Posted on 01/21/2004 1:59:29 PM PST by backhoe
And it was reported that Frances Zwenig, Senator John Kerry's chief of staff for the now defunct Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs, served for a short-time in the Vietnam interests section of Commerce until someone figured this might be viewed as a conflict of interest. As Kerry's aide, Zwenig, according to documents, coached the North Vietnamese to concoct plausible stories on the fate of POW/MIAs in order to show that Hanoi was cooperating to resolve the POW/MIA issue, a hurdle in the diplomatic dance to lift the trade embargo and renew relations with Vietnam.
Senator Kerry was caught on camera making a promise to the North Vietnamese communists that he would ensure that they weren't embarrassed by their concocted stories. Zwenig went on to serve with Madeleine Albright at the UN. Zwenig is now reportedly working with the Washington-based U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council, a group that lobbied heavily for lifting the trade embargo and renewing relations with Vietnam. Now their focus is to win most-favored nation (MFN) for the draconian communist regime in Vietnam, which recently burned a Buddhist Monastery in Hue and jailed the monks and nuns for advocating improved human rights, freedom of religion and democracy.
Congress Should Investigate: Did Foreign Contributions Sway Policy Toward Vietnam?
Almost immediately upon assuming his responsibility as head of the Select Committee, Kerry began a personal campaign to remove the POW/MIA question as an obstacle preventing billions of dollars in trade between the U.S. and Vietnam. Kerry manipulated, distorted and suppressed evidence allowing MIAs to be written off as dead when evidence indicated that many were alive and possibly incarcerated in communist prisons. He and his staff director, Ms. Frances Zwenig, secretly scripted the testimony of important Department of Defense witnesses who were appearing before the Select Committee and were supposed to be the subject of Kerry's investigative efforts. Zwenig, in an unprecedented action, met with Vietnamese officials in Vietnam and coached them on how to write off as dead on paper, without any physical evidence, American MIAs. After Kerry told USA Today, Nov. 24, 1992, that Vietnam should be "rewarded" for "extraordinary cooperation" in resolving MIA cases, news wire services reported Vietnam had "awarded" the "first real estate license" to Kerry's cousin, Stuart Forbes, chief executive officer of the Boston based Colliers International.
Zwenig, in the meantime, was working as principle author of the Select Committee Final Report while simultaneously working on Ron Brown's transition team at the Department of Commerce. The Select Committee had concluded that U.S prisoners of war were left behind alive in the hands of the communists when the United States pulled out of the Vietnam War in 1973. That finding was a blockbuster. Its release should have driven America into indignation. The U.S. government should have demanded the Vietnamese immediately release all the U.S. prisoners or provide an explanation of what happened to them. Amazingly, there was no outcry from an outraged America. Instead, the whole issue of America's missing servicemen cascaded into a humiliating loss for the POW/MIA families. From day one, the Select Committee had been salted with "loyal friends of Hanoi," linked by greed to the powerful corporate lobby. Hanoi's friends, who dominated the Select Committee, took great pains to carefully fashion its final report in a manner that obscured the one simple truth the Select Committee had uncovered.
Instead of declaring forthrightly that communist Vietnam continued to hold in captivity an unspecified number of live American POWs after the reported release of all U.S. prisoners during Operation Homecoming in 1973, Zwenig edited the Senate Select Committee Final Report to read there is "no conclusive evidence" proving United States prisoners of war still remain alive in Vietnam. Zwenig had opened the door for normalized trade relations with Vietnam and a new career for herself. Zwenig now has a six-figure position as Vice President on the U.S./Vietnam Trade Council, a front organization established in the U.S., which works closely with Vietnam's Communist Party State Committee for Investment. The Trade Council is funded by conglomerates such as Lippo, which lobbies furiously against any U.S. laws perceived as hindering investment in Vietnam's cheap oil and slave labor market.
Lots of articles posted on this thread -- including a profile of and interview with Teresa (post 11).
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