Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Senate MIA panel visits Vietnamese prison Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 17:26:45 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD Senate MIA panel visits Vietnamese prison \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) - Three U.S. senators visited a prison yesterday in search of clues to the fate of missing American servicemen, then ended their groundbreaking visit to Vietnam. They had unprecedented cooperation from Vietnamese officials eager to renew ties with Washington. Sens. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, and Hank Brown, Colorado Republican, also visited a war museum in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, before ending their weeklong visit. They were making the last major trip of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs before its final report, due next month. "There is a significant increase in cooperation - you can't avoid saying that," Mr. Kerry, the committee chairman, told reporters before heading for home via Hong Kong. For many years, most U.S. officials accused Vietnam of withholding information and perhaps remains of the 2,265 American servicemen missing in action in the Vietnam War. The issue prolonged the bitterness of the war, which killed 58,000 Americans and perhaps 2 million Vietnamese. U.S. troops withdrew in 1973, two years before the Communists defeated the U.S.-backed South Vietnam government. Vietnam seeks diplomatic recognition and an end to a crippling economic embargo that Washington says won't be lifted until the MIA issue is resolved. Mr. Kerry said Washington should lift the trade embargo to create a new relationship with Vietnam that would result in even more MIA information. In a letter Mr. Kerry delivered to President Le Duc Anh, President Bush promised to reciprocate for Vietnamese cooperation on the MIA issue. Washington is not expected to normalize relations soon, however. In the southwestern city of Rach Gia on Friday, Mr. Kerry swapped war stories with Pham Long, a local official. The senator served in 1968-69 as a Navy officer on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta, where Mr. Long was a 14-year-old resistance fighter. "We were talking about how we used to be fighting each other," said Mr. Kerry. "Now we're fighting bureaucracies." Mr. Long's job Friday was to see that Mr. Kerry was allowed into a prison where some reports said foreigners - possibly missing Americans - were held in the early 1980s. His help was essential in dealing with the grim-faced warden at prison T-85, who had obviously not caught the spirit of cooperation the U.S. senators found elsewhere. But the gates were opened, and Mr. Kerry was allowed to talk with prisoners. "It ain't pretty; they know it, and yet they let us see it," Mr. Kerry said of the prison, where he found no Westerners but more than 100 Thai fisherman waiting for their fines to be paid for poaching in Vietnamese waters. Officials confirmed reports that two foreigners had been detained in T-85 in the early 1980s but said they were a Briton and an American arrested for treasure hunting in Vietnamese waters. Yesterday, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Daschle visited prison X-4 in Ho Chi Minh City to check reports of Caucasians held there in the late '70s. Maj. Nguyen Huu An, director of the prison, said the only non-Vietnamese held there since 1975 were a Hong Kong-based American businessman, Michael Morrow, and an unidentified European. They were detained for 20 days in 1990 on national security charges. President Le Duc Anh's statement that he would welcome visits from the families of the missing, war veterans and other concerned parties was among several agreements the senators won. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM