Overcoming War Legacies: The Road to Reconciliation and Future Cooperation Between the United States and Vietnam

May 18, 2019 | Featured, Legacies: Agent Orange, Legacies: Unexploded Ordnance

This post originally appeared at the aspeninstitute.org

MARCH 26, 2019 • THE AGENT ORANGE IN VIETNAM PROGRAM

On March 26th the governments of the United States of America and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace, hosted a landmark event examining the transformation from enemies to partners by the two countries since the end of the war in 1975.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy- Remarks

Ambassador Ha Kim Ngoc- Keynote Speech

Charles Bailey- Panel 2 Healing from the Destruction of War

USIP Event Summary and Speaker Videos

This Month in History: 1970

January – Committee of Liaison, chaired by antiwar activists Dave Dellinger and Cora Weiss, is established as an intermediary between American POWs held in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and their families. Its goal was ”to facilitate communicate communication between American servicemen held in North Vietnam and their families” and to “try to find out if your relative is a prisoner in North Vietnam.” By midsummer, a confirmed list of 335 POWs would be established along with a flow of correspondence. A Citizens Committee of inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam (CCI) is established to conduct a series of hearings in 14 cities.

January-May 26 – Operation Menu – the code name for a secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia by the U.S. Strategic Air Command continues (See entries for March 18 and May 31 in 1969 chronology).

January 5 – Eighty GIs join GIs for Peace to picket General Westmoreland at Fort Bliss, Texas.

January 15-20 Gallup poll 57% of Americans see Vietnam war as a mistake, but another January poll shows 65% approving of Nixon’s handling of the war.

January 21 – The Shelter Half, ASU (American Serviceman’s Union), SDS, and other antiwar activists hold a “Trial of the Army” at the University of Washington’s HUB ballroom to put the Army, not the Shelter Half, on trial for genocide.

January 22 – In his State of the Union speech, Nixon announces that the end of the war in Vietnam is a major goal of U.S. policy. Though peace talks have reached an impasse, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that Vietnamization is working and that there will be further troop withdrawals.