Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:46:47 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: US senators present Bush's letter to VN president

11/18

U.S. senators present letter from Bush to Vietnamese president

   HANOI, Vietnam (UPI) -- A group of American senators presented a letter from
President Bush to Vietnamese President Le Duc Anh Wednesday and expressed
satisfaction with Vietnamese cooperation in resolving POW- MIA issues.
   Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., said he could not disclose the exact contents
of the letter, believed to be the first top-level communication between the two
countries since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975.
   But he made it clear that the letter and the response of the Vietnamese
president pointed the way toward warmer relations.
   "President Bush expressed very directly that cooperation from Vietnam (on
the MIA issue) would be met by reciprocity from the United States," Kerry said
at a news conference after his meeting with Le Duc Anh.
   "It is up to the president to decide what those measures will be."
   Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and chairman of the Senate's Select Committee on
POW-MIA Affairs, arrived in Hanoi Monday accompanied by Sen. Tom Daschle,
D-S.D., and Sen. Hank Brown, R- Colo.
   All three senators said they were impressed by the openness of Vietnamese
leaders in resolving the issue of missing Americans.
   "We have jumped forward in three days and there was significant moves
forward before that," Kerry said.
   To further accelerate the resolution of the POW-MIA issue, he said the
Vietnamese president had agreed to allow direct contacts between U. S. military
experts and Vietnames veterans.
   Kerry said Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyn Manh Cam had agreed to
accelerate the process of retrieving remains of U.S. servicemen held by private
citizens in Vietnam.
   Daschle described the delegation's visit to Vietnam as a "victory for the
optimists" who support closer bilateral relations.
   On Tuesday, the Vietnamese side let Kerry and his companions check
live-sighting reports inside "the Citadel," a previously off-limits building
that one U.S. officials likened to the Pentagon.
   After emerging from the site, Kerry said he felt convinced Hanoi wanted a
"new relationship" with the United States.
   "The most important point is there appears to be a new chapter opening, that
there is new cooperation -- very significant advances in the process," the
senator said.
   Kerry added that he considered the time ripe for the United States to make
some sort of gesture reciprocating Hanoi's increased cooperation on the POW-MIA
issue. Observers think Washington might -- as an interim step toward
establishing full diplomatic relations -- soon lift an economic embargo placed
on Vietnam at war's end.
   Kerry's group plans to remain in Vietnam throughout the week.
   On Friday, the delegation expects to investigate "live-sighting" reports in
the vicinity of Ho Chi Minh City, as the former South Vietnamese capital of
Saigon is now called.
   Meanwhile, one U.S. investigator Wednesday echoed Kerry's upbeat assessment
of Vietnam's increased openness about the POW-MIA issue.
   Maj. Roger Overturf said in a telephone interview from Hanoi that Tuesday
marked "the first time to my knowledge that Americans have toured the Citadel."
   Overturf, one of some 10 Americans currently working in Vietnam on the Joint
Taskforce on POW-MIA Affairs, also said Hanoi has helped U.S. teams investigate
about 70 MIA cases since mid-October.
   He said one U.S. group had recently recovered remains from a wartime crash
of an F-4 fighter jet downed northwest of Hanoi.
   Overturf said authorities planned to soon transfer human remains from the
crash to a military lab in Hawaii for identification, which could take months.
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