The following actions shall be taken to facilitate Presidential Proclamation of Pardon of January 21, 1977:

1. The Attorney General shall cause to be dismissed with prejudice to the government all pending indictments for violations of the Military Selective Service Act alleged to have occurred between August 4, 1964, and March 28, 1973, with the exception of the following:

(a) Those cases alleging acts of force or violence deemed to be so serious by the Attorney General as to warrant continued prosecution; and

(b) Those cases alleging acts in violation of the Military Selective Service Act by agents, employees or officers of the Selective Service System arising out of such employment.

2. The Attorney General shall terminate all investigations now pending and shall not initiate further investigations alleging violations of the Military Selective Service Act between August 4, 1964, and March 28, 1973, with the exception of the following:

(a) Those cases involving allegations of force or violence deemed to be so serious by the Attorney General as to warrant continued investigation, or possible prosecution; and

(b) Those cases alleging acts in violation of the Military Selective Service Act by agents, employees or officers of the Selective Service System arising out of such employment.

3. Any person who is or may be precluded from reentering the United States under 8 U.S.C. 1182 (a) (22) or under any other law, by reason of having committed or apparently committed any violation of the Military Selective Service Act shall be permitted as any

other alien to reenter the United States.

The Attorney General is directed to exercise his discretion under 8 U.S.C. 1182 (d) (5) or other applicable law to permit the reentry of such persons under the same terms and conditions as any other alien.

This shall not include anyone who falls into the exceptions of paragraphs 1 (a) and (b) and 2 (a) and (b) above.

4. Any individual offered conditional clemency or granted a pardon or other clemency under Executive Order 11803 or Presidential Proclamation 4313, dated September 16, 1974, shall receive the full measure of relief afforded by this program if they are otherwise qualified under the terms of this Executive order.

42 Fed. Reg. 4393-4394 (1977).

Sec. 1182 (a) (22) of Title 8 of the U.S. Code reads as follows:

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, the following classes of aliens shall be ineligible to receive visas and shall be excluded from admission into the United States:

(22) Aliens who are ineligible to citizenship, except aliens seeking to enter as nonimmigrants; or persons who have departed from or who have remained outside the United States to avoid or evade training or service in the armed forces in time of war or a period declared by the President to be a national emergency, except aliens who were at the time of such departure nonimmigrant aliens and who seek to reenter the United States as nonimmigrants.

The Viet-Nam Peace Agreements

Senate Resolution

On February 21, 1977, the U.S. Senate passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 concerning military personnel missing in action or killed in action in Southeast Asia. Senator Jesse Helms introduced the resolution, which reads as follows:

Concurrent resolution relative to military personnel missing in action or killed in action and body not recovered in Southeast Asia

Whereas article II, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States designates the President of the United States Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy (military forces); and

Whereas, on August 10, 1964, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States Congress passed Public Law 88-408 authorizing the deployment of the United States Armed Forces for the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia; and

Whereas over eight hundred members of the Armed Forces authorized by the Congress and dispatched by the President to Southeast Asia are still categorized as prisoner of war or missing in action and are still unaccounted for; and

Whereas article II, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States grants to the President of the United States further power, by and with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, to make treaties; and

Whereas on January 27, 1973, the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam (designated the Paris agreement), which, by its terms became effective on that date, was executed by duly authorized representatives of the United States, the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (the Vietcong); and

Whereas article 8(b) of the Paris agreement provides:

"The parties shall help each other to get information about those military personnel and foreign civilians of the parties missing in action, to determine the location and take care of the graves of the dead so as to facilitate the exhumation and repatriation of the remains, and to take any such other measures as may be required to get information about those still considered missing in action", which article establishes an obligation under international law upon the parties to the agreement in favor of members of the United States Armed Forces who are categorized as missing in action and a further obligation to, if possible, exhumate and repatriate the remains of those categorized as killed in action. This obligation runs to the United States as a party to the agreement; and

Whereas the State Department as the responsible agency of the executive branch of the United States Government has exhibited no positive direction or leadership in meeting its responsibility of

enforcing article 8(b) of the Paris agreement or seeking alternatives that might otherwise resolve the prisoner of war/missing in action problem; and

Whereas, on September 11, 1975, the United States House of Representatives formed the Select Committee on Missing Persons in Southeast Asia, to report within one year on the status of persons held as prisoners or missing in action and unaccounted for in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, which committee has been responsible for identifying or accounting for less than one-tenth of 1 per centum of Americans unaccounted for in those areas; and

Whereas the Joint Casualty Resolution Center's recent withdrawal from Thailand leaves no United States agency in Asia to locate Americans still prisoner or missing and unaccounted for in Indochina; and

Whereas knowledge that some unaccounted for military and civilian personnel, fifty-seven of whom were known to be alive and who have not been returned, were at one time prisoners of war and alive was manifested through enemy propaganda broadcasts, foreign media reports, photographs, and other sources, personnel who may be presumed to be living and retained for purposes of bargaining or blackmail by the Vietnamese, Cambodians, or Laotians now in power: Now, therefore be it

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring): 1, That the President of the United States recognize his duty and responsibility as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States and require an accounting for the person or remains of all military personnel responding to the orders of the Office of the President and who are presently categorized as prisoner of war, missing in action, or killed in action (body not recovered) in Southeast Asia on the personnel rosters of the United States Army, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, or United States Air Force.

2. That the President of the United States, by executive fiat, require the Secretary of State to pursue, with diligence and tenacity, enforcement of the Paris agreement of January 27, 1973, with emphasis on enforcement of article 8(b) of that agreement.

3. That the Congress of the United States, having passed Public Law 88-408 authorizing the deployment of the United States Armed Forces for the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia, recognize a corresponding continuing duty and obligation to determine the fate of Americans missing or unaccounted for consequent from enforcement of that law.

4. That the President of the United States, through and by the Secretary of State, hold the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (the Vietcong) responsible to account for and provide essential information not otherwise available to satisfactorily dispose of the prisoner of war/missing in action problem in accordance with the Paris agreement or seek alternatives that might otherwise resolve the question of those Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.

5. That responsible officeholders in the executive and legislative branches of the Government of the United States, both elected and appointed, should immediately address the authority for their office, individually and collectively, toward a satisfactory resolution of the prisoner of war/missing in action problem, make a public accounting, and remove any question as to the integrity of their function.

123 Cong. Rec. S 2796-S 2798 (daily ed. Feb. 21, 1977).

Regional Security Systems

Asia and the Pacific

On June 30, 1977, the Council Representatives of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) issued a press statement concerning the phase-out of the Organization:

Today the phase-out of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, established by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (Manila Pact), has been completed.

This results from the decision of the Council of Ministers of SEATO, the highest governing body of the Organization comprising ministerial representatives of Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States, which was reached at the Council's twentieth annual meeting in New York on September 24, 1975.

It has been recognized that the Organization has over the years. made a useful contribution to stability and security in the region. The Organization also has played a complementary role in the socio-economic fields which has led to an improved standard of living amongst the rural populations in the region. The social benefits which have accrued to citizens of the regional member countries through SEATO's programs are the more evident and lasting achievements of the Organization, some of which will continue on a strictly bilateral basis.

*

Though the Organization ceased to exist on June 30, 1977, the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (the Manila Pact) (TIAS 3170; 6 UST 81; entered into force for the United States February 19, 1955) continues in effect. Article 4 of the Manila Pact provides that in the event of "aggression by means of armed attack in the treaty area against any of the parties. . .," each Party will "act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes." Section 3 of article 4 states that "no action on the territory of any State" party to the Agreement "shall be taken except at the invitation or with the consent of the government concerned." Members of the Manila Pact include Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The only U.S. sponsored SEATO programs which will continue on a bilateral basis, though in a different form, are the SEATO Medical Research Project and the SEATO Clinical Research Centre, which study tropical diseases of military importance. On Jan. 19, 1977, U.S. Ambassador Charles S. Whitehouse submitted a note to Dr. Upadit Pachariyangkun, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, proposing the continuation of the Project and the Centre as the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, notwithstanding the dissolution of SEATO. The note, which was agreed to by Foreign Minister Upadit on Jan. 28, 1977, stipulated that third countries could participate in the activities of the Institute "only by mutual agreement between the Royal Thai Government and the U.S. Government in each specific case" and that the "total number of scientific and administrative personnel provided by the United States Government may vary. . . but shall not, in any event, exceed the present strength of 32."

Dept. of State File L/T.

For further information concerning the phase-out of SEATO, see the 1975 Digest, Ch. 14, § 1, p. 789.

The Rio Treaty

On July 19, 1977, the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of the Protocol of Amendment to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty), signed at San Jose July 26, 1975 (S. Ex. J, 94th Cong., 1st Sess.). The protocol contains the first amendments to the Rio Treaty, signed on September 2, 1947 (TIAS 1838; 62 Stat. 1681; 4 Bevans 559; entered into force for the United States on December 3, 1948). The amendments redefine the zone of defense and allow certain sanctions to be lifted from a member state by a simple majority vote instead of a two-thirds vote.

Senator John J. Sparkman, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged a favorable vote concerning this Protocol in a statement which reads in part as follows:

This [Rio] treaty, which was signed in 1947. . . incorporated the guiding principle of earlier agreements: that "an armed attack by any state against an American State shall be considered as an attack against all the American States."

The protocol of amendment does nothing to change this fundamental principle of inter-American solidarity. All it does is to modernize the language in several articles, redefine the zone of defense by eliminating Greenland and certain areas of the high seas, and allows sanctions diplomatic, economic or military-to be lifted against a member state by a simple majority rather than by two-thirds vote as was previously required.

[T]his protocol of amendment also contained one article to which the United States could not agree. Article 11 provides that a new "collective economic security" treaty be developed some time in the future by the Organization of American States. The United States opposed this provision and entered a reservation to it upon signing the Protocol, on the basis that collective economic security was not germane to a military security agreement. As a consequence,