Column U.S. must make reparations for actions in Vietnam
By ROBERT F. DRINAN
Every reference to the United
States war in Vietnam rivets my attention. The most recent, a reference
to the lasting devastating effects of countless tons of Agent Orange on the
people of Vietnam, received little attention compared to the inner agony of
former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., over revelations of his participation in a
massacre of innocent civilians in Vietnam.
Less dramatic but equally moving was the ceremony on Mothers
Day in Washington at the stunning monument to the 58,000 American military
personnel who died in Vietnam.
I first spoke out against the war in Vietnam in an address in 1968
at the stately New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington. Referring to
the four Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war adopted by the United States
in 1948, I asserted that the United States could not win the war in Vietnam
without massive violations of those Geneva accords. I learned years later that
the FBI had an agent at that event and opened a file on me!
A trip to Vietnam in 1969 as a member of an 11-person delegation
sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation persuaded me that the United
States had made a dreadful blunder in entering the Vietnam struggle after the
French had left in defeat. I wrote a book, Vietnam, An Armageddon,
published in 1970 by Sheed and Ward.
That book led to my acceptance of an invitation to run for
Congress from a citizens caucus. For the first four years of my 10 years
in Congress the struggles to end the war permeated every other issue. The House
finally got the 218 votes necessary to de-fund the war. But the damage by that
time done in Hanoi and Cambodia, along with the hand-to-hand warfare in the
South, had inflicted damage and suffering that are incalculable.
As a member of Congress, I visited Hanoi in 1979. The devastation
was unbelievable. The scene somehow reminded me of Paul (not his real name) who
joined my first campaign in 1970 four days after he returned from fighting in
Vietnam. Paul had nightmares then and has been deeply troubled for years, like
countless former soldiers such as Bob Kerrey.
Vietnam can never be forgotten. It will rise up in our souls at
unexpected times and in unpredictable ways.
In the recent past I was in a restaurant in Washington with two
law students. I saw Robert McNamara, the former secretary of defense, eating
alone. I wondered then and now whether he, like Bob Kerrey, is haunted every
day by what he authorized and carried out as the architect of Americas
jungle war against communism.
I told the two law students about Robert NcNamara and his war in
Vietnam. Neither of them was even born when the war finally ended. They did not
seem prepared to heed or even listen to my suggestion that the United States
should try to undo some of the damage it did to the people of Vietnam. They did
not realize that the United States killed some 3 million Vietnamese and sprayed
hundreds of tons of Agent Orange and defoliants that will cause genetic
injuries to countless Vietnamese yet to be born.
I related to them the story of my meeting in 1969 with a
Vietnamese lawyer in Saigon. He quietly pointed to hundreds of files on his
shelves noting that each dossier contained the details of atrocities carried
out by American servicemen. The attorney concluded our conversation by
promising that Vietnam and Asia would have their own Nuremberg trials after the
war and would convict America of atrocities and violations of the rules of war.
I have never heard of those files in the last 32 years.
There are now in the United States well over 1 million American
citizens of Vietnamese descent. There are 33 American Jesuits whose parents
came to the United States from Vietnam. Is it possible that the children and
grandchildren of these enterprising citizens will urge the American people to
try to rectify the damage done to their motherland? The children and the
grandchildren of 120,000 Japanese detained during World War II prompted the
United States to finally recognize the wrong that was done and grant to each
surviving Japanese internee the sum of $20,000.
The United States assisted Japan and Germany after World War II.
Would the United States ever consider that for Vietnam? Bob Kerrey and the
Vietnam veterans in Congress might urge that. But the nation seems
affirmatively disinterested in the aftermath of a war in which the United
States engaged in conduct for which an apology and indemnification are morally
required. n
Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan is a professor at Georgetown
University Law Center. His e-mail address is
drinan@law.georgetown.edu
National Catholic Reporter, June 15,
2001
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