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Thursday, April 27, 2000
By Reg Henry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
HANOI -- As Sunday's 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon approached, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Douglass B. "Pete" Peterson was not dwelling on the past, although he, of all people, might have cause. Instead, he was looking to the future.
"The relationship [between the United States and Vietnam] is going to be very strong in the next 10 years, no doubt about that," he said in an interview in his embassy office Friday.
Peterson is a former POW. He was held 6 1/2 years after his plane was shot down near Hanoi in 1966. But that was then, and this is now.
Now the only Hanoi Hilton in town is part of the Hilton hotel chain and everywhere the visitor looks in Hanoi and Saigon -- now named Ho Chi Minh City -- there are signs of free enterprise hustle. To juice the action, foreign tourists have discovered both the beauty of Vietnam and the incredible bargain it represents. The locals are busy welcoming them with open arms.
Although per capita income in Vietnam is just $362 a year, the city shops in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are full of goods. Trendy bars and restaurants have become commonplace, patronized not just by foreigners but also by a young generation of entrepreneurial Vietnamese who carry cell phones.
There are also beggars, who can answer authoritatively which part of the word "no" they can't understand -- actually, all of it. Vietnam, after all, remains a grindingly poor country for the mass of its approximately 80 million people, most of whom live in the countryside and follow its timeless seasonal rituals.
But this is not your father's Vietnam.
Reg Henry, the Post-Gazette's deputy editorial page editor, was part of the Australian army's contingent helping U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. Henry spent 1970 in Vietnam. He is back in the country this week, accompanied by staff photographer Annie O'Neill, as Vietnam prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the war's end.
And the ambassador says the Vietnamese are not looking back.
"For the first time in its 4,000 years of history, they can anticipate peace and prosperity," Peterson said.
Vietnam lost an estimated 3 million dead in the war, yet people -- young and old -- display virtually no animosity when they meet Americans, even in areas that might be thought to be especially sensitive.
On Saturday, two visitors ventured into the back streets of the Ngocha Village neighborhood of Hanoi.
As a sign on a nearby wall relates, it was here on the night of Dec. 27, 1972, that a American B-52 came crashing down.
A fragment of it rests now in a pond like the decrepit carcass of a predatory bird, the wheels on the landing gear appearing like dead talons rising from the water. The white star Air Force insignia on the wreckage is faded but visible.
The locals just go about their business as the visitors inspect the scene. A man who remembers the terror falling from the sky speaks to the guide but casts no reproachful glances. Two curious little girls come up to say hello.
Time has healed some wounds. Twenty-five years is a longer period than the gap between the two world wars. Half the Vietnamese population wasn't alive when North Vietnamese tanks pushed down the gates of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu's palace in Saigon in 1975 to end what they call here "the American war."
Peterson estimates that only 15 percent of the population ever carried a rifle in the Hanoi government's various struggles -- against the French, the Americans, the Chinese or the Cambodians.
Normalcy of a sort has settled on the land, but problems remain. Some are the legacies of the war; some are the failures of the peace.
MIA Office in Hanoi continues its grim work
PG series:
Peterson said such reports are worst-case scenarios that should be read in conjunction with others for a fuller picture. He listed some of the ways the government has relaxed its grip:
"There aren't massive arrests in this country anymore. There aren't block captains checking people in and out of neighborhoods," he said.
The government is sensitive, he said, but there is an increased tolerance for constructive criticism of the state.
And when Americans are arrested in Vietnam -- for the sort of offenses that would also get them arrested at home -- "we are being notified."
"There are a number of [positive] things we need to acknowledge, because without acknowledgment, there is no incentive for continued improvement," he said.
Although Vietnam is controlled by a politburo, elections are held for a National Assembly of 450 people who can be influential.
Peterson noted that the assembly has become remarkably diverse -- the major constituencies are well-represented, including ethnic minorities and women. It now includes 61 members who are not members of the Communist Party. It even includes a former major in the old South Vietnamese army, ARVN.
Although the government exerts official control over religion, it has shown greater tolerance. About three-quarters of the Vietnamese are nominally Buddhist, but the number of other sects -- such as the Cao Dai -- have sizable followings. There are also 6 million to 7 million Roman Catholics, and during Easter Week -- both in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi -- Masses were packed to overflowing.
Peterson said the government has authorized new religions and activities, including large meetings of believers. It has allowed the Catholic church to appoint its own clergy and to train them in seminaries.
"Being a Catholic, I watch that fairly closely," he said.
Peterson also cautions that the economic activity remains short of its full potential.
"Yes, [the economy] has changed remarkably," he said. "But it is quite low on the economic ladder ... and where it bogs down is economic development of small medium enterprises. So, what you see is a sort of horizontal economy.
"They don't have a mom and pop [store] that generally spreads out to a larger mom and pop."
The U.S. and Vietnamese governments have been negotiating a bilateral trade agreement that, for the price of reforms, would grant Vietnam so-called normal trade relations. This would help prepare the way for its possible entry into the World Trade Organization.
"We have a document we'll sign tomorrow morning -- we'll sign this afternoon," Peterson said of the U.S. government's eagerness. But the Vietnamese government has asked for clarifications and U.S. officials are in the process of responding to them.
After the United States granted Vietnam diplomatic recognition in 1995, President Clinton nominated Peterson as the first ambassador. After his release from captivity in Hanoi, he resumed his Air Force career and rose to the rank of colonel before retiring in 1980. He subsequently served six years in Congress as a representative from Florida. The Senate confirmed his appointment as ambassador April 1997.
Before consent was given for this interview, one of the ambassador's staff let it be known he no longer wishes to talk about his POW experience. That story, he believes, has been written.
Indeed, on the sweltering frenetic streets of Hanoi outside the embassy, the real story of this 25th anniversary is unfolding daily.
A few days after the interview, a reporter visits Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, a massive stone structure visited by long lines of the faithful and the merely curious. With its somber guards and Stalinesque atmosphere, it is a stark reminder that this is still a communist country. Uncle Ho lies in state in perhaps the best air-conditioned room in the city.
But, back out on the street and short of time, the journalist looks for a way to return to his hotel. A young man offers to take him on the back of his motorcycle -- only 20,000 dong (about $1.50), quite cheap for the chance of a quick death in the crazy traffic.
As they race through the streets on the Suzuki, the young man asks: "Where you from?"
"America."
"Ah, America good!" he says.
Ho Thi Duong and her granddaughter collect sticks and fallen leaves for fuel in Chung My, about 40 miles outside Hanoi. Click for more photos. (Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette) 
About the authors
In February, the State Department released its annual human rights report for Vietnam that was, by turns, blunt and encouraging. It pointed out that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a one-party state that the people can't choose to change. Yet, it also noted an increased tolerance in such areas as freedom of worship. More from Vietnam: