Hanoi Agrees to Speed MIA Hunt, Vessey Says

WASHINGTON — Vietnam has agreed to step up its search for American servicemen killed or captured during the Indochina war in exchange for a U.S. pledge to study “humanitarian concerns” stemming from the war, President Reagan’s emissary on the issue said Monday.

Retired Army Gen. John W. Vessey Jr. said that two teams of U.S. experts will visit Vietnam in late August to discuss the prisoner of war-missing in action issue and an unspecified Vietnamese concern related to the former military presence of the United States in Vietnam.

Vessey, back from three days of talks in Hanoi with Vietnamese officials led by Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach, did not say how the Vietnamese plan to accelerate their search for living Americans or the remains of servicemen killed in action.

“We have an agreement to act,” Vessey said. “We’ll see what the actions are.”

Belated Progress

The agreement reached by Vessey is the first progress seen in laborious talks over Vietnam War issues since last November, when Vietnam returned three sets of remains, two of which have been identified as American servicemen.

The Vietnamese had promised in 1985 to resolve POW-MIA questions within two years, but halted technical discussions early this year, expressing displeasure with the progress of the talks. U.S. offers to resume discussions were rejected until Reagan appointed Vessey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to pursue the POW issue in April.

Speaking at a White House briefing Monday, Vessey said that Vietnam has been given a list of 220 “discrepancy” cases in which the United States questions the fates of servicemen who disappeared in action during the war.

Seventy are “urgent” matters in which Vessey said there is “a compelling case to believe that a man is still alive” somewhere in Vietnam. Among them are well-publicized instances in which U.S. servicemen were photographed in the captivity of Vietnamese soldiers or seen parachuting into enemy territory and subsequently were not heard from.

Vessey declined to discuss prospects that Vietnam would find or return Americans still held prisoner there. The Vietnamese have repeatedly denied that they hold any U.S. soldiers captive, Vessey said, but they also have agreed that there are “some wild parts of their country” where Americans could be privately held.

“I just wouldn’t care to speculate on that thing,” he said. “I don’t know whether there are any there. There are certainly all sorts of evidence to show that some might be there, but, yet, it has been a long time since the end of the war.”

Greater Number Returned

He said, however, that a greater number of remains of American soldiers has been returned from Vietnam in the last two years than in any period since U.S. military involvement in Vietnam ended in 1974.

Vessey would not discuss in detail the war-related concerns that Vietnam is raising with the United States, except to say that they range from disabled Vietnamese veterans and war orphans to Amerasian children fathered by U.S. servicemen.

Economic aid or the payment of war reparations to Vietnam are not being considered, he said. Both sides have agreed that future discussions of the POW issue will not be tied to political issues such as the resumption of diplomatic relations.

Vessey headed a U.S. team that included State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council officials and Anne Mills-Griffith, a representative of the National League of Families of POWs-MIAs.

U.S. Aide in Laos

The NSC official, Asian affairs expert Richard K. Childress, was in Laos on Monday for an opening round of talks on 549 Americans missing in action there since the war ended. Most Americans missing in Laos are pilots who were shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the route used by Viet Cong rebels to funnel war supplies to the south during the Vietnam War.

Childress, contacted by the Associated Press in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, said that Laotian officials are “very hospitable,” but he would not detail the discussions. He will return to Thailand on Wednesday.

A total of 2,413 American servicemen still are listed as missing in action in Southeast Asia.