Visit the PX

Before Veterans Day, 1993, our yellow-spined, war protester and draft dodging President Bill Clinton, will have once again betrayed this country and its servicemen.

This time by caving in to greedy corporate interest, lifting the Vietnam trade embargo, and dropping U.S. opposition to allowing Vietnam access to multi-million dollar loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-- moves that will jump start Hanoi's troubled economy and take away any incentive for Vietnam to explain what happened to the U.S. prisoners of war who were its possession, but not released at the end of the war.

During the Vietnam War, Clinton cut and run rather than risk his life and limb by having to serve his country in combat. He left the United States and joined a risk-free protest movement which gave political and moral support to the Hanoi's war effort - an action begging the question of how many American servicemen were wounded, died, or became missing in action as a result of his encouraging support for the enemy during the war?

By lifting the 18-year trade embargo and approving loans to Vietnam from the IMF, Clinton will have acquired a new buddy, Vietnam's homicidal Prime Minister, Vo Van Kiet, a man who, in 1965, as a primary decision maker in the Viet Cong National Liberation Front Central Committee, participated in ordering the public murders of several U.S. prisoners of war.

Many activists, veterans' groups and Vietnam war veterans say that when Clinton decides to favor the bank loans for Vietnam, he will basically be pulling the trigger on the any U.S. POW who may still be alive in the hands of the Vietnamese, much in the same way Kiet ordered the trigger pulled on American prisoners of war serving this country during the Vietnam War.

Kiet is traveling the world, begging for the lifting of the U.S. imposed trade embargo, and he is the same hard-line card-toting communist, who 25 years ago, helped develop the official policy for Vietnamese communists of publicly executing American prisoners as a form of retaliation. By late 1960, Kiet had achieved an influential and high-ranking position as a member of the Interzone Central Committee with a direct responsibility as Secretary in Command of the Special Zone. This was, at the time, one of the six zones by which the NLF had divided Vietnam below the 17th parallel. In May of 1963, Kiet's power and influence was strengthened when the NLF organizational structure was reorganized and South Vietnam was divided into three interzones (literally groups of provinces) plus Kiet's Saigon-Cholon-Gia Dinh area which remained as a Special Zone. Kiet, as leader of the Special Zone, reported directly to the Central Committee. The Special Zone consisted of a 200 square mile area with a population of nearly two million people.

Kiet's powerful position on the Interzone Committee was enhanced by his membership in the Lao Dong communist party which reported directly to Hanoi. This allowed him to set policy in his area, as well as all of South Vietnam, on the treatment of American prisoners of war in South Vietnam. It was communist policy to conduct reprisal executions to instill fear and create confusion and suspicion among the Vietnamese population. Kiet and others ordered the deaths of many American prisoners of war.

As the ranking NLF Central Committee member of the Special Zone, Kiet did order, or participated in an order, which brought about the attempted assassination of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara on May 12, 1964.

By 1965, the world began to hear a horrible story - a story concerning public executions of American prisoners of war. Green Beret Capt. Humberto Roque "Rocky" Versace of Norfolk, Va. and camp mate SFC Kenneth M. Roraback were chosen by the Kiet and the Central Committee for execution because both men had refused to violate their allegiance to the U.S. Military Code of Conduct and become willing participants in the re-education propaganda used in the camps.

Versace was marched to Central Committee headquarters in September 1965 and publicly executed Sept. 26, 1965 after being forced to kneel and apologize for his "war crimes." He was shot in the back of the head. The murder was reportedly filmed by communist photographers and it is widely speculated that Kiet was present.

Although reports vary on the circumstances of Roraback's death, witnesses say a Viet Cong guard was ordered to execute Roraback. The guard's chosen method of murdering the American prisoner was to walk up behind Roraback and shoot him in the back of his head as he was eating his meal of rice and water.

The executions of Versace and Roraback were announced Sept. 26, 1965 over Liberation Radio, the voice of the Viet Cong Central Committee. Both men, the radio broadcast announced, were shot in reprisal for the deaths of two Viet Cong terrorists who were executed by the South Vietnamese. Just a few months earlier, the same reprisal attitude prevailed when the Interzone Committee ordered the execution of Army E4 Harold Bennett of Perryville, AR.

The slayings of the three U.S. prisoners of war, which were reported in the Oct. 1,, 1965 edition of Newsweek were branded by a State Department spokesman as an "act of wanton murder" in violation of the Geneva Convention.

Other Americans who died at the hands of the Viet Cong execution-style include: American civilian Gustav C. Hertz, who according to Liberation Radio, "paid a blood debt" to the Vietnamese people; Marine Lt. William M. Grammar; Army Sgt. Orville B. Frits; Capt. Orien Judson Walker of Boston, Mass., died from starvation and lack of medical treatment; Sgt. Leonard Masayon Tadios, Lania, Ha., died from starvation and lack of medical treatment March 18, 1966; SFC Joe Parks, Cedar Lane, Texas, two years a prisoner, he died from starvation and lack of medical attention.

Labeling them "too dirty" (the Viet Cong didn't want to "waste" medicine), the Viet Cong would refuse medical treatment to seriously ill American prisoners, dragging them off outside the camps so fellow prisoners could not care for them, and left them to die.

April 8, 1962 brought more stories of inhumanity and brutality. Recorded in The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror by Douglas Pike, two American prisoners, weak from hunger and pain, fell out of the march of their retreating captors and both were shot in the face.

At dawn on the first day of the Tet Truce in 1968, National Liberation Front forces, supported by large numbers of North Vietnamese Army troops, launched the largest offensive of the Vietnam War, attacking 30 provincial capitals ranging from the Delta to the DMA. Kiet, as leader of the Special Zone (Saigon) was responsible for supervising the attack on that metropolitan area. Kiet sent over a thousand armed Viet Cong into the city, some of whom were suicide squads. One 19-man Viet Cong suicide squad attacked the U.S. Embassy (in Saigon) and held it for six hours before being routed by U.S. forces.

American prisoners of war weren't the only targets of the communist "reprisal" policy. The NLF Central Committee, operating in conjunction with the North Vietnamese Regular troops, violated an agreed-upon truce and launched a communist force which eventually reached 12,000, into the city of Hue on the night of the new moon marking the new lunar year, Jan. 30, 1968. That terrorist force stayed for 26 days before being driven out by U.S. military action. In its wake, the communist forces left 5,800 Hue civilians dead or missing. Many of the civilians were later found buried with their hands tied behind them, in mass graves with evidence indicating some had been buried alive. Many of those murdered had been rounded up by communist forces armed with a list of names provided by agents of the NLF Central Committee in the form of a Death Order.

Central Committee agents, armed with black lists on clipboards, began rounding up individuals or members of groups who the communists felt represented a potential danger or liability to their new social order. This black list was more a black list of titles or social positions held by the victims rather than individual names. Communists referred to these titles or positions as "social negatives."
This killing was also done in family units. As described in The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror, a well-documented case goes as follows"...a death squad entered the home of a prominent community leader and shot him, his wife, his married son and daughter-in-law,his young unmarried daughter, a male and female servant and their baby. The family cat was strangled, the family dog was clubbed to death, the goldfish scooped out of the fishbowl and tossed on the floor. When the communists left, no life remained in the house. A 'social unit' had been eliminated."

Today, Vietnam, under Kiet's committee's leadership, refuses time and again to account for American POW/MIA's and in fact, have never returned the remains of Bennett, Versace or Roraback although Kiet's committee ordered those executions. The only crimes the American patriots committed were maintaining their oath of allegiance to the U.S. Military Code of Conduct and refusing to become "progressive" communists while imprisoned by the Viet Cong.

The murders of American prisoners of war were in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, a violation which historically allowed capital prosecution and the hanging of a Japanese general in World War II; the hunting and capture of Nazi war criminals and the international outcry against Kurt Waldheim, an alleged Nazi criminal.

Kiet and other Central Committee members, in fact, should be tried for the murders and other war crimes should he step foot in the United States, say many veterans and family members of soldiers who were executed by Kiet's committee. Nazi war criminals were sought out and brought to justice for the murders of innocent Jews and sympathizers. Yet the United States has failed to seek out and bring to trial, the murderer of American soldiers.

Now, some key Congressional leaders, lead by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) are jumping into bed with the brutal Kiet, lured by the sweet mistress of profit lying offshore in the oil-rich seas of Vietnam. Big businesses such as BP, Boeing, Shell, Mobil, Exxon, AT & T, are already chomping at the bit to do business with the murderers of America's veterans, putting up "front" money as the embargo nears expiration. Hanoi has also asked for loans from the International Money Fund (IMF) in the amount of $140 million from France and Japan.

Vietnam's offshore oil reserves are known to be among the richest in the world. Its soil is also rich with the blood of U.S. servicemen and innocent Vietnamese civilians who died under the bloodthirsty, anti-human rule of Kiet's Central Committee.

Now, Kerry, infamous for his antiwar protests in the late 60's, along with other money-hungry politicos, is giving lying Kiet and his murderous regime credit for cooperating fully in resolving the POW-MIA issue. Lifting the embargo or even agreeing to stand out of the way of Japan and France loaning Hanoi $140 million to clear Vietnam's war debts is equivalent to granting Kiet complete absolution for his war crimes.

In a June 23 New York Times article, American Legion Executive Director John Sommer stated that his organization as well as American Legion allies don't believe Vietnam has cooperated at all in resolving the POW/MIA issue. "They continue to dribble out a document or two relating to missing Americans when it suits their purpose or when they are seriously criticized for not cooperating."
On Memorial Day, Clinton promised the nation during his speech at The Wall, that his administration would move forward in resolving the issue.

Meanwhile, the key economic powers are opening their doors for table talk between leadership and the bloody Kiet administration. One only needs to look back at the history of Kiet's National Liberation Front and its goals to realize that the United States and some other IMF members have become willing participants in Kiet's revolutionary goals.

According to Douglas Pike, an expert on Indochinese affairs, the NLF issued a 7,500 word authoritative pronouncement of objectives as its revolutionary program. The four planks of this revolution are:
1) to kick the United States out of South Vietnam;
2) to conquer South Vietnam and reunify it with the North;
3) to build an independent and prosperous Vietnam with a strong military by developing Vietnam's economy, and
4) to become involved in world politics through foreign policy.

The Vietnamese communists achieved Planks No. 1 and 2 in 1975. Plank No. 3 which was broken down into 14 policies stalled because of the U.S. imposed trade embargo against Vietnam.

In order "To achieve the revolution," a pledge Vo Van Kiet made when he was voted Prime Minister in 1992, he must do and say whatever is necessary to break the trade embargo and develop Vietnam's economy.

Over the years Kiet and other clever communists realized that their only chance to implement ALL its revolution objectives was to infuse the country with foreign dollars.

From the beginning of our involvement with Vietnam, the communist leadership has a history of deceit, lies and using whatever tactics they need to attain their objectives. Kiet is still on the same track today that he was on in 1967 with the issue of the NLF manifesto. The Vietnamese communists are still advocating the revolution and they still plan on making it work.

The Vietnamese have been lying about the POW issue; they still put people in jail for "crimes" against the government and they still fail to observe any guidelines dealing with human rights. And the Vietnamese still have the same American friends. In step with that agenda today, as he was 25 years ago when he returned from Vietnam to the United States to lead pro-communist rallies against the war, is Sen. John Kerry, (D-MA). Kerry remains a chief proponent of normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, lifting embargoes and making IMF loans with U.S. tax dollars. Why does Vietnam and its communists enjoy the privilege of non-prejudicial treatment? It would appear that some current U.S. leaders would indeed, sanction, the bloody war crimes committed by the Central Committee in which Kiet played a part.

Not surprisingly, many of those shaping U.S. foreign economic and trade policy seem blissfully ignorant of the current Vietnamese regime's homicidal history. It was in his earlier years in the Party that Kiet was exposed to and embraced the Vietnamese politics of clandestine organization. The Vietnamese government today still embraces the ideology that the world should never know precisely where on stands; that the organization should be clandestine as well as its members; the rule: be changeable, flexible - appear to adapt.

Kiet continues his goals outlined by the revolution with the patience, endurance and tenacity typical of the Far Eastern culture, the same traits which indeed overcame two global powers - first France, and then the United States.

And Kiet is employing an enduring communist doctrine: that the western world is imperialistic, driven by a greedy desire to accumulate wealth even if it has to go bobbing for dollars in the blood of its own soldiers. And the draft-dodging Bill Clinton is again there, offering aid and comfort to the communist revolution.