The World - News from Sept. 15, 1988

U.S. officials expressed unprecedented optimism after two days of talks in Hanoi on joint excavations to locate remains of Americans missing in action since the Indochina War, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said upon their arrival in Bangkok, Thailand. “The meeting went very well--an excellent meeting--and progress was made,” spokesman Ross Petzing said of the talks between Vietnamese officials and a six-man team led by Lt. Col. Joe Harvey, commander of the U.S. Joint Casualty Resolution Center in Hawaii. There are 1,760 Americans missing in Vietnam, according to U.S. officials. The excavations were supposed to have started last month, but were delayed by Vietnam, which was offended by a U.S. official’s remarks that there could be no formal ties with Hanoi until its troops pulled out of Cambodia.