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Show Eeagam to Embark On Tour 4-Nat- ion May 8, 1945, that Germany had sur- By Michael Putzel Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON President Reagan leaves this week on a European trip that was designed to celebrate 40 years of peace and the spread of democracy but which has grown instead into an unwelcome reminder of a dark moment in human history. The American president will spend more than half of his journey in West Germany, first to attend the annual summit conference of the seven major industrialized democracies in Bonn, then to join his host, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, for a state visit choreographed to display the harmony and allied strength of two once-bittenemies. U.S. officials planned the trip as a showcase for Reagans commitment to human freedom, a theme to be stated and restated at each stop on n tour. He is to celethe brate Europes reconciliation since the end of World War II just 40 years ago, the development of democracy that followed harsh rightist dictatorships in Spain and Portugal and point proudly to the prosperity the West can expect to enjoy while Communist East Europe remains bound by economic and political chains. Democracy, Freedom Those who claim boundaries are the issue in Europe do not want to face up to the real issue, which is independence, democracy and freedom, including free elections, Reagan said, setting his theme in a recent interview with Spanish television. We will continue to promote basic rights in Eastern Europe, confident that the peoples desire for freedom will eventually triumph. But a fundamental miscalculation about an event designed to symbolize the reconciliation with West Germany has loosed a rolling thunder of criticism that overpowers all the administration's best laid plans. President Francois Mitterrand outside a cemetery in which 130,000 French and German dead from the 1916 Battle of Verdun are buried. With a silent handclasp in a biting cold rain, the two leaders pledged their friendship and understanding after two world wars that "left our peoples in ruins, grief and mourning." Ceremony of Reconciliation Reagan, searching for a way to make Day a celebration of a generation of peace rather than of one sides triumph over the other, eagerly agreed to participate in a similar ceremony of reconciliation. But unlike Verdun in France, n where at least a men from both sides died nearly 70 years ago and where most of the 130,000 entombed at the site of the meeting See Column 1 rendered. - First Economic Summit Since the first economic summit at the Chateau de Rambouillet in France in 1975, the meetings have become a demonstration of the new order that emerged from World War II, with the former Axis nations of West Germany, Italy and Japan joining the United States, Britain, France and Canada in unrivaled dominance of world markets. 10-d- V-- E By winning Reagan's acceptance of his invitation to stay on for a few days, Kohl assured himself he would not be subjected to the humiliation he and many Germans felt by the rejection a year ago. Kohl also told Reagan during a meeting last fall of his moving en- counter in half-millio- September with French A-- four-natio- Aoclorted Press Loser photo John Henry Peckham, left, and his wife, Dorothy, welcome Hoa Van Nguyen, his wife, and son shortly after the Vietnamese familys arrival in Los Angeles. Message in a Bottle Answers Prayer For Vietnamese Familys Freedom By Lila Littlejohn Associated Press Writer A VietnamLOS ANGELES ese refugee family arrived in the United States late Friday to a tearful welcome from an American couple whose message in a bottle flcated 9,000 miles to the shores of Thailand and answered a prayer for freedom. Welcome to the United States of America, Dorothy Peckham told the family as reporters and photographers swamped the group at Los Angeles Interna- tional Airport. Hoa Van Nguyen, 31, a former South Vietnamese soldier, told reporters through an interpreter that hes the most lucky man in the world. He said he doesn't know why what he called a sixth sense prompted him to pick up the bottle carrying the message from John Henry Peckham and his wife. Nguyen, 31, traveled from Singapore with his wife, Joang Kim, son and 27, their brother, Nguyens Cuong Van. Peckham took the sleeping baby, Hoang Gia Thay Nguyen, and grinned widely despite tears that streamed down his face. Nguyen then gave the Peckhams a present, a picture he had crafted while in a refugee camp in Thailand. The family was whisked from the airport by officials from the Catholic Welfare Bureau, who settled the refugees in an Echo Park apartment rented for them by the Peckhams. Weve got the apartment ready with cooking utensils, curtains and bedding and things," Mrs Peckham said before the family arrived. The Peckhams had been on a 1979 Christmas cruise to Hawaii when they drifted away from a bridge game and joined other couples who were tossing bottles overboard. Messages inside invited the finders to write back. More than three years later an they received a response Aerogram postmarked in Thailand We have received a floating mailbox by a bottle on the way from Vietnam to Thailand," wrote Nguyen, who apparently learned English from U.S. soldiers. The bottle had drifted about 9,000 miles to the coast of Thai land, where Nguyen and his brother had escaped as refugees. We thought it was kind of a fun ending, rather than just having some dumb idiot find it who would have used the dollar inside the bottle for a couple of beers, Mrs. Peckham said. But when we got his second letter back, he told us that from the minute they saw the bottle, they felt it was a prayer answered, that this bottle was somehow their way to freedom. For several years the Peck- hams corresponded with Nguyen, living in three different refugee camps. What impressed us so much about this fellow was that he was escaping from Vietnam in one of these rickety, shallow river boats and he saw this bottle and used the dollar bill Dorothy put inside it for postage to send us a letter, rather than using it for all the other things they must have needed, said Peckham, an attor- Partisan Feuds Stymie U. S. House, Senate By Tom Raum Associated Press Writer Kohl, who likes to call himself West Germanys first postwar chancellor, was stung by his exclusion a year ago from Allied ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of the Normandy invasion that presaged the collapse of Nazi Germany. To avoid a similar embarrassment this year, he used his prerogative as host of this years economic summit to bring the leadership of the great democracies together in West Germany the weekend before the 40th anniversary of the announcement on ney. Mrs. Peckham said a potential job offer had already come in for Nguyen, a mechanic, from a Manhattan Beach auto dealer. Todays Chuckle Robbers may demand your money or your life, but a spouse demands both. Kissinger Outlines Reasons for Fall of Saigon violations by the North Vietnamese in violation of the agreement; and fifth, that if the North Vietnamese did stick to the conditions, by contributing to the economic recovery of North Vietnam. Every one of these provisions was systematically undermined by the domestic divisions in this country and by the loss of executive authority as a result of Watergate, which could not be foreseen. Never Expected We never expected Vietnam to collapse. We thought we could better maintain the independence of South Vietnam in the name of a peace agreement than in the name of an endless war. Q When, then, did the fall of Saigon first seem inevitable to you? cross-borde- This is another in o series of columns by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger which appears periodically In The Salt the only newspaper In Lake Tribune this area to offer the series to Its readers. In addition to his contributions In the field of foreign affairs. Dr. Kissinger Is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize In 1973 ond the Presidential Medal of Freedom In 1977. The following is the transcript of an interview with Henry Kissinger, conducted by Art Seidenbaum and Jack Burby of the Los Angeles Times on Friday, April! 19, 1985. In January! you and Lei Due Tho signed an agreement in Paris that led to a cease fire in Viet-- J nam and the with-- l drawal of Ameri-- I can troops. You Q 1973, have written that you thought the Paris agreement would provide an interval for the South Vietnamese government. Stanley Kamow wrote that you told him a decent" interval A I didnt tell Stanley Karnow anything of the sort. He is simply repeating a myth he picked up somewhere Q Does the use of the word interval" mean you thought in 1973 that the fall of Saigon just more than two years after Paris and 10 years ago this month was inevitable A It is, of course, a complex problem for how long the United States is obligated to defend any country My associates and I believed that with prudent management the agreement could be maintained for as long as we could see in the future First, by strengthening the South Vietnamese army, second, by the provisions that prevented reinforcements of Communist forces in the south so that the South Vietnamese could take care of violations by what was permitted to be in the south, third, by the restraint that we thought China and the Soviet Union might exercise in order to keep their relationship with us, fourth, by our willingness to resist massive r A Again you have to remember that for journalists and outsiders, you can isolate an event and treat it as if it were the only thing going on. Policymakers do not have that luxury. From October 1973, on, we were in an almost negotiation in the Middle East, we had an oil embargo non-sto- p and, of course, we had Watergate and we had a new president. So there were lots of other things going on and, frankly, in early 1975 we were pri- marily preoccupied with the Middle East. In retrospect, what started the ball rolling was a North Vietnamese attack on a provincial capital called Phuoc Binh. Heavily McGovernite It was in total violation of the agreement. According to the agreement, each side was supposed to stay within the lines that had been reached at the end of the war and, while there was some confusion about where that line was, you certainly knew where the provincial capital was. They took this provincial capital and then the question was what were we going to do about it. Well, it turned out that the War Powers Act had been passed and that act prohibited any military action in, over or near Indochina Of course, as you remember, the new Congress was a heavily McGo- - vernite Congress as a result of Watergate, so when we put up a request for a supplemental Vietnam appropriation of $300 million, a huge debate started in the Congress, it must have been early February. A huge debate started and your own editorials and the Congress and everybody was saying; Will this go on forever? To which the correct answer was. Yes, it will go on forever, as it has gone on forever in NATO, as it has gone on forever in Korea, as it has gone forever in Israel. But then people were saying you have to bring an end to the war. We were caught in a dilemma. If we said we wanted victory, we would be accused of being intransigent, if we said we wanted a stalemate, we would be accused of an endless war. all of this Then the idea took hold that we happened in February should make a terminal grant. And it was very similar to what we now see in Nicaragua, that you start with too little, then you begin compromising in order to get something and pretty soon you forget what it was you set out to do and the passage of this piece Column See Page A-- 1 WASHINGTON Congressional Democrats and Republicans have been tearing into each other in some of the fiercest partisan feuding in years, all but paralyzing action in both the House and the Senate. Cooperation between the parties needed to proceed on routine matters and crucial legislation all but dislast as week Democrats appeared and Republicans clashed openly in the Senate over the federal budget d and in the House over a election in Indiana. House Republicans are incensed over Democratic efforts to seat Democrat Frank McCloskey in Indiana's 8th Congressional District. Republicans Walk Out A Democratic-controlle- d task force declared last week that state ballot counts in favor of challenger Rick McIntyre were wrong and McCloskey had won by a mere four votes. The Republicans countered with an all-oparliamentary war, session, walking staging an out of committee meetings, and makmotions on the ing all-nig- ht time-consumi- House floor. Unable to proceed with the business at hand because of parliamentary knots tied by the GOP, House Assistant Majority Leader Thomas Foley, angrily recessed the House for the weekend on Thursday. "At least for the moment, I think that the business for this day and this week has been ended for any constructive purpose, Foley said, ending debate on a State Department authorization bill. Later, he groused: The danger is these tactics can create a kind of tribalism among the parties and can lead to resentment on both sides. Allegory to Watergate The Republican party regards this as the House equivalent of Watergate, said Rep. Newt Gingrich, one of a group of activist New Right Republicans leading the fight against the Democratic majority. I cannot emphasize how outraged the Republican members are, House Republican Whip Trent Lott of Mistactics on sissippi said. Strong-arthe part of Democrats in the Indiana situation, he said, would poison the well in relations between the parties in the House for the next two years. The Indiana race was just part of the overall shoddy treatment the Republicans have received, and that could mean long-teracrimony around here," Lott said. In the Senate, where the two parties have traditionally been more cordial toward each other, partisanship flared last week m the budget debate House Republicans negotiated a budget compromise with the White House without ever consulting Demoeven though Recrats for support 7 publicans hold a only a narrow lead in the Senate and need some Democratic support. Last week, the failure to get Democrats aboard the budget package endorsed by the White House led to a legislative paralysis similar to that in the House. Majority Leader Robert Dole was twice forced to back away from a scheduled showdown procedural vote on the budget. Losing perhaps as many as six Republicans from the package, Dole was unable to get the Senate to even bring up the package supported by the White House. We welcome Democratic support," Dole said. Weve made some overtures. Thus far, theres been less than enthusiastic response. Too Little, Too Late Leading Democrats portrayed the Republican offer as too little, too late and indicated they would present a united froht against the Reagan plan this week when the Senate resumes consideration of the budget. a Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said that before now, the Senate Republican leadership had shown no interest in Democratic help on the budget. 53-4- Inside The Tribune Tribune Telephone Numbers on A-- 2 Page . Arts ... Barberi Business Classified ... . Common Carrier Crossword .... Editorials .... .... E-l-- 7 B-- 2 . .... . A-1- 4 . 0 . A12 Entertainment Lifestyle Foreign National Obituaries Ottum Public Forum Sports Star Gazer Washington . . . W-l-- . 3 A-- . 5 B-- . l 3 2 S-- 8 AND MORE . . . Tribune Sunday Magazine, Travel Magazine, Parade Magazine, Tribr une TV Magazine and comics. full-colo- Today's Forrcn'l Fair Salt Lake City and vicinity skies and warm. High temperatures in 70s, lows near 40. Details, B 3 Tearful Thanks Recall GI Friendships in Vietnam By Fran Richardson Associated Press Writer Old memories INDIANAPOLIS were tearfully recalled Saturday, 10 years aPer the fall of Saigon, as a group of Vietnamese-American- s gave thanks to the American GIs who were not only allies, but friends About 800 veterans and refugees gathered for an appreciation ceremony sponsored by the Vietnamese-America- n Association of America at the Indiana War Memorial Nicholas Nguyen, president of the 2,200-memb- Vietnamcse-Ameri-ran- s group, said it was time to let the GIs know their efforts were appreciated He said the former refugees were grateful for the chance to make America their second homeland and to the men and women who fought to give them freedom had mixed feelings about it," said Mike Creagcr of Indianapolis, who served in the Armys 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam It brings back a lot of bad memories. It's hard to reconcile, but you can't carry a " grudge forever Lured by Curiousity Jesus Quintana of Indianapolis, a Marine who lost both legs during the Vietnam War, said he went to the remembrance out of curiosity, and he liked what he saw "There is a burn in us that's never going to heal Too much time went by before the Americans did anything about the veterans," he said "The country waited too long to welcome us back But we have to deal with it " individually Rep Dan Burton. R Ind told the I , group that President Reagan appreciated their efforts and thanked them for honoring the American servicemen Burton, a House Foreign Affairs Committee member. added,"South-eas- t Asia would be free today if our goals were set at the outset If we are ever involved in another military conflict, our objectives and goals before we si nd should be in our troops We must give them the ability to win or not send them ai all," he said well-define- d Grateful for Generosity Loc To, who helped organize the and event, said the American other veterans groups believe the ceremony is the first time Vietnamese refugees have paid tribute to American soldiets Ten years ago we got here because of the generosity of the United States and we re grateful," To said We also have a high regard for the American men and women who served during the conflict Because of them, we got a democracy and could live in freedom They understand us and know us best The Vietnamese people, particularly those who live here, owe a thank you to the Vietnam veterans ' Rob Foster, a spokesman for the Indiana chapter of the American Legion. said he wondered at first why the Vietnamese would organize such an event But they simply want to say thank you. and I sure can't find any fault with that.' he said ' I think there are a lot of veterans w ho have been want V ing to hear those two words for si ver al years." Ron Stamps, state chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Civic Council says he hoped contact will continue be tween veterans and Vietnamese-American- s Meanwhile, in Annville, Pa about miles from Harrisburg, about 2 0O0 Vietnamese from all over the Fast were gathering Saturday at Fort Gap for ceremonies mark10th the ing anniversary of the arrival of Southeast Asia refugees , 20 In the months after the collapse of Saigon in 1975, more than 22.000 Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees were housed at the military post, one of a number of locations across the country where refugees staved until they could be resettled |
