News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Powell In Vietnam

Date: July 26, 2001

"Powell Hails Effort to Find Men Lost in Vietnam

HANOI (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday hailed Americans still hunting in Vietnam for missing U.S. servicemen, three decades after a war in which he fought and lost more than 58,000 comrades.

He also reflected on his feelings flying into a city that was once enemy territory, and his impressions of Hanoi, where he risked a brief and anarchic walkabout on Wednesday.

But first the most senior "vet" to visit Vietnam since the U.S. war against communism here failed, stopped for a moment's reflection, lit an incense stick and placed two red roses at a memorial to seven Americans and nine Vietnamese killed in a helicopter crash in April.

They had been hunting for traces of Americans "missing in action" (MIAs), who currently number 1,474.

"All of my buddies came home, even those who died. We got the remains. But for those we didn't find, there's still a longing in the hearts of their family members and their fellow veterans," Powell told reporters after speaking to members of the MIA "joint task force-full accounting."

The crash was a major blow to the effort, taking the lives of outgoing commander Ronnie Cory and his replacement George Martin -- and a Vietnamese war hero who had survived wars with the French, the United States and Cambodia.

The MIAs are still Washington's top foreign policy priority with Hanoi, where Powell was later due to meet communist party officials whose government began moving away from old-style socialist central planning in 1986.

Trade and human rights are among other issues likely to figure in Powell's talks here during a visit to attend an annual gathering of an Asian regional security forum.

His talks on Thursday in a city stuffed with street traders selling fabric, shoes and a colorful array of Vietnamese crafts came on a day when a panel in the U.S House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on a trade pact that would establish normal trade relations with its former enemy.

The United States is hoping the promise of economic growth will help encourage Vietnamese leaders to release religious figures being detained here and improve its record on human rights and religious freedom generally.

POWELL RECALLS WAR

He served here twice as a soldier, flying into Saigon, capital of the then U.S.-backed South Vietnam, which is now called Ho Chi Minh City, and was injured twice, once when he stood on a poisoned punji stick and once in a helicopter crash.

Never having been in the capital of what was once enemy territory, Powell nonetheless said he felt a sense of familiarity in the narrow, bustling streets of this sweltering city surrounded by lush green paddy fields.

"My impressions are robust, the city, Hanoi, just the movement and the shops and the sense of small entrepreneurial activity is pretty exciting," he told reporters.

He smiled as he recalled a frantic, 10-minute attempt at a tour of the city from the imposing hotel where the regional forum is being held, tailed by a sweating throng of reporters and surrounded by security agents.

Recalling his flight in on Tuesday, he said he felt a twinge hearing the voice of the air traffic controller.


"I was in the cockpit as we landed. I kind of wanted to see, and we came over Thunder Ridge which is well known to all of our air force pilots, the series of mountains north of the river," he said.

"And just to see the paddies, the beautiful green, and then to hear the voice of the air traffic controller in the tower at Hanoi, greeting our pilot, giving him instructions, to hear that voice and the accent again brought back lots of memories of years ago.

"And the drive in from the city. So much has changed of course, but so much is the same -- the rice paddies, the houses I remember, the people, industrious, hard at work. There's always a twinge," he said."