Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 10:17:15 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: Americans in VN hope for early end to embargo

11/04

AMERICANS IN VIETNAM HOPE FOR EARLY END TO EMBARGO

    By Kathleen Callo
    HANOI, Nov 4, Reuter - Americans in Vietnam's isolated capital said on
Wednesday they hoped Bill Clinton's victory in the U.S. presidential elections
would lead to an early normalisation of relations with Hanoi.
    Vietnamese on the street said they were less interested in Clinton's
much-publicised anti-war stance as a young man than whether he would normalise
relations and lift the U.S. economic embargo imposed as a result of the Vietnam
War.
    "I can't predict anything. But the closer ties there are between the United
States and Vietnam, the better," said 66-year-old retired worker Nguyen Trong
Tuong.
    "Regardless of whether it's Bill Clinton or anyone else who becomes
president, the United States has nothing to lose by having closer relations
with Vietnam."
    Americans in Hanoi were divided on whether Clinton's victory would slow
down or speed up a gradual process of normalisation which President George
Bush began last year.
    The first American Roman Catholic priest to be based in Hanoi since the
communists drove out the French in 1954 said he was optimistic normalisation
would come faster under Clinton.
    "I think we're on the verge of a great change, of finally putting an end to
the Vietnam War," said Father Tom Dunleavy, who was sent in September by the
Maryknoll missionaries in New York to set up aid programmes.
    Bush said last month his administration made a breakthrough in obtaining
new cooperation from Hanoi to account for American servicemen presumed killed
in the war, but whose remains were never recovered.
    Congressional sources in Washington say this could prompt Bush, before
leaving office in January, to lift the embargo or restore diplomatic ties with
Hanoi.
    Some American aid workers said they hoped Bush would make such changes and
that they were worried the process could be delayed under Clinton.
    Linda Blair, who helps run the Hanoi office of the American Quakers' church
aid group, said: "It might be a little bit slower (under Clinton). I'm hopeful
Bush will do something before his term ends."
    The Vietnamese government, when asked, had no immediate reaction to
Clinton's victory.
    But one Hanoi official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "People
here are taking a wait-and-see approach."
    Many of the several dozen Americans in Hanoi, including U.S. military men
and university students, had a hard time even finding out who won.
    "We're intensely interested," said Dr Gordon Tobin, a professor of surgery
at the University of Louisville, Kentucky before visiting a local hospital to
lecture on burn therapy.
    "But how do we get the news?," said his wife, Elisabeth, a health policy
analyst. "I switched on the (Vietnamese) television this morning, but i
couldn't find any news."
    U.S. servicemen who are searching for remains or clues of American soldiers
still missing from the Vietnam War listened to the results on the Voice of
America radio.
    Other Americans in Hanoi went on Wednesday to the lobby of the Metropole,
the capital's only luxury hotel and the only one with a television satellite
dish to bring in foreign news.
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