The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“EXCHANGE OF NAVAL ATTACHES WITH VIETNAM” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S7970 on July 23, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
EXCHANGE OF NAVAL ATTACHES WITH VIETNAM
Mr. WARNER. Mr President, I rise today to recognize an historic event in our relations with our erstwhile cold war enemy, Vietnam. On May 7, 1997, that country and our own great Nation exchanged defense attaches. Senior Col. Vo Dinh Quang of the Vietnam Army was accredited as the defense, military, naval, and air attache to the United States. He is the first defense attache from Vietnam since 1975, when the South Vietnam attache positions dissolved by default with the collapse of South Vietnam.
The Corps of Foreign Attaches is a distinguished group of foreign senior officers who are accredited to the Department of Defense and the Department of State to officially and personally represent their defense secretaries in the United States with regard to military matters. Eighty-one countries around the world, allied and nonallied, are represented by over 100 navy, army, and air force officers living in the Washington, DC, area. Historically, this prestigious assignment has produced many flag and general officers who have subsequently become the equivalent of our service chiefs or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A primary responsibility of the foreign defense attache, as recognized by the Vienna Convention, is to collect information and learn about the services of the United States. To assist in this effort, the U.S. service chiefs sponsor an aggressive information program which includes orientation tours to commands and related industrial facilities; service chief counterpart and other delegation visits; intelligence and operations briefings; and document dissemination. In turn, the attache provides Department of Defense decisionmakers with perspectives on developments within the attache's country and armed services.
This is the office in which Senior Colonel Quang finds himself today. Born in 1932, Colonel Quang served in the North Vietnamese and Vietnamese Armies for a total of 27 years before being assigned to the Department of Foreign Relations within the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense. While serving in that capacity, Colonel Quang was a staff member of the Vietnamese Office for Seeking Missing Personnel. His responsibility was to interface with the United States concerning our country's servicemen who were still missing in action.
Once a sworn enemy of the United States, Colonel Quang became a man who searched for the remains of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Now he serves here in Washington, representing his country as Vietnam's first post-war defense attache.
In commemorating this historic event, I pray that this new relationship with Vietnam continues to prosper.
____________________
