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"Vietnam, a country; No longer a war": Clinton

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November 19, 2000 

  

U.S. President Bill Clinton addresses officals and MIA family members as workers look on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2000, at a Joint Tast Force Full Accounting Excavation site near Tien Chau, Vietnam. Clinton, the first American President to visit Vietnam since the war, has stressed the importance to coninue the search for all of the Vietnam War MIA's.

HANOI--(AP) - U.S. President Bill Clinton, pledging that the United States will not rest "until we bring every possible fallen hero home," visited a rice paddy Saturday and watched excavation teams dig through thick mud for the remains of an American fighter pilot downed on a bombing run 33 years ago.

Clinton passed farms and water buffaloes to a site where dozens of Vietnamese and a few Americans were straining buckets of mud through a sieve. The site, about 50 minutes' drive from Hanoi, is one of six in Vietnam being excavated for MIA remains.

"Whether we are American or Vietnamese, I think we all want to know where our loved ones are buried," Clinton said, his eyes welling with tears. "I think we all want to be able to honor them and be able to visit their gravesite."

Clinton was accompanied by his wife, Hillary, and their daughter, Chelsea. He also was joined by Dan and David Evert, whose father, Air Force Capt. Lawrence G. Evert, of Cody, Wyoming, was shot down in November 1967 during a bombing raid on a railroad bridge.

"I'm hit hard," Evert said in his last radio transmission. Witnesses said anti-aircraft fire downed the fighter jet. Wreckage is buried deep in thick clay.

As Clinton toured the site, military technician Master Sgt. Gina Noland noted that the wreckage "is a lot older than many of us who are out here in the field."

A .38 caliber shell casing found at the site was not conclusively Evert's, but he was known to carry such a weapon, she said, showing Clinton the remnant.

Clinton thanked Vietnamese officials for their help in finding MIA remains, and promised that the United States would help Vietnam learn the fate of its missing.

"Once, we met here as adversaries," Clinton said. "Yesterday we work as partners."

The visit to the site came on the heels of a speech in which Clinton encouraged Vietnam to become a more open society and said of the two nations' warring history: "We must not forget it but we must not be controlled by it."

In a city rebuilt after American bombing, Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong welcomed the prospect of "immense" cooperation between the old enemies, and thousands greeted Clinton with great curiosity and some excitement.

Vietnamese leaders welcomed the prospects for greater cooperation between the two nations but were cool to his measured call for greater freedoms.

"It is necessary that our two governments take positive action and create a favorable environment to exploit these immense potentialities," Luong said in a state dinner toast Friday night.

Clinton said that guaranteeing the right to religious worship and political dissent builds confidence in the fairness of institutions. Vietnamese officials did not agree, saying that they have different interpretations of human rights, according to Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger.

Clinton is the first American president ever to visit Hanoi, an enemy capital during the Vietnam War, which ended 25 years ago with a communist victory over U.S.-backed forces.

The war left 3 million Vietnamese dead and claimed 58,000 American lives.

"The history we leave behind is painful and hard," Clinton said in his toast. "We must not forget it but we must not be controlled by it."

Earlier, he presented 350,000 pages of documents about battle dates and locations, along with medical records, to help Hanoi determine the fate of 300,000 missing Vietnamese.

The president promised a million more pages of documents by the end of the year. Clinton praised Vietnam for its help in trying to account for 1,498 missing Americans.

"No two nations have ever before done the things we are doing together to find the missing from the Vietnam conflict," Clinton said.

	Vi Le Peterson, wife of Pete Peterson, Ambassador to Vietnam, looks on as Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses a women's forum Saturday, Nov. 18, 2000, in Hanoi. Mrs. Clinton, the U.S. Senator-elect to New York, was on hand to discuss women's issues and other subjects.

During Clinton's presidency, 283 missing servicemen have been accounted for - nearly half the total accounted for since 1973, when U.S. troops completed their withdrawal and the last known POWs were sent home.

The president said Vietnam's cooperation on the MIA issue was essential. "Vietnam's willingness to help us return the remains of our fallen servicemen to their families has been the biggest boost to improve ties," he said.

As a result of that help, the United States decided to support international lending to Vietnam, resume trade, establish diplomatic relations and reach a pivotal trade agreement, Clinton said.

Clinton met separately with Luong and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, speaking of the painful legacy of the war, such as missing servicemen, unexploded ordnance and the use of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange, Berger said.

Clinton pledged to give Vietnam a computer system with information on where Agent Orange "may have been stored or present during the war," Berger said.

Late Saturday, Clinton will fly to Ho Chi Minh City, known as Saigon until the communist takeover. He will speak Sunday to Vietnamese in their 20s and 30s working in business, government, academia, the media and the arts.