Bill Clinton: “First let me say, I saw General Vessey before he went to Vietnam and after he returned. And I have a high regard for…”

“First let me say, I saw General Vessey before he went to Vietnam and after he returned. And I have a high regard for him, and I appreciate his willingness to serve his country in this way. As to whether the document had any basis in fact, let me say that the Government of Vietnam was more forthcoming than it had been in the past and gave us some documents that would tend to undermine the validity of the Russian documents claim. I do not know whether that is right or wrong. We are having it basically evaluated at this time, and when we complete the evaluation, we'll tell you. And of course, we want to tell the families of those who were missing in action or who were POW's. I think that we'll be able to make some progress in eliminating some of the questions about the outstanding cases as a result of this last interchange, but I cannot say that I'm fully satisfied that we know all that we need to know. There are still some cases that we don't know the answer to. But I do believe we're making some progress. I was encouraged by the last trip.”