A Bridgehead Is Won in Hanoi

While Jimmy Carter was outlining his foreign policy goals at the U.N., the first official U.S. mission to Hanoi was making good on his campaign promises to improve relations with the Communist government and seek information about the 771 U.S. servicemen still missing in Indochina. With the delegation was TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott. The following is from his reports:

"You come here with good will," Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong told the Americans. "President Carter obviously wants to solve the problems between us in a new spirit. We are ready." Replied United Auto Workers' president Leonard Woodcock, who led the U.S. party: "Too long have tragic events kept our countries apart."

Thus, after two days of secret talks in this city, which such a short time ago was the target for American bombs and focus of bitter American dissent, the U.S. delegation succeeded in establishing what Woodcock called a "bridgehead" toward normal diplomatic relations. The next day, the Vietnamese provided more tangible evidence of the breakthrough by giving the delegation the bodies of twelve pilots--their names had been announced last September --for return to the U.S. In addition, the Vietnamese disclosed that they had found a 13th pilot's remains, and they said they would step up the search for other bodies. Spurred by their success in Hanoi, the Americans flew at week's end to Vientiane in search of information about U.S. servicemen who disappeared in Laos during the war.

The events in Hanoi ended a two-year freeze in relations between the U.S. and Viet Nam. After South Viet Nam fell to the Communists in April 1975, the Ford Administration blocked Hanoi from being admitted to the U.N. and refused to extend diplomatic recognition until the Vietnamese made a "full accounting" of American MIAS. North Vietnamese officials refused to do so until the U.S. paid the $3.25 billion in reconstruction aid that Richard Nixon had promised Dong in a 1973 letter, an agreement U.S. officials maintain was nullified when the Communists broke the Paris peace accords. Since Carter's election, both countries have softened their positions (TIME, Feb. 28).

Carter gave the U.S. delegation no authority to make any commitments to the Communists. Said Woodcock, an experienced labor bargainer: "There are very few negotiations that I've been in with as little leverage on our side." But the President ensured the delegation's maximum impact on the Vietnamese by sending over Americans whom they know well, including retired Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Mississippi Democrat G.V. ("Sonny") Montgomery, who led a House committee on a visit to Hanoi in 1975. After Woodcock reports back to Carter this week, the way will be clear for the State Department to begin negotiations with the Vietnamese.

Tufts of Hair. The U.S. clearly will not expect the Vietnamese to account for every American who disappeared during the war. There was little reason to believe that the Vietnamese knew the fate of more than a handful of the MIAS. Says Montgomery: "War destroys. A full accounting is impossible." The U.S. has made extraordinary efforts to locate and bury its dead; the Government spent nearly three months and $900,000 searching for the remains of 375 servicemen lost over the sea and recovered only three bone fragments, from which no identifications could be made.

En route to Hanoi, the Woodcock delegation stopped in Hawaii to visit the Joint Casualty Resolution Center, where experts work with medical records of missing servicemen to identify remains from the sparsest of evidence--bones, tufts of hair or even single teeth. Mused one delegation member afterward: "Any country that goes to this much trouble to account for every soldier it loses probably ought not to fight a war."

From the moment the Americans arrived in Hanoi, they were made to feel welcome by the Vietnamese, who avoided any macabre linkage between the remains of U.S. servicemen and money for reconstruction. Vice Foreign Minister Ngo Dien mentioned Nixon's letter but added: 'This is not a question of what amount of money. It is a question of responsibility, honor and conscience, and it does not relate to Nixon--it relates to the U.S." Moreover, said Dien, "if the U.S. does not make any contribution toward the healing of the wounds of war, then we will do it all ourselves. We've already begun doing that."

There are abundant signs in Hanoi that the Vietnamese are getting on with reconstruction. Newspapers headline accounts of road building and food production on the former southern battlefields. Bookstores display voluminous accounts about economic recovery, as well as works by Lenin, Stalin and Ho Chi Minh. (Conspicuous by their absence: any works of Chairman Mao.)

War Souvenirs. Escorted by Vietnamese whenever they left the official guesthouse--a yellow stucco mansion built originally for the French governor-general--the Americans still managed to catch glimpses of life in the capital. Early one morning, Sonny Montgomery jogged in a light drizzle around Return-of-the-Sword Lake. "How ya doin' this mornin'?" he called out to a group of soldiers in green uniforms and pith helmets. "Ch`ao Ong [hello]," several soldiers replied. At the edge of the lake, Vietnamese played badminton and soccer, while others did slow-motion calisthenics.

Main boulevards are clogged with bicycles and Soviet-built trucks. Occasionally there are also American-made Jeeps, motor scooters and even a black Oldsmobile. At Gia Lam Airport we saw other useful war souvenirs that had been brought north: a C-130 Hercules and four C-47 transports repainted with Vietnamese markings.

On sale for about 50-c- are aluminum combs made from the wreckage of U.S. planes. We also saw a workman wearing Keds tennis shoes that appeared brand new. But other signs of the war are disappearing. Foxhole-style bomb shelters in sidewalks have been filled with dirt or paved over with concrete.

This impression of recovery and calm also pervaded the presidential palace. Perhaps to enhance the new mood of accommodation, the Vietnamese seated Dong and Woodcock at a tea table flanked with bouquets of carnations, chrysanthemums and gladiolas. At one point, Dong came out to talk with U.S. reporters. "Your good will ... makes us happy and grateful. Now is the time for reconciliation." The Premier then raised his hands, palms together, in a gesture of friendship and went back into the room, presumably to deliver much the same message to Woodcock.

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