Joe Cunningham: “this is an emotional issue for many of us. I have seen a lot of my friends die in Vietnam, as has my friend, the…”

“this is an emotional issue for many of us. I have seen a lot of my friends die in Vietnam, as has my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), who was a POW for six and a half years. Even we have different feelings on this particular issue, and it is hard. I look, and people outside the United States could look, and point out the bad things about the United States. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) did about Vietnam. Look at a young African American that was drug down a country road, drug to his death. Look at the inequities to minorities in our judicial system sometimes. I acknowledge those and say we want to trade with the United States. But there is so much good. Most of the people who live in Vietnam today were not alive during the war. The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) asked me to go to Vietnam a couple of years ago and raise a flag over Ho Chi Minh City. I told him, no, I do not go on CODELS; and it would be too hard for me to go back. But I did go. I am glad I did. Mr. Speaker, if you walk on the streets of Vietnam today, those people welcome Americans openhandedly. They want a chance, much like the people in Tiananmen Square did. I met the prime minister, and I asked him, why will you not get involved in trade that President Clinton is trying to get you involved in? He said, Congressman, I am a Communist. If those people have things, I will be out of business as a Communist. I said, trade is good.…”