Joe Cunningham: “most of my life I have spent fighting against Communists and Socialists. You would think of anybody that did not want to…”

“most of my life I have spent fighting against Communists and Socialists. You would think of anybody that did not want to support the Chinese, it would be Duke Cunningham. I am probably the only one in this room that has been shot at by the Chinese near the Vietnamese border. I cannot tell you what I told them over the radio or called them. And they were my enemy. They are an emerging threat today. When the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the committee, asked me to go to Vietnam and raise the American flag over Ho Chi Minh City, I said, ``No, I can't do that. It's too hard.'' And then Pete Peterson, a friend of mine, the Ambassador to Vietnam, said, ``Duke, I need your help. I was a prisoner for 6 rac{1}{2} years. I can do this. You can, too.'' So I went. And I met with the Prime Minister in Hanoi. I asked him, I said, Mr. Prime Minister, President Clinton is trying to work negotiations and trade with Hanoi to open up our two countries. Why are you dragging your feet? In perfect English, he looked at me and said, Congressman, I am a Communist. If we move too fast in trade, you see those people out there? And we were looking at a sea of thousand bicycles. He said, those people out there will have things, like property, like things of their own, like their own bicycles that they could own. He very frankly said, as a Communist, I will be out of business. I looked at him, and I said, Mr. Prime Minister, trade is good.…”