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Address of Senator John F. Kerry Acceptance of Christian Herter Award Honoring Sen. John F. Kerry and Sen. John S. McCain
World Affairs Council
Boston, Massachusetts
September 10, 2001

It is a special privilege to be able to join you, and humbling for John and I to be - even in some small way -- connected to the memory of Christian Herter. A son of Massachusetts, Christian Herter was a committed internationalist who helped to shape a delicate balance from Versailles to the Marshall Plan and hold it together through what could have been so many breaking points in West Berlin, Cuba, and the Congo. He served so many presidents so ably, and succeeded because his mission never changed even as the men he served did. That mission was seared into him: at 25, on the day he enlisted in the foreign service, he learned that his brother Everett - one year his senior - had been killed by German shrapnel in WWI. Rather than shrink from that loss, rather than turn inward, Herter committed his life to the real work of making peace.

I learned a thing or two about that mission as I was growing up. Christian Herter saw his country in much the same light and lived his life in a manner much like my father. My father saw World War II coming before many of the policy makers in Washington, and he was proud throughout his life that he'd volunteered to fly DC-3's in the Army Air Corps. When he was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the end of 1943 the army sent him out west to Fitzjimmons Army base in Colorado to get well, and after the war my Dad joined the foreign service. I still remember walking the beaches of Normandy with him, and as a boy riding my bike through the Brandenburg Gates and from my surroundings coming to understand the difference between East and West., freedom and deprivation. I've thought a lot about those years and my father's generation a lot lately - I thought about it last year when he passed away after a long and courageous fight with cancer. I thought about the way my father saw this country - his sense of patriotism, his convictions about what defines us as Americans - his abiding conviction that a country worth fighting for in times of war is worth improving in times of peace -- and that creating peace can be as difficult as making war.

I am grateful for the way in which this award honors that legacy, that commitment to internationalism, and it's particularly a special privilege to share this honor with one of the most courageous men I know, John McCain. John and I took different paths to arrive at a common point - and together we've learned a lot of lessons about reconciliation, about our country, and about each other. We were just two of the young men who volunteered and put on the uniform to go across the ocean to Vietnam to fight for freedom, for human rights, and who hoped for democracy. We wanted to beat back communism and give the Vietnamese a chance to choose for themselves how they wanted to live.

Make no mistake, American intentions were noble, and no soldiers have ever fought with more bravery or selflessness for their country. But somewhere along the line, many of us came to believe that effort somehow twisted -- and that the lives of our fellow warriors were being wasted so that Cold Warriors in Washington would never have to admit their mistakes.

For those of us who were lucky, we returned home greeted not by parades, but with indifference and hostility. And as more of our brothers suffered and died in Vietnam, those on the left and right in this country and the communists in Vietnam tried to pit those who had worn the uniform and now opposed the war, against those who still supported it and who, on the battlefields and in prison cells in Hanoi, continued to serve with the greatest of valor. John McCain and I were caught up in that crossfire; put there by those who wanted the differences over the War to become the differences between two soldiers.

And when years later we came to the Senate, joining with our fellow vets to push our nation to confront the war's surplus of sad legacies-- PTSD, Agent Orange, Amer-Asian orphans, honor at last for those who returned from Vietnam and those who did not -- John and I found that in making peace with the war - we were making peace with each other.

When we began our work on the POW/MIA Committee, there was no permanent POW/MIA office in Hanoi or in Vietnam. No American servicemen were assigned to Vietnam on a permanent basis to search for remains and for answers to questions about American POWs. There was no archival research. There were precious few oral histories or interviews with key individuals in the military and none from those in the prison system. There was no access to the provinces, or the tradition houses and military museums in the villages. We could not visit their military headquarters or their military camps or their prisons.

That has all changed. Today, there is a permanent office in Hanoi. We have visited every tradition house and museum in the country. We have been in the prisons. We have followed up on every live sighting report, with no evidence that any of them are true. We have a full-time archive in Hanoi where Americans and Vietnamese are working side by side to resolve remaining questions. We have received millions of artifacts, photographs, and documents. American soldiers travel the countryside unaccompanied; we have permanent access to their defense library and archive; we have a formal program of debriefing Vietnamese wartime leaders. Young American soldiers have lived in the jungles, climbed up mountainsides, exposed themselves to danger to find remains. And we have found them - and we will not stop until that last mission is complete.

For nearly 20 years after American troops were lifted out of Saigon, the Vietnam War took a less bloody but equally hostile form. The U.S. and Vietnam had no diplomatic relations. Vietnamese assets were frozen. Trade was embargoed. Lingering bitterness and divisions precluded any initiatives that would change the status quo.

That too has all changed. Thanks to the courage of Presidents Reagan and Bush and Clinton, we lifted the trade embargo and normalized diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995; last week the House passed and we in the Senate will soon ratify a bilateral trade agreement that will one day help bring precious freedom and free markets to Vietnam. Vietnam is becoming a popular tourist stop for Americans. Vietnamese citizens study at U.S. universities, and American professors teach economics in Vietnam. Veterans take the emotional journey back to Vietnam. More than a third of the Vietnamese population is under the age of 14; 60% of their population under the age of 30; and last November I traveled to Vietnam with Bill Clinton as he became the first American President to return to Vietnam since the end of the War. I watched as Vietnamese citizens in crowds lining the streets of Hanoi five rows deep - reached out to touch the President of the United States, the living embodiment of freedom and democracy. Change will come in their lifetimes.

We say the word Vietnam today, and mean not just a war, but, a country -- at long last, a place where - as I hoped thirty years ago - "America turned and veterans helped in the turning" - and no veteran contributed more to that change than Captain John McCain.

That is why John is so deserving a recipient of an award named for a man who knew that the world is not fixed place - that differences can be bridged, that change -- change for the betterment of mankind - is not just a goal, it is a responsibility that must be pursued even when it's not popular. Herter learned that at Versailles when he tried to build a League of Nations. He learned it again when he worked with George Marshall to pass an unpopular plan to rebuild Europe. He understood that government has a responsibility to do something more than just cut taxes and that political capital exists to be spent on noble causes; that public office isn't an platform to brag that you don't have a passport, it brings with it a responsibility to use that passport and be America's eyes and ears around the globe; American leadership is more than a slogan, it is an ability to make the world better if you're willing to work at it.

Too few people in public life today understand that - and as a result the United States finds itself increasingly at odds with our closest friends and allies on a range of issues. In the last six months, the United States has walked away from a global effort to lead on greenhouse gas emissions where environmental leadership is needed; has abandoned efforts to stem the global flow of small arms, squandered an opportunity to convince North Korea to freeze their missile program, and has said no to formal negotiations with Russia in hopes of preserving the ABM Treaty.

There is no question that turning away from our allies and walking away will, over the long run, undermine our ability to promote our broad range of national interests. If we are unwilling to take into account the deep concerns of our friends and allies on critical issues including missile defense, it is foolish for us to continue to expect their support on issues where we can not go it alone. Efforts to contain Saddam Hussein and topple his regime in Baghdad, prevent the proliferation of weapons technology to hostile states, combat terrorism and stem the illegal flow of narcotics all require the close cooperation of our friends and allies in conjunction with key players including Russia and China. Before it's too late, we must take a hard look at whether our current path subverts our national interest to a rigid isolationism - and at what cost? The World Affairs Council performs an invaluable service in asking those questions - in promoting that dialogue -- and in preserving Christian Herter's legacy. But ultimately the real test of whether Herter's legacy will live on lies in the leadership we choose for our nation.

As for John McCain and I, we now live in a very different world than when we left for Vietnam, different still than when we returned home. But some things stay with you forever. We shared a journey of friendship that broke down the barriers between us and came to a special place when, together, I stood with John McCain in his prison cell in Hanoi. I have had no greater privilege in all my life than finding and then standing on common ground with John McCain.

When I was in the Navy I learned about brotherhood -- the promises soldiers make to each other. Those lessons were seared into me on a Swift Boat, beaten into John in a prison cell -- and together -- in unlikely places -- in the United States Senate and in Hanoi -- John McCain and I rediscovered that sense of brotherhood.

The Army says they never leave their wounded. The marines say they never leave even their dead. John McCain was a soldier under the toughest of circumstances; after his release from captivity, he found it in his heart to be a Citizen Soldier for his country -- and serving with him is a day after day reminder more powerful than words of why as Americans we must never leave each other behind.

Anyone count how many times Vietnam was mentioned in this speach?