Right move on Vietnam

America is well served by President Clinton's decision to normalize relations with Vietnam. From commercial competition to the defense of human rights in Vietnam, from the search for American remains to Pacific defense strategy, United States interests can only benefit.

So can America itself. The rancorous divisions of the Vietnam War still ripple through the political life of the country 20 years after Saigon fell and the last U.S. helicopters lifted off the embassy roof with desperate Vietnamese clinging to them. Washington's motives for fighting in Vietnam were terribly flawed, and 58,000 Americans paid for the arrogance and ignorance with their lives.

Some political leaders, like Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, still seem eager to fight old battles, threatening to do whatever they can to block Clinton's decision.

Others, most notably Sen. John McCain, who spent five hellish years as a prisoner of war, have joined with Clinton to move America beyond the war.

Getting to normalization has been difficult. For many years, the country was simply not ready to accept the defeat, America's first in a foreign war.

Early efforts during the Carter administration were thwarted by Vietnamese dogmatism, fears of antagonizing China and finally, Vietnam's 1978 invasion and occupation of Cambodia.

When those occupation troops withdrew a decade later, normalization had become further entangled in domestic politics. The families of the 2,202 Americans listed as missing in action in the Vietnam War insisted that Vietnam provide an accounting of each case.

Most of those listed disappeared in combat and were unlikely to have survived. The Pentagon lists a much smaller number of "discrepancy cases" -- servicemen last seen alive and on the ground, but still not accounted for. Vietnamese cooperation has helped reduce this number from around 200 in the late 1980s to 55 today.

Vietnam's human rights record remains poor, but normalized relations can potentially be a lever for progress. Secretary of State Warren Christopher should insist on improvement when he visits Vietnam next month.

There is already an effort to discredit Clinton's decision by suggesting that someone who avoided the draft is unfit to make a final peace with Vietnam.

That is wrong. Clinton dissembled about his draft record during the 1992 campaign, but that is not the issue here. Opposition to the war was an honorable cause, shared by millions of Clinton's countrymen. Those who stood against the war are no less suited than those who served in Vietnam to establish diplomatic ties with Hanoi.

Thanks to Clinton's action Tuesday, the pain of America's past in Vietnam no longer bars the way to a productive relationship with Hanoi.

-- The New York Times