Pension Fund Managers Hopeful U.S. Will Lift Embargo Against Vietnam

A group of U.S. pension fund managers held talks with Vietnamese officials here Monday, and their leader said they hope the U.S. economic embargo against Vietnam will be lifted soon.

Peter Aldrich, president of Boston-based Aldrich, Eastman & Waltch, said they are investigating investment prospects for when the embargo is lifted, “which I believe everyone in this group hopes happens very soon.”

“The prospects of collaborating in future economic ventures are very attractive,” Aldrich said.

He said Vietnam is growing economically, “and that suggests to all of us who are long-term investors that there should be ample opportunity to invest.”

The group, on a week’s visit to Vietnam, includes pension fund managers from Atlantic Richfield, American Telephone & Telegraph, General Motors, BellSouth, Eastman Kodak and IBM. They said in a statement they represented investment capital of more than $140 billion.

Among officials they met was Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, 81-year-old architect of the Vietnamese communist victory over U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975.

Their visit added pressure on President Clinton to lift the embargo and establish diplomatic relations with Hanoi.

Five U.S. senators, the majority of a seven-man Energy Committee delegation, said in Hanoi on Sunday that they would urge Clinton to end the sanctions and normalize relations now that Vietnam is cooperating fully in efforts to account for more than 2,000 U.S. servicemen listed as missing in action in Indochina.

Pacific Command chief Adm. Charles Larson is due here next Sunday to assess progress in the MIA hunt, which Clinton says is his top priority in ties with Vietnam. He will be the most senior U.S. military officer to visit Vietnam since the war.

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