Reagan’s Envoy Opens Talks in Hanoi on MIAs

HANOI —  Declaring himself hopeful for progress, retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., President Reagan’s personal representative, arrived here Saturday and began talks with Vietnamese officials in an effort to revive the soured negotiations on the nearly 1,800 American servicemen still missing from the Vietnam War.

Asked whether he was bringing any new proposals from Washington, Vessey answered enigmatically, “The solution lies here.”

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was accompanied by a party of five, including David Lambertson, deputy assistant secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific, and Ann Mills Griffiths, head of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, a support group for the families of American servicemen listed as missing in action during the war or taken as prisoners of war.

Vessey told reporters at Hanoi’s airport that the American delegation is here “to discuss humanitarian issues.” In recent weeks, Vietnamese officials have suggested that they wanted an open agenda for the talks and complained that the United States has taken political actions harmful to their resumption.

Won’t Discuss Reparations

Nguyen Dy Nien, a Vietnamese deputy foreign minister who welcomed Vessey at the state guest house in the capital, said war reparations, a Vietnamese demand in MIA negotiations in the immediate postwar years, would not be raised during the Vessey visit, but added that they could be brought up at a later stage.

The Vietnamese side for the weekend talks is headed by Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach.

Morning and afternoon sessions were held Saturday, and a third session is scheduled for this morning. Further sessions will be held this afternoon and Monday if needed.

Thach declared before the Saturday afternoon session that “there is no more one-way traffic,” meaning that the Vietnamese would be making demands on the American side in negotiations over the U.S. insistence on “the fullest possible accounting” of the missing Americans.

Vietnamese acceptance of the Vessey mission came only two weeks ago, nine months after the last bilateral technical meeting on the MIA issue. An American delegation headed by Richard K. Childress, director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council, came to Hanoi in late May to pave the way for the visit.

Meetings Canceled

His was the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since last October. An agreed schedule of six meetings a year had foundered earlier, in April, 1986, when the Vietnamese canceled one meeting to protest the U.S. bombing of Libya. After the October meeting, Hanoi canceled another slated meeting for December, citing conflicts with its Communist Party congress. Then it mentioned domestic reasons for stalling a resumption of talks early this year.

While the political report of the party congress declared that Vietnam “continues to hold talks with the United States to solve the humanitarian problems left by the war and is ready to improve relations,” the Vietnamese began last spring to inject a political element into their comments on the stalled MIA schedule.

In March, the Vietnamese ambassador to Thailand told an American reporter, “We want to show our disappointment over U.S. cooperation.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Nien was far more specific last month. He told foreign journalists in Hanoi: “Our men can’t go find MIA remains if the U.S. continues to have a hostile attitude toward Vietnam. We can’t do this free of charge.”

As examples of the “hostile” attitude, he cited American arms sales to China, Vietnam’s main adversary, and the U.S. agreement to set up an emergency weapons stockpile in Thailand.

Vietnamese Issues

Further, Vietnamese officials have said, their country has war-related humanitarian problems, too--widows, orphans and medical needs.

“Humanitarian issues may be American or Vietnamese,” Foreign Minister Thach said recently.

The tougher Vietnamese stance on MIA cooperation is a turnabout from early 1986, when Hanoi appeared to be eager to clear away an issue that hampered the possibility of normal relations with Washington and the economic benefits that they promised. That January, the highest-level delegation since the war’s end visited Hanoi, led by Assistant Defense Secretary Richard L. Armitage.

As a result of the Armitage visit, the schedule of six technical meetings a year was set. Technical teams discuss crash sites of U.S. warplanes for possible excavation and handle information on specific MIA cases, including claims that American prisoners of war have been seen alive in Vietnam since the war.

In the spring of 1986, the Vietnamese turned over the apparent remains of 21 U.S. servicemen, followed by a smaller number that September. An American close to the operations said they included remains in cases specifically raised by the U.S. side, and some were apparently recently excavated, suggesting that the Vietnamese knew where to look.

“It is believed that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam still holds a significant amount of specific information on missing American servicemen and civilians,” declared a 1986 Pentagon study of the issue.

Timetable Unclear

As far back as the spring of 1985, the Vietnamese said they intended to resolve the MIA issue, declaring that they would do so in two years. Washington took that as a unilateral pledge, but this year Vietnamese officials have said they want a U.S. commitment to a two-year program, suggesting that the timetable has not started.

Washington’s public position has remained unchanged. President Reagan has called for the “fullest possible accounting” of missing American servicemen. He has said that progress on the humanitarian issue would help relations between the two countries. But, he maintains, normal diplomatic relations would require an end to the Vietnamese military occupation of neighboring Cambodia.

The United States is the only large power not represented in Hanoi. The Soviets, British, French, West Germans and Japanese--even the Chinese--have ambassadors in the Vietnamese capital. But with the notable exception of Japan and the Soviet Bloc, they are engaged in a general trade boycott of Hanoi because of its presence in Cambodia.

Nien, the deputy foreign minister, said Hanoi sees little hope of a breakthrough during the Reagan presidency, which could be a factor in its tougher line of recent months.

A total of 2,422 Americans remain unaccounted for from the war--1,782 in Vietnam, about 500 in Laos and 100 in Cambodia.