From: mdo@socrates.umd.edu ("Mike T. Do")
Subject: [NEWS] HANOI BACKS STUDY TO TRACE M.I.A.'S
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Date: 19 Nov 92 03:49:34 GMT

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From New York Times (11/17/92)
By Philip Shennon
Special to The New York Times


Hanoi, Vietnam, Nov 16 - Members of a Senate panel investigating the fate of
Americans missing from the Vietnam War hailed what they said today was a new
spirit of cooperation from Vietnam and suggested strongly that President
Bush might soon relax an economic embargo against the Hanoi Government.
    The comments by the senators followed a meeting in Hanoi with a senior
offical who pledged that Vietnam would provide "the clearest possible
answers" to questions about the 2,265 American still unaccount for.
    "We are at a critical juncture," said Senator John F. Kerry, a
Massachusetts Democrats and Vietnam veteran who is chairman of the Senate
Select Committee on P.O.W.-M.I.A. Affairs.  "We are definitely on a road
leading to normalization.
    "It's my sense that the President may be in a position, if we get
adequate cooperation and if we can speed this process up, to make positive
moves with respect to the embargo.  I think that thee Government of Vietnam
has made a decision to help us get answers.
     The embargo has barred United States investment in Vietnam, has
discouraged other foreign investmend and has prevented the World Bank, the
International Monetary Funk and other large international financial
institutions from assisting Hanoi in rebuilding an economy that is only now
begin to recover from the war.
     Senator Kerry said he was carrying a letter from President Bush to
President Le Duc Anh.  The Senator said he believed it was the first direct
communication from a United States President to his Vietnamese counterpart
since the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.
     While Senator Kerry did not make the contents public, Congressional
officials said they understood the letter made clear that President Bush, in
his final weeks in office, was willing to exchange for further cooperation on
the question of missing Americans.
     Senator Hank Brown of Colorado, the Republican on the three member
delegation, said that "if there is a perception that we have had positive
meetings this week, then you'll see the White House act" on the embargo.
     Vietnam is eager to begin normal diplomatic relations with the United
States and is desperate to see Washington lift the embargo, which was imposed
against the North Vietnamese Government in 1964 and against all of Vietnam in
1975.
     The Vietnamese are aware that they are operating against the clock -
specifically, they want Washington to lift the embargo before the transfer of
power in the White House in January.
     Vietnamese officials say their best of hope of ending the embargo
quickly rests with President Bush, since President-elect Bill Clinton has
already told veterans' groups that he feels no pressure to improve relations
with Vietnam while there are unanswered questions about the fate of missing
Americans.
     Last month Hanoi announced that it would provide Defense Department
investigators with full access to military museums and war archives.
     Defense Department officials have described the announcement as a
breakthrough in their efforts to determine what became of the Americans.  The
museums and archives are believed to hold thousands of artifacts collected
from Americans - as well as photographs of some of them - after they were
captured or killed in territory held by North Vietnamese forces.
     Senator Kerry, Senator Brown and Senator Tom Daschle, a South Dakota
Democrat, are representing the committee on a five-day tour of South Vietnam
and Laos, the panel's last scheduled trip to Southeast Asia before it
complete its work at the end of the year and submits a final report.
     The Senators are expected to meet Tuesday with Prime Minister Vo Van
Kiet and Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam, and to tour military instalations
in Hanoi where Americans were once rumored to have been held.
     In a meeting today with the senators, Deputy Foreign Minister Le Mai
pledged that "any request, any question you raise, we will give the clearest
possible answers."
     "It has been 20 years now since the end of the war," he said.  "That is
long enough.  That is why we should accelerate our cooperation."
     The Senators also met with the senior officials directly involved in
assisting the Pentagon in searching for information about missing Americans.
     Although the meeting did not resolve the fate of any of the Americans
unaccounted for, Senator Kerry said the spirit of conciliation may signal an
important shift in Hanoi's policies.  It was the first time the Vietnamese
had opened such a meeting to reporters.
     "This is the first time we've ever had a discussion in the open like
this - about the substantive cases, about real facts,"  Senator Kerry said.
"It's fair to say that the policies of Vietnam have changed.  It's very,
very welcome."
     Senator Daschle said, "For the first time, they're as forthcoming as we
could hope them to be."


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