John Kerry: “this is a history of movement with the Vietnamese. You can go back to 1973 and there were 591 American POW's returned.…”

“this is a history of movement with the Vietnamese. You can go back to 1973 and there were 591 American POW's returned. In 1974, they repatriated 24 remains, people who died in captivity. In 1975, Saigon fell; our forces gone. From 1976 to 1978, there were very few things that went on. From 1978 to 1982, total breakdown, nothing happened. From 1982 to 1987, some engagement but no real progress. And, finally, General John Vessey goes over there. The whole task force is put together, and then in October 1992, just to give an example, Secretary Cheney and Secretary Eagleburger met with the Vietnamese and they confronted the Vietnamese with documents that we had obtained from Vietnamese archives. How did we get the documents from the archives? They let us into the archives. We got the documents. The documents showed us things, so the Secretaries meet with them and General Vessey then returned to Vietnam. As a result, the Vietnamese agreed to collect and present to us related materials consolidated in the military museums and pull it together. I could go through here step for step, page for page, because that is where the pages are filled with the things that General Vessey was able to negotiate and get out of the Vietnamese which have given answers to families.…”