Speeches and Remarks

Remarks by Senator George McGovern
at the Dinner in Honor of
His Excellency Phan Van Khai, Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Sponsored by Mr. Patrick McGovern, Head, International Data Group
(June 24, 2005, The Charles Hotel, Cambridge, MA)

Your Excellency, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and his associates, our distinguished host Mr. Patrick McGovern who has a wonderful last name. I wish he were my son, but I am pleased that we are good friends. There is another illustrious McGovern from Massachusetts-US Congressman Jim McGovern. He is not my son either but he is a dear friend and a great Congressman who is a friend of Vietnam.

Mr. Prime Minister, when I ran for president of the U.S. in 1972 against President Richard Nixon, my central pledge was to seek and speak the truth. I promised that if elected I would immediately terminate the American war in Vietnam. Unfortunately, I lost every state in the Union except the District of Columbia and Massachusetts. So tonight you are visiting the state with the most intelligent voters in the U.S.

And tonight we host you as the leader of a country with some of the most intelligent, most industrious and most creative citizens. I am grateful that our two nations have become friends and trading, investment, and cultural partners.

I am no longer in public office except for my work as the United Nations Ambassador on Global Hunger.

But if I could apologize for the U.S., I would beg your forgiveness for the terrible war we waged in Vietnam – perhaps the most misguided and tragically mistaken venture in two centuries of American history. My heart also grieves for the 58,000 young American who died in that war. It was this sense of loss that led me to exclaim one day in the Senate: “I am sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in!”

I was an American bomber pilot in WWII - I’m proud of that service because Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini were dangerous military aggressors who had to be stopped. Vietnam raised an army under the direction of Ho Chi Minh and General Giap who fought as our allies in that war. Some of my fellow pilots who were shot down by the Japanese over southeast Asia were safely returned to American lines by Vietnamese soldiers.

At the end of the war, Ho Chi Minh expected that he and his freedom fighters would be recognized by the U.S. as the rightful government of Vietnam instead of being returned to colonial rule under the French. He wrote a series of eight letters to President Truman beseeching the American government to back independence for Vietnam. In those letters he reminded Truman of the American War for Independence of 1776.

He also called attention to the recently announced Vietnamese Declaration of Independence which was copied from America’s that had been drafted by Thomas Jefferson. Ho Chi Minh only made one change in the American document, Jefferson had written: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. He changed that to “all people are created equal”- obviously a wise improvement.

But Ho Chi Minh’s letters although discussed by Truman and Dean Acheson were never answered. Thus began an eight year war for independence by the Vietnamese against the French, which the Vietnamese finally won at the great Battle of Dien Bien Phu under the command of General Giap.

Unfortunately, followings the defeat of the French in 1954, the United States decided to oppose the victorious forces of Vietnam. After another 20 years of war the loss of 58,000 young Americans and two million Vietnamese, the U.S. finally surrendered and left Vietnam April 30, 1975. Having backed the French beginning in 1945, we were militarily involved in Vietnam for 30 years - the longest war in our history 1945-1975.

But today we celebrate 30 years of peace with Vietnam -1975 to 2005. Let us raise our glasses in gratitude that 30 years of war has been replaced with 30 years of peace.

VN Embassy : Vietnam - US Relations : Prime Minister's US Visit : Speeches and Remarks