I
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 Social-
ist 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 Representa-
tives 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 Presi-
dent Clinton’s top national security advisors have
urged ending United States opposition to multilat-
eral lending to the Government of the Socialist Re-
public of Vietnam.
(2) In early July 1993, the International Mone-
tary Fund is scheduled to meet to discuss the possi-
bility 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 Account-
ing of the Department of Defense, particularly field
activities conducted in the Socialist Republic of Viet-
nam, 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 re-
turned to the United States, and United States offi-
cials 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 visit-
ing delegations show little new information on the
fate of American POW/MIAs.
(7) Although the most recent documents re-
garding 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 with-
hold 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 Chi-
nese personnel.
(9) No American POW/MIAs who returned dur-
ing Operation Homecoming in 1973 reported having
been interrogated by Soviet or Chinese personnel de-
spite 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 in-
volvement 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 air-
planes before Soviet specialists could conduct their
investigations.
(12) In early 1993 the cockpit capsule of an
American F–111A aircraft downed in North Viet-
nam 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 re-
turned from the Vietnam conflict.
(14) One facilitator of that unsuccessful ex-
change, Doctor/Professor Wolfgang Vogel, had pre-
viously participated in a number of successful pris-
oner 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 Viet-
namese 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 Vi-
etnamese 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 Com-
mander 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 re-
turned to the United States.
(18) A November 17, 1975, Central Intelligence
Agency document relating to exploitation of Amer-
ican 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
(22) A September 1972 Department of the
Navy ‘‘Bright Light’’ intelligence report contained a
narrative from a high ranking North Vietnamese of-
ficial which stated that the Government of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China had secretly agreed to keep
a number of American POW/MIAs for North Viet-
nam in China and that the Government of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China would never release these
POW/MIAs to the United States without the ap-
proval of North Vietnam.
(23) A series of successive United States ad-
ministrations 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 Chi-
nese 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 re-
port that may turn out to be improperly used to en-
courage 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 Viet-
nam conflict.
SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY WITH RESPECT TO AMER-
ICAN POW/MIAs FROM THE VIETNAM CON-
FLICT.
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 commu-
nications, is obtained and thoroughly studied by impartial
United States investigators.
SEC. 4. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS WITH RESPECT TO NOR-
MALIZATION OF RELATIONS WITH THE SO-
CIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.
It is the sense of the Congress that the President
should not normalize or otherwise upgrade diplomatic rela-
tions 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 EMBAR-
GO 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 Govern-
ment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the fullest pos-
sible accounting of American POW/MIAs from the Viet-
nam conflict.
SEC. 6. DEFERRAL OF IMF RESOLUTION RELATING TO RE-
PAYMENT OF IMF LOANS BY THE SOCIALIST
REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.
The President shall instruct the United States Exec-
utive Director of the International Monetary Fund to use
the voice and vote of the United States to defer consider-
ation of any resolution by such Fund that allows the Gov-
ernment 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 Gov-
ernment 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 Exec-
utive Directors of the International Bank for Reconstruc-
tion 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 So-
cialist Republic of Vietnam until such time as the Presi-
dent certifies to the Congress that the United States Gov-
ernment 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 ‘‘Amer-
ican 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 miss-
ing.
(2) FULLEST POSSIBLE ACCOUNTING OF AMER-
ICAN 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 re-
mains of American POW/MIAs who have died;
or
(C) convincing evidence as to why the re-
turn of all American POW/MIAs described in
subparagraph (A), the identification and return