Bush Sees Gain in Vietnam Ties : Diplomacy: Announcing modest steps to improve relations, he says Hanoi’s move to open MIA files means two nations can ‘begin writing the last chapter’ of war.

President Bush announced a series of modest steps to improve relations with Vietnam on Friday, declaring that Hanoi’s agreement to open its files on missing American servicemen means the two nations can finally “begin writing the last chapter” of the Vietnam War.

Saying answers may finally be at hand for families “who have waited and prayed for decades,” Bush confirmed that he had authorized a small package of humanitarian assistance to Vietnam to aid both the victims of recent flooding and disabled veterans from the war.

But he made no mention of what further steps the United States might take to normalize relations with its former enemy, a caution that aides said reflected the longstanding U.S. policy of linking the establishment of diplomatic relations with Vietnam to a full accounting of the 2,226 Americans still listed as missing in Southeast Asia.

“Early in our Administration, we told Hanoi that we would pursue a policy that left behind the bitterness of the Vietnam War, but not the men who fought it,” Bush told reporters summoned to the White House Rose Garden for an announcement. “It’s been a tough road to follow,” but a “real breakthrough” finally occurred during last week’s visit to Vietnam by retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., the President added.

While he cautioned that Vietnam’s agreement to open its wartime archives to U.S. investigators was “only the beginning” of the renewed effort to resolve the long and painful POW-MIA controversy, Bush said after his meeting with Vessey: “Finally, I am convinced that we can begin writing the last chapter of the Vietnam War.”

Vessey, the President’s special emissary to Vietnam for POW-MIA affairs, briefed Bush on Friday morning on the outcome of his trip and the latest cache of photographs and other MIA-related documents he brought back from Hanoi.

The documents now being scrutinized by intelligence specialists include 4,800 photographs and other artifacts pertaining to missing servicemen. The Vietnamese began secretly providing the documents to U.S. officials--through an American author working as a consultant to the Defense Department--early this year.

Vessey later told reporters that the Vietnamese gave him another “symbolic” sampling of documents to take back to Washington but that the bulk of the evidence remains in the archives that U.S. investigators will begin examining in Hanoi next week.

“The important thing is not the material we brought back. The important thing is the material we expect to get,” Vessey said, adding that it should include field reports, identification cards, artifacts and some “very good photography” that will go a long way toward determining the fates of many, if not all, of America’s wartime missing.

Under the agreement Vessey signed with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam on Oct. 19, Vietnam will transfer materials scattered in military archives throughout the country to several central museums, where joint teams of U.S. and Vietnamese military archivists will conduct their search.

According to a separate memorandum of understanding signed by the two sides, that effort, whose costs are to be borne entirely by the United States, will begin Oct. 30 in Hanoi and Dec. 1 in the Quang Nam-Da Nang area.

But Vessey added that, while the Vietnamese kept extensive war records, they did not catalogue them well. Sorting through the material will involve “real spadework” and progress will depend on how quickly the Vietnamese can ready their files for inspection.

The potential for frustration was already apparent from the disappointment that Defense Intelligence Agency specialists have experienced in analyzing the 4,800 photographs now in their possession.

Initially touted as a major find that could help resolve many MIA cases, the photographs have so far yielded answers for only three families who have been contacted.

Two of those, including the family of Lt. Col. Joseph Morrison, were shown photographs of his corpse, Defense Department officials said, and a third was shown a photograph of the identification card their loved one carried at the time of his reported death. A Pentagon official said the families “are disappointed but accept the materials as very important information about their loved one.”

Another source familiar with the photos said that only about 30% of them depicted people--mostly pilots killed when their planes crashed--and that most of those were either duplicative or of servicemen who have already been accounted for. Of those pictured dead, no more than four are expected to resolve cases that have remained a mystery. Of those pictured alive, all have been accounted for, a Pentagon official said.

Also unclear from either the text of the public agreement or the memorandum on its implementation was what if any assurances the United States has that Vietnam, which has long denied having more information on POW-MIA cases, actually will provide all of the evidence it possesses, especially if that material proves to be embarrassing for the Hanoi government.

While 2,226 servicemen are still officially listed as missing because their bodies were never found, the true discrepancy cases number only about 135. Most of those involve people who were known to have been captured though never accounted for when both sides exchanged their prisoners in 1973.

A Senate committee investigating the fate of the missing already has found strong evidence to indicate that many of these POWs remained in Vietnamese hands after 1973. Some members of the committee say the evidence also shows that some may have been alive as recently as 1988.

While acknowledging the shortcomings, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate committee, said the information being provided by Vietnam should indirectly help to determine if any POWs are still alive by “isolating those possibilities” once determined how many of the missing are dead.

Vessey, without elaborating, added that U.S. investigators have “a good idea” of what to look for and how to verify Vietnamese compliance. The main safeguard, another official source said, are the “quid pro quos” built into the agreement. “They give a little and then we give a little,” he said. He conceded, however, that ultimately verification could come down “to a question of faith.”

Although Bush said the first U.S. step would include the “very modest” sum of $25,000 in disaster relief, a senior Administration official said later that if the Vietnamese adhere to the agreement, it is possible the United States will lift its trade embargo against Vietnam by January.

“It can happen in January, it can happen in May, it can happen in November,” the official said. “It depends on what we get from Hanoi.”