Shultz Pessimistic on MIA Progress : Warns Families to Brace for Disappointment in New Talks

Secretary of State George P. Shultz on Saturday warned families of Americans still listed as missing in Vietnam to brace themselves for continued disappointment despite plans for high-level talks in Hanoi on the festering MIA issue.

“We must face the possibility that we will not be able to move the issue forward,” Shultz said in a speech to the 18th annual meeting of the National League of POW-MIA Families.

Conceding that progress so far “has been painfully slow,” Shultz said Washington may have to change its approach to Vietnam, but he did not suggest how this might be done.

“We know that we must continue to work the issue--looking for new approaches, using new tactics, seeking the initiative,” he said. “We know that to engage in anything short of a full-court press would betray a sacred trust.”

2,400 Still Missing

Retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is expected to go to Hanoi soon as President Reagan’s personal representative to discuss the fate of more than 2,400 military personnel still listed as missing in action in Indochina 14 years after Vietnam claimed to have released all the prisoners of war in its custody.

Shultz said that Vessey would leave as soon the final details of his trip are worked out in lower-level talks with the Hanoi government.

The secretary of state said the United States is ready for better relations with both Vietnam and neighboring Laos, but he said Washington will never agree to exchange diplomatic recognition, economic aid or anything else for cooperation on the MIA issue. The MIA question must be resolved first, before anything else can even be considered, he said.

‘Two-Way Street’

“Recent press reports indicate that Vietnam is raising the concept of humanitarian cooperation as a ‘two-way street,’ including (U.S.) economic assistance,” Shultz said. “Humanitarian reciprocity is one thing, but any attempt to trade information on our missing men for economic aid is another. We cannot agree to this.”

Nevertheless, Shultz suggested that both Vietnam and Laos might find that it would be to their own advantage to resolve the issue.

He said the U.S. relationship with Laos “should and can grow naturally over time.”

“The issue of our unaccounted-for (personnel), however, blocks that growth and sours the relationship between our governments and peoples,” he added. “Both Laos and the United States have much to gain by encouraging sustained cooperation in achieving an accounting.”

Cambodia Complicates Issue

The situation regarding Vietnam is more complicated because of Hanoi’s continuing occupation of neighboring Cambodia. Shultz said that Vietnam must withdraw its forces from Cambodia as well as settle the MIA question before it can expect better relations with the United States.

“The American people bear no animus towards the Vietnamese people,” Shultz said. “We look forward to re-engagement on a political level as we do to the Cambodian settlement which must precede it. . . . The issue of our missing, however, stands apart--separate from our political differences--as a purely humanitarian matter.”

Shultz was applauded warmly by the family members when he reaffirmed the U.S. goals of the return of “any and all live Americans,” full accounting for the missing and a return of all recoverable bodies. But his audience listened in silence when he cautioned them that progress would be slow and uncertain.

Film Rumors Denounced

Shultz also denounced the speculation--popularized in several recent motion pictures--that the U.S. government is covering up information about live American prisoners held by Vietnam.

“Not an ounce of proof has been offered, but critics discuss the alleged cover-up as if it were fact instead of the fiction it is,” he said. “These rumors serve you and the missing men badly. They undermine the effectiveness of our joint efforts, they erode the bonds of trust and they undermine our unity.”

Meanwhile, United Press International, in a report from Bangkok, Thailand, quoted a Hanoi-based diplomat as saying that Vietnam would not cooperate in the MIA search “as long as the United States is committed to continuing its trade and aid embargo.”

The diplomat, who was not further identified, said Hanoi has decided that it has nothing to gain in discussing the issue with Washington.

“In the past year or so, the Vietnamese have concluded that the MIA issue is a no-win situation for them” because they would never be able to convince all of the families of the missing that they had produced a full accounting, the diplomat said. “So they feel whatever remains they might be able to turn over are valueless” to them.