On this day in ...... 1995 (15 years ago today), "the one-time student protester" against the Vietnam War, who'd become the United States' leader 2-1/2 years earlier had become the leader of the United States, established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam. President Bill Clinton hearkened to words once used by Abraham Lincoln, President during the Civil War a century earlier, when he said in remarks delivered at a ceremony in Washington:
This moment offers us the opportunity to bind up our own wounds. They have resisted time for too long. We can now move onto common ground.
The move came more than 2 decades after U.S. troops abandoned what was then the capital city of South Vietnam. Today it's known as Ho Chi Minh City, part of the single country of Vietnam depicted above right. In 2000, as depicted in these BBC photos (credit), the President and the 1st Lady -- today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- would make the 1st official visit to Vietnam in a quarter-century.
(Prior July 11 posts are here, here, and here.)
