Going To The Source

As we mentioned last week, EJ Graff and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism obtained hundreds of pages of documentation relating to Vietnam adoptions from the U.S. government through a Freedom of Information Act request. All of these documents are available at their website for anyone to view, and we highly recommend doing so. In addition, they have provided a page of “Startling Quotes” highlighting some of the more compelling statements found in those documents. Reading that page gives a very good overview of the documents and again, we highly recommend doing so.

However, understanding that there is a lot of material and information and reading even just the page of Startling Quotes can be overwhelming, the staff at VVAI has decided to take the time to give the documents a thorough reading and then post the most important quotes here, one document at a time. In many cases, we will choose to quote more extensively from the original documents than the “Startling Quotes” page has. Additionally, our hope is that by taking each document one at a time, the information will be more approachable and perhaps more easily digested.

At times we may provide additional commentary or cross-references, but in many other cases, we will let the documents speak for themselves. Please be aware that we are simply shining a light on these documents – the credit for obtaining them remains with the Schuster Insititute for Investigative Journalism. Also it should be said that these documents provide one side of the story. We believe the U.S. government acted in good faith and reported their findings and concerns truthfully. As much as we can learn from these reports, we should, realizing that many other parties were involved and their perspectives may differ.

We welcome comments and discussion. If you have a first-hand viewpoint on any of the situations discussed in the documents that you would like to share with our readers, please contact us. We believe all viewpoints deserve to be heard.