Vietnam was a very touchy subject, one which few congressmen dare brought up.
As far as their power in the matter, Congress was merely the second step in any executive decision involving Vietnam. Senator Kerry, sent to Vietnam by Clinton, had been convinced during his stay there that dropping the embargo would help the POW/MIA cause; a little lobbying by Winston Lord probably didn't hurt either. After his return home, he soon became the main sponsor of a bill to drop the embargo, based heavily on President Clinton's public views on the matter. On January 27, 1994, a bipartisan Senate voted 62-38 in favor of backing President Clinton's plan to drop the embargo with six of the eight senators in the Senate voting in the affirmative (Zumwalt 1994, 1). A week later, the President did his part, 18 years after Secretary of State Kissinger originally announced that the United States was ready to normalize relations with Vietnam.
It was the influences and changing views of power centers that led up to the President, himself a power center, dropping the embargo a week after the Senate vote. With varying views on the matter and preferred outcomes, each power center had to loosen its ropes a little bit to come to a compromise, though a few still felt shunned by the President's doing.
As a whole, Hilsman's political process model quite effectively answers why President dropped the embargo on Vietnam: Its dominant position in Cambodia and Laos, its close ties to the Soviet Union, and the unresolved issue of American soldiers missing in action during the Vietnam War hindered Vietnam's efforts to improve relations with the United States until a symbolic aid package was authorized in 1991 by President Bush after Vietnam opened its doors to capitalist enterprises. President Clinton waited a bit to let his draft-dodging charges die down and, under the influence of his own PEC and under the advisement of Winston Lord, finished a policy that opened Vietnam back up to American businesses. As economics and political strength in the Pacific started playing stronger roles in the decision-making of whether or not to drop the embargo, the roles of veterans' groups lessened, as the President successfully argued that closer tied made for more help in documenting MIAs and POWs, winning over the public and key members of Congress like Sen. Kerry. As power centers began to centralize towards only dropping the embargo, President Clinton moved in and succeeded in fulfilling a policy begun by President Bush three years earlier.
Apple, Jr., R.W. ³Opening to Vietnam; a passion spent, finally,² New York Times. 4 February 1994, Section A, Page 1. Baum, Julian. ³Taiwanese Takeover,² Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 September 1994. Pg. 77. Crossette, Barbara. ³Bush is Pressed on Vietnam Embargo,² New York Times. 31 March 1992. Section A, Page 3. Edward, Adrian. ³Vietnam and China Agree to Pursue Rail Links.² Asia-Pacific News by Reuters. Online. eWorld. 29 Nov. 1995. Fedarko, Kevin. "Washington: The Last POW,² Time Magazine. 24 April 1995. Pg. 36. Friedman, Thomas L. "Good Morning, Vietnam,² New York Times. 18 January 1995, Section A, Page 20. Gibney, Frank Jr. "Vietnam: Back in Business,² Time Magazine. 24 April 1995. Pg. 42. Greenhouse, Steven. "Administration Hoping to Lift Embargo,² New York Times. 16 November 1994. Section A, Page 8. Grolier's New Multimedia Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. Novato, California: The Software Toolwarks, Inc. 1994. Hornick, Ricard. "Good Morning, Vietnam,² Time Magazine. 15 February 1993. Pg. 43. Jehl, Douglas. "Opening to Vietnam; Clinton drops 19-year ban on US trade with Vietnam: Cites Hanoi's help on MIAs,² New York Times. 4 February 1994. Section A, Page 1, Column 1. Keller, Bill. "Chinks in the ŒIron Triangle'? How a Unique Lobby Force Protects $21 Billion in Vast Veterans' Programs,² Congressional Quarterly, 14 June 1980. Pg. 1627. Lippman, Thomas W. "MIA Activists Fight on for Vietnam Embargo," Washington Post. 3 February 1994. Section A, Page 23. Manning, Robert A. and Paula Stern. "The Myth of the Pacific Community," Foreign Affairs. November 1994. Pg. 79. Vatikiotis, Michael. "Now Boarding: Vietnam funds have no problem raising funds," Far Eastern Economic Review. 22 September 1994, Pg. 81. ---. "Romance Meets Reality," Far Eastern Economic Review. 22 September 1994, Pg. 72. Zumwalt, Elmo. "Senate votes to back Clinton on Vietnam," New York Times. 28 January 1994. Section A, Page 1, Column 5. ---. "The War is over," New York Times. 7 February 1995. Section A, Page 17, Column 3.
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