GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM

AS HE STEPPED INTO THE EAST ROOM of the White House, Bill Clinton looked like a platoon leader venturing into no-man's-land. He did it with his chin up, but quickly--and very carefully. In step behind the President were some of the Pentagon's current and former top officials, and guarding the onetime draft avoider's extremely vulnerable right flank was the operation's point man: Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, an ex-Navy pilot who had languished for more than five years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. "Today," said Clinton, "I am announcing the normalization of diplomatic relationships with Vietnam."

And that...