Cohen Begins Vietnam Visit, Pushes for Relations Between Militaries

HANOI —  A U.S. Defense secretary flew into Vietnam on Monday for the first time since 1971, in hopes of building relations with the armed forces that once humbled the world’s most powerful military.

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the war’s end, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen was received by Vietnamese Minister of Defense Gen. Pham Van Tra and expressed his hope for development of military ties that would mark a final stage of normalization.

Side by side in front of a graceful French colonial government guest house, Cohen and Tra stood at attention as a Vietnamese army band played a spirited “Star-Spangled Banner.” The single-starred red banner of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam fluttered lazily overhead as the defense chiefs followed a goose-stepping officer on a red carpet around the courtyard in a review of Vietnamese army and navy units.

Although Cohen insisted that he was not going to dwell on a past that has “scarred both our countries,” powerful symbols of the war were at hand. The three-day visit came just as the Vietnamese were beginning a seven-week official celebration of their country’s victory in the war.

Though a 90-minute meeting at the guest house was cordial, officials said that progress on a joint agenda was modest and that the meeting showed the wariness of the Vietnamese leadership--especially the military.

“There is a sensitivity, and somewhat of a suspicion, as to American motives for returning here,” U.S. Ambassador Douglas “Pete” Peterson, a former prisoner of war in Hanoi, told reporters earlier in the day.

Communist Leaders Wary of Losing Power

The talks between the defense chiefs took place after three years of effort by Cohen, who began pushing for a meeting as soon as he entered office in early 1997. Two previous dates were canceled, though there have been contacts between other U.S. and Vietnamese officials.

Leaders of the Communist regime are wary that stronger ties with other nations and the global economy could destabilize the country and could loosen their grip on power. In addition, they are highly sensitive that any hint of a U.S.-Vietnamese military alliance might arouse Chinese fears of encirclement.

To try to dispel that kind of anxiety, Cohen said without mentioning China by name that the relationship should remain fully in the open.

Officials said there is no talk of the United States helping the Vietnamese with new weapons. Peterson predicted, however, that U.S. warships might pay their first postwar port call to Vietnam within a year.

The last U.S. Defense secretary to visit the country was Melvin Laird, in the Nixon administration, who visited South Vietnam in 1971. No Defense secretary is known to have ever before visited Hanoi or the north, officials said.

Peterson said Cohen’s meetings were heavy in symbolism “that is not going to be missed by the Vietnamese people.” And though the Vietnamese leadership is moving only slowly to expand contacts, “you couldn’t have imagined this happening four or five years ago, or perhaps two years ago,” he said.

Cohen said America’s “paramount” interest in Vietnam remains the continuing joint effort to recover the remains of 1,500 U.S. service members who are listed as missing in action and suspected lost in the country. About 500 sets of remains have been recovered since the war.

He praised Vietnamese cooperation and made a poignant visit to a site about 20 miles west of the capital where, in a soggy rice paddy, an American team and about 260 Vietnamese workers have been laboriously slicing sections of a 20-foot-diameter hole for remains that may belong to U.S. Navy Cmdr. Richard N. Rich.

Rich was flying a Navy F-4 fighter on a combat air patrol over Hanoi on May 19, 1967, when he disappeared. A teenage boy sitting in a tree in the hamlet of Dong Phu saw a warplane spiral out of control, then plow into the muddy rice paddy and explode.

On Monday, workers from the U.S. military group Joint Task Force-Full Accounting and dozens of Vietnamese villagers in traditional conical hats passed buckets containing small lumps of clay hand to hand to a rinsing table. There the soil was scoured for pieces of aircraft, bits of flight suit, or other clues.

Air Force Master Sgt. Mark Mitchell, one of the U.S. team members, said he felt that the excavation effort was rewarding because it was “just like we’re taking one of our team members home.”

The crash has left scars on the hamlet, as well.

The explosion sent a large metal wheel from the aircraft flying across the hamlet. When it fell, it killed a villager. Since then, a neighbor has turned the gear into a small Buddhist shrine and burns incense on it.

To carry out the excavation effort, the Vietnamese government hires villagers. The United States pays the government $30 a day for each, officials said. It is not clear, they said, exactly how much of that is passed on to the villagers.

Broader Cooperation Likely, Officials Say

Officials said the meeting between the defense chiefs is likely to bring broadened cooperation between the United States and Vietnam on several fronts.

The United States and Vietnam have agreed to conduct medical research in several areas related to military operations, including tropical ailments and the effects of Agent Orange, the defoliant blamed for harming thousands in the war.

The Vietnamese government believes that the substance, which leaves behind traces of dioxin, has harmed tens of thousands of civilians, and it has pressed America for compensation. The United States has resisted those claims, but it will now explore the question of how much damage the substance may have caused.

The U.S. military also has agreed to help Vietnam in removing land mines left behind from the conflict. Cohen said U.S. officials asked the Vietnamese for a list of equipment they could use to remove mines set deep in the earth and are “fully prepared” to provide it.

The U.S. military also is preparing to train the Vietnamese in search-and-rescue techniques and is planning to set up an English-language lab for Vietnamese military personnel.