Hanoi Will Cooperate on MIAs Again : Move Called Renewed Effort to Upgrade Its Ties to Washington

Vietnam has agreed to resume cooperating with the United States in accounting for the 1,757 American servicemen listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War, the State Department announced Tuesday.

The action apparently represents a renewed effort by Vietnam to move toward upgrading of ties with the United States during the final months of the Reagan Administration.

Last month, Hanoi halted all help in accounting for the missing servicemen because of its irritation with the Administration’s tough opposition to moves on Capitol Hill for a warming of relations with Vietnam. Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach said then that the United States “continues to pursue a hostile policy against Vietnam.”

But on Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said Thach had sent a new letter to Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., President Reagan’s special emissary for issues concerning the missing servicemen, and had called once again for joint work on the Americans missing in action. U.S. sources said the letter was delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.

Americans Going to Hanoi

Oakley said an American technical team will meet with the Vietnamese in Hanoi beginning Sept. 9 to arrange work on an investigative survey and excavation activities for the MIAs.

“We welcome this resumption of cooperation and anticipate that the joint field activities will make a major contribution in achieving the fullest possible accounting for Americans still missing in Vietnam,” Oakley said.

In addition, she said, a separate U.S. team will go to the Vietnamese capital Monday to discuss efforts by private volunteer organizations to help Vietnam with prosthetics and children’s disabilities.

The Reagan Administration’s policy has been to permit cooperation between the United States and Vietnam on what are called humanitarian issues, including accounting for the MIAs and encouraging private U.S. help for Vietnamese injured in the war.

Cambodian Pullout Issue

At the same time, the Administration has strongly opposed any trade, governmental aid or diplomatic relations with Vietnam until Hanoi withdraws its troops from Cambodia. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December, 1978, ousted the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot in January, 1979, and installed a new government there. Vietnam has begun withdrawing its troops from Cambodia and has said it will withdraw all of them by 1990.

Earlier this year, conservative Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, spearheaded a new drive on Capitol Hill to persuade the Reagan Administration to ease its policy on Vietnam.

They sponsored a resolution calling on Reagan to clear the way for the United States and Vietnam to open interest sections in each other’s capitals--a move that is often the first step toward establishing diplomatic relations.

When Assistant Secretary of State Gaston J. Sigur testified last month in opposition to McCain’s resolution, Vietnam countered by suspending both its cooperation in accounting for American MIAs and a separate program under which prisoners in Vietnamese reeducation camps were to be resettled in the United States.

In his letter to Vessey, the Vietnamese foreign minister said Vietnam still will continue to withhold cooperation on the reeducation camps. The State Department spokesman said the United States is “disappointed” by this part of Thach’s new announcement.