Bill Clinton Elected US President

Washington Restores Diplomatic Ties with Hanoi:  As Communist Vietnam inched toward market reforms and pledged full cooperation in finding all Americans listed as still missing-in-action, the United States restores diplomatic ties with its former enemy in 1995.

McNamara Calls Vietnam Policy “Wrong, Terribly Wrong”:  Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, one of the key architects of the United States’ war policy in Vietnam, admits grave mistakes in that policy in his 1995 memoir, In Retrospect.  In his book, McNamara says that “…We were wrong, terribly wrong.  We owe it to future generations to explain why.”

U.S. and Vietnam Exchange Ambassadors:  Ushering in a new era of cooperation between the two former enemies, the United States and Vietnam exchange ambassadors.  Douglas “Pete” Peterson, a prisoner of war for 6 years during the Vietnam War, is named U.S. envoy to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, while H.E. Le Van Bang assumes the position of Vietnamese ambassador to the United States.