U.S. to Receive 23 Sets of Remains, Hanoi Says

A Vietnamese official said Wednesday that Vietnam will turn over to the United States today 23 sets of remains that may be those of Americans missing from the Vietnam War.

A U.S. Embassy official confirmed Wednesday that remains would be handed over, but put the number at 21.

The remains include the two sets that U.S.-Vietnamese teams recovered during last month’s unprecedented joint field investigations in northern Vietnam, Tran Viet Tan, consul general of the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok, said.

The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity. Sources said Vietnam has given the United States a list of at least nine names associated with the remains.

A U.S. military team is to receive the remains in a ceremony at Hanoi’s airport. They will be loaded onto a military plane for the flight to Honolulu, where an Army laboratory tries to confirm the preliminary analyses done by the Vietnamese.

Today’s return would be among the largest since the 1973 Paris peace accords ended U.S. military involvement in the war. The Communists defeated the U.S.-backed South Vietnam government in April, 1975.

2,387 Still Missing

Maj. Dan Trout, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command, said that since the Paris accords, the United States has received the identified remains of 196 missing personnel, including 168 from Vietnam, 26 from Laos and two from China. That leaves 2,387 Americans missing in action in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

In August, 1987, Vietnam’s foreign minister, Nguyen Co Thach, and a special U.S. presidential envoy, retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., reached agreement to hasten cooperation on the MIA issue.

Trout said the United States has identified 25 missing Americans among the 77 remains Vietnam has returned since the agreement. The most recent return was of 25 remains on July 13.

U.S. and Vietnamese experts are winding up their second joint field investigation, Trout said. He said the seven U.S. military experts are to return to Bangkok today after the 10-day investigation of areas west of Hanoi.