Word: hanoi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...living; at the same time, the President was critical of previous Administrations for what he considered their neglect of the question. In 1981 the White House created a Washington-based task force of more than 100 investigators to probe reports of servicemen missing in Southeast Asia. For its part, Hanoi views the MIA issue as its strongest lever for establishing diplomatic relations with the U.S. and thereby gaining desperately needed economic aid. "What else do we have?" asks a Foreign Ministry official...
...tacitly refuses to recognize Viet Nam until all questions about missing Americans have been satisfactorily resolved. Meantime, U.S. experts have met Vietnamese officials 21 times in Hanoi since 1982 to discuss the recovery of American remains. The meetings have led to two joint searches and a list of 40 U.S. servicemen who died in captivity...
Vietnamese officials have long believed that Hanoi was misled by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger into expecting at least $3 billion in U.S. assistance after the war. The Politburo may now hope to squeeze some of that money out of the U.S. by alternately cooperating and dragging its feet on the MIA issue. Viet Nam seemed to be following that cynical strategy last July when it abruptly halted plans for a joint excavation of crash sites. The move may have been provoked by Washington's refusal to agree to low-level diplomatic ties until Viet Nam completes the withdrawal...
...Hanoi has also shown a willingness to cooperate. Viet Nam has returned some 70 sets of remains so far this year, in contrast to only eight for all of 1987. When examined, though, just 18 of the remains gathered over the past two years have so far been identified as those of Americans. The rest belonged to Asians or were unidentifiable. The discrepancy could indicate that Hanoi hastily collected and sent the remains to show its desire for improved relations with Washington...
...issue between the time of the cease-fire in 1973 and the fall of South Viet Nam in 1975. In the north, where many airmen vanished, mountainous terrain continues to hamper searches, and the highly acidic soil quickly erodes remains. Search operations are time consuming and expensive for impoverished Hanoi. "The Vietnamese haven't got much incentive to make searches," says a U.S. official in Southeast Asia. "I mean, how much is in it for them, other than finding the remains of a dead American...