Vietnam Looks Forward, Not Back

(CBS)  President Clinton is visiting Vietnam a quarter century after a war he opposed devastated the country and divided America.

In his four-day visit , the U.S. commander-in-chief, who avoided the conflict that killed more than 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese, will be hoping to lay some of the ghosts of the past to rest and will look forward to a future built on trade and business.

Mr. Clinton is the first serving U.S. president to visit since the late Richard Nixon went to the former U.S.-backed South Vietnam in July 1969. He also is the first U.S. leader to visit Hanoi, a city America bombed during the Vietnam War.

And while It takes more than an American presidential visit to faze the country Mr. Clinton's arrival has created a sizable underground stir.

Mr. Clinton and his wife, New York's Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton are getting a warm welcome in a communist-ruled country where 60 percent of people were born after the war and many others have put the suffering behind them.

A typical reaction came from Nguyen Khanh Cuong, a 55-year-old Hanoi shopkeeper whose staff was sewing U.S. flags beneath a portrait of late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.

Complete Coverage

Return To Vietnam
The President's Visit
The latest details of President Clinton's trip to Vietnam.
Now And Then
The Vietnam War is a distant memory for the Vietnamese, more than half of whom have been born since it ended.
Two Faces of Vietnam
The influence of the West lives side-by-side with ancient customs in many areas.
Stocks And Bounds
The country's new stock market is hobbled by limits the government, leery of free-market principles, is imposing on it.

Capping Motorbike Deaths
The number of fatalities from motorbike accidents is so serious that one of President Clinton's priorities is putting helmets on drivers.

"Before the two countries were at war, but now that's all in the past and now we have diplomatic relations," he said."But in terms of the economy, the U.S. should bear partial responsibility to help Vietnam's economy recover."

Strolling with his wife among the predawn exercise crowd at Returning Sword Lake, Phat Tran, 75, a retired mathematician, sid, "This could be what we need to attract more American cooperation, more Western investors, a better life,"

Not everyone has forgotten the war, though.

"The pain of the war will last forever," said 73-year-old Phan Van Khoi, a former trade unionist. But he added: "Now we're looking to develop economic relations with America."

The official press has made scant mention of the visit beyond announcing brief details of Mr. Clinton's schedule -- Thursday's English-language Vietnam News made no mention of it at all, but found space for a regional conference on digestion.

In a land where soccer is king, public attention has been riveted on Vietnam's chance to reach the Tiger Cup finals in Thailand. The country virtually stops when matches are televised.

"We've heard he's coming to Vietnam," said Nguyen The Hoang, 16. Perhaps he will congratulate Vietnam's leaders on the Vietnamese team entering the finals of the Tiger Cup."

However, Hanoi has made clear Mr. Clinton is welcome as a friend who opposed the war, ended a punishing trade embargo in 1994 and established diplomatic relations a year later.

The communist authorities are according him the unprecedented honor of televising live his keynote speech at Hanoi's National University.

In Hanoi, there have been few signs of special preparations, but workers have strung up red banners welcoming "William Jefferson Clinton President of USA and spouse" over an avenue leading to the presidential palace.

In addition to Hillary and daughter Chelsea, Mr. Clinton will be joined by Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta and Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran.

A joint focus will be developing trade and business after a market-opening bilateral trade pact signed in July. But there are also more contentious issues, including Mr. Clinton's plan to raise Hanoi's treatment of political and religious dissidents and Vietnam's counter with calls for Washington to do more to ease suffering caused by the war.

Mr. Clinton is expected to announce a modest increase in U.S. aid but U.S. officials say his ability to do more is hamstrung by the fact he is a lame-duck president.

The president aid last week he wanted to improve cooperation with Hanoi but his top priority would be to get full accounting of U.S. servicemen listed as missing in action (MIA) from the war.

Mr. Clinton ends his visit Sunday in the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, from where in 1975 the last U.S. troops and officials were evacuated by helicopter as victorious communist forces closed in.

But clearly, modern-day Vietnam is looking forward, not back, with the promise of policy and social changes that a liberal-minded American president could love.

"He could do a great deal of good if he says the righthings," offered Jay Ellis, a soft-talking Virginian with a colorful Southern lexicon who runs the popular R & R Tavern in the heart of old Hanoi.

With his crinkled ponytail and well-washed Hawaiian shirt, Ellis is not likely to be mistaken for Mr. Clinton. But their politics were similar back in the 1960s when Washington took over France's lost cause.

"I was in South Florida when I saw the first protest of veterans against the war," he recalled. "They were all dressed up in jungle camouflage, faces painted. Boca Raton. Man, that was something to see. I knew we had no business there."

Ellis came to Hanoi out of curiosity in the early 1990s. He opened the R & R and flanked the door with portraits of Ho Chi Minh and George Washington. He fell in love with the people, particularly his wife, Huong, with whom he has a son.

"This is a place that thinks about the future, not the past," Ellis said. If some Americans and others still drop by out of bittersweet nostalgia, he mostly sees foreigners with another sort of Vietnam in mind.


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