'THE VIETNAMESE BABYLIFT: An Exchange of Views
'The Vietnamese Babyliit' Boulder, Goto. To the Editors: We feel Susan Abrams' article,., "The.. Vietnamese Babylift" [Sept 24} is heavily biased, poorly researched, slanderous, and libelous. We...
...With them they kept those children who were known to have any extended family pr whose parents had said they would reclaim them...
...Abrams states...
...is open and without difficulty, there has not been since the Babylift, a single request for the return of a child to Viet Nam...
...A cursory review of the numerous articles published in American newspapers and magazines on this subject during those years reveals a surprising unanimity of conclusions despite the wide variety of backgrounds, political persuasions, and abilities of the writers...
...FFAC associates place the blame on plaintiffs' attorneys or the Vietnamese government rather than those whose actions led (and continue to lead) to great pain for several thousand people, for example accusing of racism or neglect of due process the individuals most sensitive to these issues...
...But we do not grieve the part we played in offering life to children who had no hope...
...The attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case in the U.S...
...SISTER DOHEEN BECKETT, R.S.M...
...Abrams obviously did not bother to make-shows that the allegations repeatedly made by plaintiffs' attorneys, and reiterated in Ms...
...In conclusion, we wish to reiterate our firm conviction that every child has the right to security in a loving family...
...This means that approximately 155 children were left behind...
...We were all painfully aware that we were dealing with only one small aspect of an immense problem...
...Beyond those children, however, the fact remains that over one thousand newborn infants were abandoned each month without a shred of identity in maternity clinics, at orphanage gates, on the street, and in garbage dumps...
...But after working in a Saigon orphanage and observing the overcrowded, understaffed, and inadequately supplied conditions in this and other orphanages throughout the country, Rosemary Taylor saw the...
...This case is still in court which means, unfortunately, that we cannot comment...
...Abrams and the various people she interviewed as "experts...
...their disregard for the Geneva Convention...
...their lack of interest in tracing for parents among refugees in the U.S...
...and without the funds and supplies to adequately feed the children...
...We wonder why only FFAC and Friends of Children of Vietnam (entirely separate corporations, although both are based and licensed in Colorado) are the only agencies named-not only in Ms...
...Any parents who returned to reclaim a child were welcomed and given any ongoing assistance we could provide...
...Abrams reported...
...We are proud of our work in Vietnam...
...Freeland states...
...Without feeling any need to justify ourselves and our involvement in Vietnam, we nonetheless feel impelled to write in fairness and honesty to the children with whom we lived and whom we love...
...SUSAN ABRAMS...
...Can Ms...
...We are shocked by that statement of Doug Hostetter Of the Methodist Mission to the UN that agency employees demanded a relinquishment from the parents for a child in return for medical care...
...The appeal for the class action suit which was scheduled to be heard in My, 1976, has hod no date set yet since they filed their briefs improperly twice...
...It is obviously quite possible for some people to act in a sincere and conscientious way while carrying out something that was dead wrong to begin with (and for others then to find suitable rationalizations for their actions...
...Basic to any educated understanding of the evacuation of children from Vietnam in April, 1975, would be the knowledge of the orphanage system for at least the ten years prior to the fall of me Saigon regime...
...Grant and Dash express says a good bit about a political bias they deny as motivating their work and/ or ignorance of the larger political context of their work which is inappropriate for officials of agencies operating in war-torn Vietnam...
...their ignorance of the availability of willing fbster parents in Vietnam...
...2. Contrary to Ms...
...however, we wish to emphasize that there are circumstances beyond those which Ms...
...Our program in Vietnam was carried out by women who dedicated years of their lives to loving 'and caring for these children...
...But it occurred before they left Vietnam...
...Indeed, there were children in orphanages who had living, identifiable parents who had expressed their hope or intention of returning for their children when possible...
...Knowing the agreement between the Vietnamese and American governments that children to be transported were orphans legally free for adoption, we painfully refused such relinquishments, without the comfort of hindsight and foreknowledge...
...That group consisted of those who were retarded, those who were too sick to travel, and those who were to be returned to orphanages and/or parents since we had only agreed to obtain medical care for them...
...Abrams, the plaintiffs in the San Francisco court case, and numerous others are so glib today with answers as to how it should have been done...
...The statement that at least 1500 airlift children are ineligible for adoption is false...
...Would that the various adoption agencies while in Vietnam had acted as described in the letters printed above...
...the warmth of a bed instead of hard, wooden slats...
...The clearest evidence of "racism" in the case, moreover, .has been in affidavits of purported experts, submitted by plaintiffs' attorneys, condemning interracial adoptions...
...The problems which have surfaced in the past eighteen months prove this idealistic picture to be a false one...
...3. The adoption agencies and government have not opposed tracing-they have opposed the tracing plan put forth by plaintiffs' attorneys and have submitted several alternative plans designed to protect children from fraudulent claims and individuals in Viet Nam from invasions of their privacy...
...We rejoice if it is so that after the change of government, families felt able to reclaim their children from orphanages and that others felt free enough from die Vietnamese tradition of the extended family to accept children not their own...
...We will swear to the fact that of the 575 children we transported on the airlift, fewer than 10 were relinquished after March 15, 1975, by mothers...
...Some examples: 1. Although plaintiffs' attorneys have presented testimony that direct mail communication between Viet Nam and the U.S...
...The case of Vo Hhi Hao involves FFAC and another agency and is the only case we have ever had in litigation of the 750 placements we made in the U.S...
...Although it would take too much space to detail every case we can say that, to the best of our knowledge, the cases Ms...
...Abrams logically explain why we would kidnap children from parents when we were not able to bring all of those children who were legally abandoned and in dor care and custody--or why we would kidnap children from patents when we were in the process of returning children to parents...
...The Catholic Sisters with whom we worked intimately never released such children for adoption...
...I also encouraged comments on additional points she considered to be significant, expressing my interest in taking into account the views of all parties concerned...
...29] is representative of the level of reporting in Commonweal during these twelve years my trust-and financial support -have been badly misplaced...
...The results were physical, mental, and emotional deprivation and retardation, malnutrition (often severe), and death rates of over fifty percent...
...To twist them into the sordid allegations we have listened to the past one and one half years is indeed ugly...
...to feed and shelter a 111 pound 3-day-old child left nameless in an orphanage...
...SISTER MARY NELLE GAGE, S.L...
...Even a cursory review of the volumes of pleadings and hours of testimony developed during that year-a review that Ms...
...Rosemary and we who worked with her never pretended to have the answer to the complex political and economic problems of a war-torn Vietnam...
...the security of knowing they were loved instead of rejected and lonely...
...KATE CLAR FREELAND Reply Last May I asked Ms...
...account for only a little over ten percent of the 2,000 who came...
...We cannot comment on the cases of My Hang Brodyaga and the nephews of Jeanette Strump since they involve other agencies...
...the agencies' reluctance to make their records on the children available...
...responding in this small way to the Christ we saw naked, hungry, and homeless...
...Of the 575 children we transported in the airlift, approximately 180 children were being adopted privately (not through an agency) by European families who had made arrangements directly with an orphanage...
...FFAC never participated in such cruel and unprofessional conduct...
...Equally strange is the insistence of plaintiffs' attorneys, claiming to represent the children's interests, that in this situaton some standard other than a child's best interests ought to govern...
...We also wonder why the plaintiffs accuse others of impeding the court process, thereby causing more pain to all concerned, when it is they who have continually dragged their feet...
...To the Editors: For the past twelve years I have been faithful reader and supporter of Commonweal...
...We know about abandonment in Viet Nam from long and close relationships with the nuns who ran the orphanages and our staff who lived there for years and retrieved many of those discarded waifs...
...I am afraid she has affected permanently my ability to take seriously what Commonweal has to say about anything...
...The international agency has reported that the Vietnamese government makes no response to its requests...
...We rejoice and pray that is so...
...We had four halfway houses (accommodating around five hundred children) which offered intensive care to newborns, physical therapy to the handicapped, schooling to the older children, and good nutrition and love to all...
...We could continue on and comment on every allegation in Ms...
...San Francisco, Calif...
...Wende Grant to comment on many points I raised regarding the including charges made against adoption agencies in already published articles...
...The fact is that we sent away a constant stream of parents who begged us to take their children in the final days...
...The court-appointed masters have not been able to accurately determine eligibility due to incomplete paperwork...
...why, while discounting the plaintiffs' experts, the defendants were unable to marshal any convincing evidence in court for their expressed fear of the new Vietnamese government's supposed retribution against "delinquent" parents...
...Beyond that we financially supported several orphanages in outlying provinces, delivered powdered milk and medical supplies to them, and conducted many vaccination programs...
...No agency was allowed to transport children with the intent of being reunited with parents...
...The misplaced trust in USAID and the Vietnamese Ministry of Social Welfare which Ms...
...the real reasons they oppose an aggressive tracing program in Vietnam...
...Abrams' sloppy and misleading reporting is, sadly, an example of the willingness of people all along the political spectrum to distort, bury and ignore the truth when it fails to confirm their conventional wisdom...
...These women remained in Vietnam after the evacuation...
...Washington's pitifully small contribution toward the care of children in orphanages...
...In any event, such treatment should have been reported immediately to the Vietnamese Ministry of Social Welfare and USAID, and an attorney retained for the parents to bring charges in court...
...their preference for an expensive foreign adoption program (which affected relatively few children) over the use of funds to improve orphanages or aid needy parents and foster parents in Vietnam...
...Abrams' article, have simply not been shown to be facts...
...It is a pity that Ms...
...These writers found that Vietnamese orphanages were overcrowded, understaffed (often one adult per 15-50 children), lacking in the most elementary medical care (no soap, no nurses, no measles vaccine, etc...
...The program we joined in Vietnam was begun by a young Australian woman who went to Vietnam without any intention whatever of being involved in adoptions in any way...
...why it is the plaintiffs and not the adoption agencies and U.S...
...only hope for life for many of the children to be that of seeking a loving family for the child...
...The rest of the large number of FFAC children that the plaintiff's attorneys question were released to our agency by orphanages, not mothers...
...District Court in San Francisco seem mesmerized by the theory that the bulk of the airlift children were either relinquished by panicked mothers just prior to the fall of Saigon, were cleared en masse from orphanages where they had been stored pending a parent's return, or were "whisked off the streets," as Ms...
...Although she wonders how local judges can weigh the "best interests" in terms other than "affluence, status, upward mobility, and Americanism," this does not appear to be a problem, since in every case involving an adoption agency, of which we are aware, the judge has returned the child to the relative...
...how their insistence on a conventional interpretation of the traditional "best interests" standard in custody struggles avoids the question of legality...
...Abrams "Vietnam Babylift" [Sept...
...And, in the end, some of our staff died for these children...
...The case of Doan Van Binh (Nelson) was an agency placement (not FFAC) and was settled in court by returning the child to his Vietnamese mother...
...baby market with children who already had parents who wanted to keep them), salving our guilt about the war, nor depriving a country of future generations...
...Abrams' statements about the State Department's inaction, the record shows that the State Department has attempted to use international channels to find out what degree of cooperation could be worked out with respect to Babylift children with the new government of Viet Nam...
...We know otherwise...
...which sponsored children brought to the United States in Operation Babylift...
...We refused them to the end...
...Those affiliated with FFAC sidestep most of the major issues, with their letters thus being probably more significant for what they omit than what they state: the adoption agencies' complicity in the U.S...
...the advantage of essential medical care instead of ,the threat of death from measles, infections, starvation...
...the 250 airlift children we placed for adoption in the U.S...
...More striking than these examples are certain overall inconsistencies which have become clear...
...and Catholic Re-Hef Services, account for the rest...
...State Department's public relations gestures...
...We are surprised to find such an unschol-arly article in Commonweal and strongly request that you print our response to her innuendos and accusations in its entirety...
...If Ms...
...Although the houses were staffed with volunteer nurses and nuns from several countries, we trained and employed several hundred Vietnamese women as child care workers...
...Our efforts were full of love and sacrifice and always honest...
...4. Every instance of claimed ineligibility of a child sponsored by the agencies before the court has been disputed in detail by the relevant agency...
...We gave these children the promise of a mother and father instead of no one...
...In addition we offered counseling to unwed mothers and made every possible effort to help them find a viable way to keep their children...
...The Babylift children were, in fact, sacrificed to ideology, as Ms...
...For the past year I have served as attorney in the Babylift suit in San Francisco for two of the adoption agencies (Friends For All Children and Holt Adoption Program, Inc...
...We categorically dispute every allegation by Ms...
...government who are trying to rectify a situation shown, as early as April, 1975, to 'be grievously in error...
...She never bothered to respond (nor does she mention my request here), yet now faults me for being one-sided...
...We do not presume to have the whole answer, but we consider it imperative that we do speak from our experience...
...At no point in my article did I deny that employees of adoption agencies might have provided for the children's physical well-being or even loved them, nor that American adoptive parents could provide a loving home...
...Unfortunately the damage done by a one-sentence allegation often takes at least a paragraph to explain...
...Although much of our documentation was lost in the crash of the C-5A and some paperwork was not completed in die few days prior to the fall of the government, every child we brought to this country had been released for adoption...
...the satisfaction of a full stomach instead of a swollen, empty belly...
...Abrams mentions involving Huynh Thi O and two children, Nguyen Thi Phuc and four children, San-Sbei (not mother) and child, and Tran Thi Bich and child were NOT conducted through an adoption agency but were private placements by the mother or relative...
...Following die crisis in Cambodia, fearing for their children's safety, and prompted by love, it is true that in April 1975 we were approached by many, many more parents including our own Vietnamese staff members, Who 'asked to relinquish their children for adoption so that they could receive hope for new life somewhere abroad...
...At that time FFAC had approximately 550 children in its care (500 was the normal number reported on our rolls every month and 50 was an average number of new arrivals each month...
...In addition we are aware of seven Vietnamese mothers whose eleven children (none FFAC) have been returned to them voluntarily without litigation and with the direct help and assistance of the agency involved...
...Our desire to provide a chance at life for these" children crossed national, cultural, racial, social, religious, political, and economic boundaries...
...The few children we accepted directly from relatives were received only after every effort was made to obtain viable alternatives for the relative to keep the child, including offering employment for the relative and/ or'temporary care for the child...
...In conclusion, we wish to state that our work in Vietnam was not motivated by politics (saving the children from Communism) religion (offering them Christianity), kidnapping (to supply a U.S...
...Bat when faced with severely malnourished and diseased children, we were compelled to respond in even a limited way: to offer employment to a woman so that she could support her child...
...If the child's own family cannot provide this, then its international family should...
...It has been throughout the adoption agencies-and not the plaintiffs' attorneys-who have had to urge the uniqueness of each child and the necessity for due process in the determination of each child's rights...
...Abrams' article but in most other publications-when several other large, reputable agencies including Holt, Ino...
...burying with dignify those children who died without identity...
...Abrams specifically mentions several cases where Vietnamese relatives are trying to retrieve children...
...to hospitalize a dying child from an ill-equipped orphanage and then return him/her to those same pitiful conditions...
...in two and one half years...
...There has been throughout the case an overall willingness on the part of plaintiffs' attorneys to sacrifice any individual child to ideology that should chill the soul of any believer in our Constitution...
...WENDE s. GRANT, Director SUZANNE DOSH, Assistant Director Friends for All Children Denver, Colo, To the Editors: As volunteers for almost two years in the child welfare programs directed by Friends For All Children in Vietnam, we read with great sadness and dismay the untruthful article by Susan Abrams, "The Vietnam Babylift" [Sept...
...Despite the Vietnamese tradition that the extended family would care for aa orphan, the fact remains that the overall orphanage population continued to increase, despite the death rate, as a result of the high abandonment rale...
...Almost all the children for whom we cared had been abandoned at orphanages or left nameless at maternity clinics...
Vol. 103 • November 1976 • No. 24
