Progress At Last

FOR THE FAMILIES OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND PIlots missing in Southeast Asia, the announcement was as stunning as the orange sunrise bathing the Rose Garden Friday morning. President Bush announced that "Hanoi has agreed to provide us with all, and I repeat all, information they have collected on American pows and mias." Confirming a report that first appeared in TIME's Oct. 26 issue (Grapevine), Bush called the acquisition of more than 5,000 black-and-white photos of American POW/MIAS from the Vietnam era a "significant, real breakthrough" in determining the fate of the 2,265 Americans still not fully accounted for.

Supplementing Bush's statement, retired General John Vessey, the President's personal MIA/POW representative, just back from Hanoi, produced new photos and a Memorandum of Understanding in which Vietnamese officials agreed to "make available all museums that may contain U.S. MIA archival data" and promised access to display cases, microfiche files and other materials. "The important thing is not the material we brought back," Vessey emphasized. "The important thing is the material we expect to get."

Bush made it clear that Hanoi's cooperation will open the way toward re- establishing diplomatic relations, broken off in 1975, and lifting the economic embargo that has helped keep Vietnam's economy in desperate shape. Bush said U.S. officials got their first glimpse of Vietnam's war archives last summer. None of the new information provided any leads to possible live Americans. The President cautioned that "we may never know" the fate of all the pows and mias. (See related story on page 59.)