Hi Randy,
I use a french version of Office 97 with Service pack 1, and everything works well.
In its doc, MS explains that converters can be found onto Office CD, it's an EXE named WRD97CNV.EXE, that you should execute to install converters. This operation is normally done while you install Office. But it updates the Registry, so...
It installs a file named MSWRD832.CNV, for 32 bits versions of Word (ie Word 97), or MSWRD8.CNV for 16 bits versions (ie Word 6.xx). Check the presence of these files...
This file can also be downloaded from MSDN site.
Bye