[bkerrey.txt 07/15/91]

    [This article is provided as background on Sen. Bob Kerrey, who will be 
    on the new Senate Committee on POWs and MIAs]
                      Conversation with Joseph Galloway
                     U.S. News and World Report 07/15/91

                            Looking Back At Vietnam
       `The freedom of the Vietnamese people is still worth fighting for'
           says Sen. Bob Kerrey-and we don't have to go to war to win.

    Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who received the Medal of Honor 
    for his service as a Navy SEAL in the Vietnam War, recently returned 
    from his second visit to Vietnam in two years.  He speaks out about how 
    the United States should deal with that region and discusses the never-
    ending issue of American POWs and MIAs, whose families will be meeting 
    in Washington this week for their 22nd convention.  Among his 
    observations:

    On life in Vietnam.

    One impression I came away with is that the Vietnamese government has 
    cracked down in the last year, and they're putting people in jail for 
    political crimes.  The second is that if they would make a step towards 
    laws that protect private property and allow political freedom, they 
    would take off.  This is a hard-working group of 70 million people fully 
    capable of becoming a major economic power in the world.  Third is a 
    powerful sense of betrayal-that for the past 16 years we've been 
    concerned about the impact of the Vietnam War upon America, and we
    forgot about the impact of the Vietnam War on our Vietnamese allies, who 
    are now being mistreated.  There's a need to reconcile not only the 
    differences between Vietnam and The United states but the differences 
    between the Vietnamese themselves.  they treat our allies as traitors.  
    we ought to stand up for them.  Our policy ought not necessarily to be 
    contingent upon political reforms, but we ought to be arguing for them.

    On what should be done.

    We should not be timid in arguing our ideas.  In the last couple of 
    years, we've had three witnesses to our power-Vaclav Havel, Lech Welesa 
    and Nelson Mandela-come and say, "Thanks for standing up for our 
    freedom." I'm uncomfortable thinking that perhaps Vietnam's Vaclav Havel 
    is in jail right now.  We have to describe political freedoms that we 
    think are worthwhile, and we ought to do the same thing on economic 
    issues.  We are willing to interfere in the internal affairs of other 
    countries, to criticize them, when they're our friends.  But for some 
    reason, when it's your enemy, you say, "I can't meddle."  Just the 
    opposite of what we ought to be doing.

    The evidence is very clear that American policies can liberate human 
    beings.  we can create an environment where liberation is possible, even 
    without the application of force.  And, indeed, what I learned from the 
    events in the Persian Gulf, from Desert storm, is that unless you meddle 
    in international affairs, you create the seeds of your own destruction; 
    you create the possibility that you may have to resort to military force 
    at some point.

    On prospects for peace in Cambodia.

    My feeling is that we're very close to getting a comprehensive agreement 
    in Cambodia.  I'd like to see the United states advance that peace 
    process.  It represents our policy trigger to begin to normalize with 
    Vietnam.  We need to push that process by dropping the sanctions in 
    Cambodia and by putting a presence in there.  At that point, I would put 
    our allies in Vietnam on equal standing with our concern for POWs-MIAs-
    not one higher than the other but both of them right there at the top.

    The question for Vietnam's government is:  What's your attitude toward 
    the people who fought for freedom on the other side?  Are they on the 
    household list?  Are they entitled to health care, education and jobs?  
    They aren't.  Again, for emphasis, I'm not sure that I would make that a 
    condition to dropping the economic sanctions on Vietnam.  But at the 
    very least, our policy makers ought to say,"Let's talk MIAs and POWs and 
    lets talk South Vietnamese allies."  I would put more energy into 
    political freedoms and economic freedoms.  The freedom of the Vietnamese 
    people is still worth fighting for and you don't have to go to war to 
    fight for it.

    On the Vietnamese and the Soviet people.

    Though I'm quite certain that the cutoff in aid has hurt them, these 70
    million people are much different from 70 million living in the Soviet 
    Union.  They are full of energy and they're busy and they're working, 
    and they're not in imminent danger.

    But as a result, I think they're quite impressionable to our argument:  
    You've got one country now.  We lost that war.  You've got a communist 
    economic and political system.  We may get beyond the POW-MIA issue.  We 
    may get beyond the concern that we've got for our allies.  We may have 
    normal relations with you again.  but if you change the laws of this 
    country to provide political freedom, in 10 years Vietnam could be a 
    major economic power and the standard of living could be $5,000 a year, 
    not $250.  You have the potential to be a great economic power, but not 
    under a communist economic system.  you simply aren't going to get there 
    from here.

                   [distributed through the POW Network]