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[Congressional Bills 103th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2521 Introduced in House (IH)]

103d CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2521

   To direct the President to implement and enforce certain economic 
 sanctions against the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 
 until such time as the United States Government has received from the 
 Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the fullest possible 
  accounting of American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam conflict, and for 
                            other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             June 24, 1993

Mr. Gilman introduced the following bill; which was referred jointly to 
the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means, and Banking, Finance 
                           and Urban Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 
   To direct the President to implement and enforce certain economic 
 sanctions against the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 
 until such time as the United States Government has received from the 
 Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the fullest possible 
  accounting of American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam conflict, and for 
                            other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``POW/MIA Full Accounting Act of 
1993''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) Many recent news reports state that President Clinton's 
        top national security advisors have urged ending United States 
        opposition to multilateral lending to the Government of the 
        Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
            (2) In early July 1993, the International Monetary Fund is 
        scheduled to meet to discuss the possibility of repayment of 
        loans made to the Government of the Socialist Republic of 
        Vietnam.
            (3) Despite the increased level of field activities by 
        personnel of the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting of the 
        Department of Defense, particularly field activities conducted 
        in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the last 2 to 3 years 
        have been the worst since 1981 in terms of results which 
        account for American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam conflict, with 
        only 10 POW/MIAs having been accounted for in 1992 and only 1 
        POW/MIA in 1993.
            (4) There are still more than 200 American POW/MIAs from 
        the Vietnam conflict last known alive in the Socialist Republic 
        of Vietnam and Laos.
            (5) 700 Americans were shot down or captured over Laos 
        during the Vietnam conflict but only 9 returned to the United 
        States, and United States officials have testified that more 
        than 80 percent of the members of the Armed Forces missing in 
        Laos were captured or missing in action in areas under North 
        Vietnamese control.
            (6) The most recent documents and films shown in the 
        Socialist Republic of Vietnam to visiting delegations show 
        little new information on the fate of American POW/MIAs.
            (7) Although the most recent documents regarding American 
        POW/MIAs found in the archives of the former Soviet Union 
        contain possible minor inaccuracies, such documents point to a 
        larger truth that the Government of the former Soviet Union and 
        the Government of North Vietnam collaborated throughout the 
        Vietnam conflict in the exploitation of American POW/MIAs, and 
        the Government of North Vietnam withheld and may continue to 
        withhold American POW/MIAs, and the Government of North Vietnam 
        withheld and continues to withhold information about such POW/
        MIAs and the remains of American POW/MIAs who have died.
            (8) A June 10, 1971, Central Intelligence Agency 
        intelligence information report describes a debriefing center 
        in Vinh Phu province of North Vietnam where from 1965 through 
        1967 captured American pilots were questioned by Soviet and 
        Chinese personnel.
            (9) No American POW/MIAs who returned during Operation 
        Homecoming in 1973 reported having been interrogated by Soviet 
        or Chinese personnel despite a significant volume of evidence 
        that some had been questioned by such personnel.
            (10) Among documents given to United States Ambassador Toon 
        in Moscow in April 1993 was a top secret report from the Soviet 
        Embassy in Hanoi dated March 14, 1967, that describes 
        systematic involvement of Soviet technical specialists visiting 
        downed American aircraft from the Vietnam conflict and 
        confiscating technical equipment for shipment to the former 
        Soviet Union.
            (11) Such report also included a description of competition 
        between Soviet technical specialists and Chinese technical 
        teams, including incidents in which Chinese technical teams 
        would destroy American airplanes before Soviet specialists 
        could conduct their investigations.
            (12) In early 1993 the cockpit capsule of an American F-
        111A aircraft downed in North Vietnam was found in a Moscow 
        area museum and the legible serial numbers on the airplane 
        matched those of missing American pilots.
            (13) A series of previously secret Department of State 
        cables between January and July of 1967 describe a proposed 
        prisoner exchange offered by East Germany in which between 2 to 
        6 severely wounded American pilots (including one amputee) from 
        the Vietnam conflict reportedly being held in an East German 
        hospital would be exchanged for a Soviet husband and wife spy 
        team being held in Great Britain. These pilots were never 
        exchanged and no amputee American prisoners were ever returned 
        from the Vietnam conflict.
            (14) One facilitator of that unsuccessful exchange, Doctor/
        Professor Wolfgang Vogel, had previously participated in a 
        number of successful prisoner trades between the East Bloc and 
        the West.
            (15) A military document from North Vietnam found in the 
        archives of the former Soviet Union purportedly quoting from a 
        speech by North Vietnamese General Tran Van Quang states that 
        some 700 American prisoners of war were being held by Hanoi in 
        addition to those returned in Operation Homecoming in 1973. 
        Subsequently, General Quang denied authoring the document and 
        stated that he was not Deputy Chief of Staff nor involved with 
        American prisoners of war. However, both South Vietnamese and 
        American intelligence documents from that time period list 
        Quang as Deputy Chief of Staff of the North Vietnamese Army.
            (16) In June 1993 General Quang admitted in Hanoi that 
        during the French/Indo-China War he had French and other 
        European prisoners on his Enemy Proselytizing Department staff 
        and he was also in charge of French prisoners following that 
        war which caused long delays in accounting for French POW/MIAs.
            (17) General Quang also admitted that as Commander of 
        Military Region Four during the Vietnam conflict he had control 
        over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos where hundreds of Americans 
        were listed as captured or missing and held prisoner but never 
        returned to the United States.
            (18) A November 17, 1975, Central Intelligence Agency 
        document relating to exploitation of American prisoners of war 
        states that French prisoners captured during the 1945-54 period 
        ``are still being held in North Vietnam'' some 20 years after 
        that war had ended, and that there was some possibility that 
        American prisoners of war are still being held in the Socialist 
        Republic of Vietnam.
            (19) An October 1979 Defense Intelligence Agency report 
        states that Le Dinh, a credible former North Vietnamese 
        intelligence officer who had been involved with American 
        prisoners during the Vietnam conflict, said that he heard ``at 
        staff meetings that about 700 Americans still remained in 
        Vietnam'', constituting a strategic asset that could be used to 
        force the United States to pay reparations to North Vietnam.
            (20) Among recently declassified United States documents 
        from the ``Cold Spot'' intelligence program conducted in Laos 
        and North Vietnam during the Vietnam conflict are documents 
        that discuss 112 American prisoners of war still in North 
        Vietnam after Operation Homecoming in March 1973.
            (21) Between the spring of 1971 and the fall of 1972 a 
        series of United States intelligence documents from North 
        Vietnam, Burma, and Taiwan indicate that a large number of 
        American prisoners of war were transferred from North Vietnam 
        to the Yunnan province in China under joint Vietnamese/Chinese 
        control.
            (22) A September 1972 Department of the Navy ``Bright 
        Light'' intelligence report contained a narrative from a high 
        ranking North Vietnamese official which stated that the 
        Government of the People's Republic of China had secretly 
        agreed to keep a number of American POW/MIAs for North Vietnam 
        in China and that the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China would never release these POW/MIAs to the United States 
        without the approval of North Vietnam.
            (23) A series of successive United States administrations 
        have consistently denied Russian, East Bloc, or Chinese 
        involvement with American POW/MIAs in North Vietnam.
            (24) More than 100 boxes of National Security Agency 
        documents relating to the Vietnam conflict and its aftermath 
        were not studied by the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA 
        Affairs because of time constraints, and thousands of more 
        documents are now being declassified by order of the President.
            (25) Such documents may contain important information 
        regarding Russian, East Bloc, and Chinese involvement with 
        American POW/MIAs and the transfer of American prisoners of war 
        to Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the People's 
        Republic of China.
            (26) The American Legion ``strongly believes the final 
        report (of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs) is 
        flawed and incomplete'' and ``unfortunately, the Committee has 
        produced a report that may turn out to be improperly used to 
        encourage further favorable U.S. Government actions toward 
        Vietnam without receiving any substantial cooperation on the 
        POW/MIA issue in return''.
            (27) The preceding paragraphs demonstrate that the 
        Governments of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Laos, the 
        People's Republic of China, and Russia have not given United 
        States investigators all of the information that those 
        Governments possess relating to all American POW/MIAs from the 
        Vietnam conflict.

SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY WITH RESPECT TO AMERICAN POW/MIAs FROM 
              THE VIETNAM CONFLICT.

    The Congress declares that the issue of American POW/MIAs from the 
Vietnam conflict will be resolved only when the fullest possible 
accounting of all such POW/MIAs, particularily those last known alive, 
is achieved and all available information relating to such issue, 
including documents, eyewitness accounts, film, and other 
communications, is obtained and thoroughly studied by impartial United 
States investigators.

SEC. 4. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS WITH RESPECT TO NORMALIZATION OF 
              RELATIONS WITH THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

    It is the sense of the Congress that the President should not 
normalize or otherwise upgrade diplomatic relations with the Government 
of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam until such time as the President 
certifies to the Congress that the United States Government has 
received from the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the 
fullest possible accounting of American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam 
conflict.

SEC. 5. CONTINUATION OF UNITED STATES TRADE EMBARGO AGAINST THE 
              SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

    The President shall not terminate, alter, or amend the United 
States trade embargo in effect as of June 1, 1993, against the 
Socialist Republic of Vietnam until such time as the President 
certifies to the Congress that the United States Government has 
received from the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the 
fullest possible accounting of American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam 
conflict.

SEC. 6. DEFERRAL OF IMF RESOLUTION RELATING TO REPAYMENT OF IMF LOANS 
              BY THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

    The President shall instruct the United States Executive Director 
of the International Monetary Fund to use the voice and vote of the 
United States to defer consideration of any resolution by such Fund 
that allows the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to pay 
off any or all loans that are in arrears to such Fund until such time 
as the President certifies to the Congress that the United States 
Government has received from the Government of the Socialist Republic 
of Vietnam the fullest possible accounting of American POW/MIAs from 
the Vietnam conflict.

SEC. 7. DENIAL OF LOANS, GRANTS, AND CREDITS BY INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL 
              INSTITUTIONS TO THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

    The President shall instruct the United States Executive Directors 
of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the 
International Monetary Fund, and other appropriate multilateral 
financial institutions to use the voice and vote of the United States 
to deny any new loans, grants, or credits to the Government of the 
Socialist Republic of Vietnam until such time as the President 
certifies to the Congress that the United States Government has 
received from the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the 
fullest possible accounting of American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam 
conflict.

SEC. 8. DEFINITIONS.

    For purposes of this Act, the following definitions apply:
            (1) American pow/mias.--The term ``American POW/MIAs'' 
        means--
                    (A) members of the United States Armed Forces who 
                have been identified as prisoners of war or missing in 
                action; and
                    (B) civilian employees of the United States who 
                have been identified as captured or missing.
            (2) Fullest possible accounting of american pow/mias from 
        the vietnam conflict.--The term ``fullest possible accounting 
        of American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam conflict'' means--
                    (A) the return of all American POW/MIAs who are 
                still alive;
                    (B) the identification and return of all remains of 
                American POW/MIAs who have died; or
                    (C) convincing evidence as to why the return of all 
                American POW/MIAs described in subparagraph (A), the 
                identification and return of all remains described in 
                subparagraph (B), or both, is not possible.

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