U.S. CONGRESSIONAL RECORDS: JOE BIDEN WELCOMED VIETNAMESE REFUGEES TO THE UNITED STATES
/Vietnamese version: 06-26-2020
English version: 07-19-2020
Khai Q Nguyen, PIVOT Member
The 2020 election season is boiling up. There are less than four months left before the U.S. presidential election on November 3. Joe Biden will be the official Democratic presidential candidate. Therefore, in recent days, President Trump's supporters have fabricated and spread the news that Mr. Biden was against Vietnamese refugees in the mid-1970s in order to get Vietnamese-American votes for Mr. Trump. Since Mr. Biden had been a very young senator at the age of 30, just barely old enough to hold the office, a review of Congressional records will probably tell you what the truth is. This will also be a good opportunity to review laws on the evacuation and relief of Vietnamese refugees and related news in the 1970s.
VIETNAMESE REFUGEE CONTINGENCY ACTS
Combing through the legal archives of the U.S. Congress, I found three main documents related to the evacuation and relief of Vietnamese refugees in 1975. The first is the S. 1484 (Vietnam Contingency Act) proposed by the Senate and approved in a vote of 75-17 on April 24, 1975. One of the 17 “nay” votes belonged to Joe Biden, because in the S. 1484 Bill, there were two terms that Mr. Biden disagreed with: (1) Military assistance to Vietnam; and (2) Authorization to use American troops if necessary to protect the evacuation of South Vietnamese citizens. Since Joe Biden ran for the Senate at the age of 30 in 1972, he had supported the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.
When sent to the U.S. House of Representatives, the S. 1484 Bill was rejected together with the H.R. 6096 bill (Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975) in a vote of 162 to 246 on May 1, 1975.
Unfortunately, I only found a few details explaining the reasons why the U.S. Congress rejected the above laws. The first reason was that the Ford administration wanted the Congress to give him the authority to use U.S. troops if necessary to protect the evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese refugees from Vietnam. Senator Robert C. Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) was opposed to using American troops to help evacuate Vietnamese because this measure would be "impractical and dangerous." "If we start that, we would just be getting back into the war,” he said. Congressman Bob Carr (Democrat, Michigan) said that “President Ford knows Congress is not going to approve that military aid, so he should get those people out of there and stop playing political games with them."
In addition, the Presidential Press Secretary Ron Nessen acknowledged that the majority of telegrams (1,125 - 443) and phone calls (342 - 290) received by the White House were running strongly against President Gerald Ford's plan. The Ford administration intentionally linked the evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese with the military assistance to Vietnam. President Ford believed that the military aid was necessary to stabilize the situation and thus make the evacuation easier.
After failing in the House of Representatives with H.R. 6096, President Ford on May 6, 1975, through the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, submitted to Congress a new bill called Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act (S. 1661). This bill was approved by the majority of the Senate with 77 votes in favor and 2 votes against from the Republican senators Jesse Helm (North Carolina) and William Scott (Virginia). In addition, 20 senators abstained and did not vote.
The Senate 1661 bill was merged into the H.R. 6755 bill entitled Authorizing Funds for Assistance to Refugees from South Vietnam and Cambodia. This measure was submitted to the House of Representatives on May 7, 1975 and was passed with 381 votes in favor and 31 votes against. President Ford signed it into law on May 23, 1975. The U.S. Congress authorized President Ford to set aside a fund of $455 million for evacuation and relief of refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, exclusive of a $98 million Indochina Postwar Reconstruction funds allocated for movement and maintenance of refugees. There was no approved budget for military aid. If so, it was too late because Saigon had already fallen on April 30, 1975.
In addition, the U.S. Senate issued a resolution S. Res. 148 entitled "Welcome the latest refugees to our shores" on May 8, 1975 with 92 votes in favor, including one vote from Senator Joe Biden. There was one “nay” vote from Senator William Scott (Republican, Virginia) and seven abstentions.
MEETING AT WHITE HOUSE ON APRIL 14, 1975
I also found in the U.S. Department of State's declassified archives a document on the April 14, 1975 meeting at the White House between President Ford, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee including Senator Joe Biden, and a number of senior U.S. government officials. In this document, everyone, especially President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger, seemed to agree on two important points: (1) Get Americans out of Vietnam safely; and (2) Evacuate about 175,000 Vietnamese. The military aid for the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) was mentioned but no decision was made.
According to Secretary of State Kissinger, the American evacuation plan had been well prepared. Evacuating a large number of Vietnamese to whom the U.S. had an obligation, required the cooperation of the government of the RVN and possibly the North Vietnamese. Also according to Mr. Kissinger, “The total list of the people endangered in Vietnam is over a million. The irreducible list is 174,000. This does not mean that we could get them out; it would be just those in overwhelming jeopardy. We would have to assemble them where we could get to them and have conditions where we could move them.
Congressman Frank Church (Democrat, Idaho) commented that “Clearly there is no legal inhibition to bringing some out along with Americans, but 175,000, with American troops involved, could involve us in a very large war. This raises the specter of a new war, thousands of American troops holding on in an enclave for a long period.”
When Congressman Stuart Symington (Democrat, Missouri) asked where Vietnamese refugees would settle, Senator Claiborne Pell (Democrat, Rhode Island) replied, “We could put these people in Borneo. It has the same latitude, the same climate, and would welcome some anti-Communists”.
President Ford immediately responded “Let me comment on where they would go: We opened our door to the Hungarians. I am not saying the situation is identical but our tradition is to welcome the oppressed. I don’t think these people should be treated any differently from any other people—the Hungarians, Cubans, Jews from the Soviet Union.”
President Ford's opinion was final because no one took this issue further.
During the meeting, Senator Biden made only three brief statements. He complained that the State Department had not shown the evacuation plan. Biden wanted to separate the three issues mentioned earlier: (1) Evacuation of Americans; (2) Evacuation of Vietnamese; and (3) military aid. He wanted to focus immediately on the evacuation of Americans because it was easy and well prepared. Like most members of the U.S. Congress, Mr. Biden did not support military aid for Vietnam.
Mr. Biden said in his own words as follows: “We should focus on getting them out. Getting the Vietnamese out and military aid for the Government of Vietnam (GVN) are totally different.” A few minutes later he continued, "I don't want to have to vote to buy it all or not at all. I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out. I don't want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out.”
However, Jerry Dunleavy of The Washington Examiner newspaper twisted Mr. Biden's words by saying, “Biden said U.S. allies should not be rescued.” At the meeting, no one said anything like that.
Also at a meeting at the White House, President Ford was furious with Senator Claiborne Pell when he suggested settling Vietnamese people on Indonesia's Borneo Island. However, lacking a professional conscience, Dunleavy replaced Mr. Pell's statement with a previous statement from Mr. Biden that had nothing to do with the Vietnamese refugees' settlements:
“I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out. I don't want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out.”
Dunleavy deliberately wanted readers to misunderstand that Biden did not want to evacuate Vietnamese to the U.S. like other refugees in the past, and thus President Ford got upset at Mr. Biden and not Mr. Pell.
Secretary of State Kissinger answered Senator Biden that “This is a matter of extreme delicacy. We can’t take them under crisis conditions. No one is thinking of a long period of time to get people out. We are thinking of ten days to two weeks.”
President Ford said, "We don't want to bring the U.S. military in but we need to have enough funds to do as we plan to hold out for a while ... If this is a meeting to prepare for evacuation, it will terrify the Vietnamese government.”
Congressman Jacob Javits (Republican, New York) offered to speak to the press: “Tell the press we are thinking of $200 million.”
The full discussion at the White House meeting on April 14, 1975 can be found at the following link.
MILITARY AID
During the White House meeting on April 14, 1975, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger said, “There has been some improvement in the past few days. They have been fighting well in Xuan Loc and the Delta but whether it is temporary depends on North Vietnam and President’s request. In the military area, the North Vietnamese have eight divisions and the GVN seven. They are doing well but they are dipping into stocks of ammunition. Generally speaking, if the North Vietnamese bring up their forces they will have preponderance, but the South Vietnamese know the terrain and have their backs to the wall.”
Secretary Schlesinger requested $722 million in military aid. Of this, $140 was to equip four infantry divisions, $120 million was to reform four special forces units, and $190 million was for ammunition. President Ford mentioned a second budget of $300 million, which was approved by Congress but not yet funded.
Senator Richard Clark (Democrat, Iowa) raised a question about the purpose of military aid requested by President Ford. President Ford once again confirmed that he wanted to use military aid to stabilize the military situation and create opportunities to negotiate and allow the evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese.
According to a New York Times report on April 18, 1975, Secretary of State Kissinger, during testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, predicted that without military aid, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) would run out of ammunition at the end of May 1975. General Frederick C. Weyand, Army Chief of Staff, also gave a similar opinion before the House Armed Services Committee.
Finally, the U.S. Congress did not approve of any military aid to the Republic of Vietnam at the request of President Ford. He suffered the same fate as President Nixon. Both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress stepped up pressure on Nixon to end the war through defense budget laws. Senators John Sherman Cooper (Republican) and Frank Church (Democrat) submitted a number of amendments to the defense budget law to ban Nixon from spending money not only on the Vietnam War but also in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. There were 73 senators, Republicans as well as Democrats, out of 100 who supported these measures to tie President Nixon’s hands.
Another amendment sponsored by two senators, Mark Hatfield (Republican) and George McGovern (Democrat), demanded to end military activities as early as December 31, 1970 and withdraw all American troops from Vietnam by December 31, 1971. However, this amendment did not win a majority of votes (39 - 55).
President Nixon asked for aid for Vietnam in the July 1, 1974 to June 30, 1975 budget of $1.45 billion, but only Congress approved $700 million.
In short, both Republicans and Democrats had abandoned Vietnam.
1973 PARIS AGREEMENT
In response to a question by Senator John Sparkman (Democrat, Alabama) about U.S. responsibility under the 1973 Paris Agreement, President Ford said, “the United States signed the 1973 Paris Agreement and could uphold it. The means were taken from the U.S.”
Secretary of State Kissinger explained, “The Accords had not obligations but authorities, that is, Article 7. President Nixon and others judged that permitting the United States to extricate itself would permit the United States to provide aid and enforce the agreements. Under the Paris Accords, we have no obligation. To the GVN we said that if they let us get our forces out it would enhance our chances of getting aid for them and enforcing the agreement. It was in this context, not that of a legal obligation. We never claimed an obligation; we never pleaded an obligation. But some of us think there is a moral obligation.”
Article 7 of the Paris Agreement stated that “From the enforcement of the cease-fire to the formation of the government provided for in Articles 9 (b) and 14 of this Agreement, the two South Vietnamese parties shall not accept the introduction of troops, military advisers, and military personnel including technical military personnel, armaments, munitions, and war material into South Vietnam.”
“The two South Vietnamese parties shall be permitted to make periodic replacement of armaments, munitions, and war material which have been destroyed, damaged, worn out or used up after the cease-fire, on the basis of piece-for-piece, of the same characteristics and properties, under the supervision of the Joint Military Commission of the two South Vietnamese parties and of the International Commission of Control and Supervision.”
Many associations and some political and religious figures of overseas Vietnamese communities over the past 10 years clung to the 1973 Paris Agreement in order to raise hopes of regaining South Vietnam and restoring the RVN regime to reclaim the Paracel and Spratly Islands. They should carefully examine the content of the agreement. However, it is more important to study what the American and Western political leaders, past and present, think about the agreement. If this is simply a dead end, find some more beneficial game to play.
CONCLUSION
In fact, the war situation changed very fast in Vietnam. Just over two weeks after the April 14, 1975 White House meeting, Saigon fell. The evacuation of Americans was complete. A number of Vietnamese who worked with U.S. agencies in Vietnam got out at the same time as the Americans. In general, the evacuation of Vietnamese took place in chaotic circumstances, mostly by crossing the national border to neighboring countries. About 120,000 Vietnamese refugees came to the United States in 1975. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died at sea.
In the following years, the United States established several different refugee programs for Vietnamese people: Humanitarian Operation (HO), Orderly Departure Program (ODP), Resettlement Opportunity for Vietnamese Returnees (ROVR), Amerasian Homecoming (AH), and Humanitarian Resettlement (HR). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Vietnamese-American population was 2,104,217 in 2017.
Stay calm and fair. The historical documents that have been disseminated in the United States show in part that the Vietnam War could not have been won as early as 1964. President Johnson was very reluctant to send troops to Vietnam in 1965. Immediately after the Tet Offensive in 1968, President Johnson decided not to run for his second term.
At the beginning of 1969, the United States had nearly 550,000 troops in Vietnam. Not waiting until 1973, President Nixon began withdrawing troops and implementing the program of Vietnamization of the war. The Paris Agreement had shaped the fate of South Vietnam in January 1973, not because the U.S. Congress did not approve of $722 million or $300 million of military aid in the final days of the South Vietnam.
Vietnamese people appear to be too slow to understand what happened during those years. We continue that inborn nature until now, which results in past and present disadvantageous situations. The price to pay is sometimes as high as several million deaths on the battlefield, or hundreds of thousands of people drowned in the South China Sea.
Although his paternal grandparents are German, his mother is Scottish, two of his three wives are of Czech and Slovenian heritages, President Trump has cruelly treated refugees and severely imposed strict rules on immigrants. He ordered the housing of 15,000 children of illegal immigrants in recent years into nine loose detention centers, with a lack of sanitation, necessary care, and risk of abuse. On June 26, 2020, a federal court in the District of Columbia ordered the Trump administration to release all children detained, partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Trump and the Republican Party advocated deporting about 650,000 immigrants who were illegally brought into the United States by their parents as children. However, the Federal Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's request to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program established by the Obama administration and determined they would be temporarily allowed to stay in the United States and to be allowed to work.
Mr. Trump also made executive decisions to restrict the number of immigrants to the United States in violation of the law, placing more stringent conditions on income, English proficiency, professional skills, age, health, and family status to limit the number of people who enter the United States and the opportunity to become a permanent resident and U.S. citizen. Colored people are most affected. About 49% of Republicans view migration as a social burden, compared to 38% who view migration as a benefit to the nation.
In contrast, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party consider the United States to be a country of immigrants, so the refugees should be treated with more humanity and more fairly, with respect for legal immigrants. About 83% of Democrats think that migration makes the country stronger, is not a threat to national security, nor a burden to society for jobs, housing, and health services. Today's U.S. labor unions no longer see migration as a threat to employment and wages, but as crucial to civil rights.
If you are a Vietnamese refugee or immigrant, respect the policy of fair and decent migration, and oppose racial discrimination. Mr. Joe Biden is the person you should vote for in the elections on November 3, 2020.