The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Delegation to Vietnam

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. The State Department said today that establishing normal relations with Hanoi is out of the question as long as Vietnam occupies Cambodia. The State Department spokesman was commenting on a report from Hanoi that the Vietnamese government would like to open contacts leading to diplomatic relations with Washington. The New York Times report said the Vietnamese were facing economic crisis, food shortages and uneasy relations with the Soviet Union, and went on to say that the warm welcome given in Hanoi to four American Vietnam War veterans last week was a sign that the Vietnamese wanted closer relations. The four veterans, who returned on Christmas Day, told a news conference today that they hoped their visit with the former enemy would help heal the wounds between the two countries. But other veterans denounced them, saying that they were being used by Hanoi. Tonight, we talk with two of the veterans who made the emotional journey. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, all four of the Americans in the delegation are members of the Vietnam Veterans of America organization. The trip was organized by its executive director, Bobby Muller, who, because of a scheduling conflict, could not be with us tonight. But two of his three companions are here. They are Tom Bird, an Army sergeant in the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam from August, 1965, to August, `66; he is now artistic director and president of the board of the Veterans Ensemble Theatre Company in New York City. And John Terzano, a Navy seaman on the destroyer U.S.S. Robison in Vietnam in 1972; he is now legislative director and head of the Washington office for Vietnam Veterans of America. They are both in New York tonight. Robin?

MacNEIL: Mr. Bird, one of your principal missions was to obtain information on the 2,500 Americans still listed as "missing in action." What did you achieve?

TOM BIRD: To begin with, we did not have any expectations to achieve anything in that area. Just to get permission to go to Vietnam to address the MIA issue and the Agent Orange issue was enough. Anything from there forward was progress. We had a meeting with the Committee to Investigate Americans Missing in Action in our second day in Hanoi, and --

MacNEIL: There is such a committee?

Mr. BIRD: There is such a committee. A gentleman by the name of Mr. Vu Hoang is its committee chairman. And they gave us a rather intense briefing -- extensive and Intense briefing on what goes on to locate missing in action -- what goes on in terms of, like, investigating reports of men missing in action. You know, they get a site report; they then go to the local area and collaborate the site report. Then they send out teams to look for remains. And they gave us a whole history of how it goes on.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you some more questions about it. First of all, did you obtain any impression that there are any Americans alive in Vietnam against their will -- contrary to official U.S. policy and what the Vietnamese have said? Did you get any impression that there are Americans there alive?

JOHN TERZANO: We put the question to them directly and the answer from them was, emphatically, no. From our own personal standpoint -- from my own personal standpoint, I don`t think it does any good to speculate at this time whether there are or there aren`t. The Defense Department, the State Department, Defense Intelligence Agency have all said that they have no substantiated reports of any live Americans being held against their will in Vietnam. I do want to pick up something that Tom was alluding to earlier on the MIA issue. They were very adamant, that is, the Vietnamese people, that they were at a tremendous impasse with the MIA issue. They had released a set of three remains earlier this year, and all they got back from the American government and from individuals like the National League of Families and the other people who are involved is basically a slap in the face.

MacNEIL: What did they expect to get?

Mr. TERZANO: Well, there was no appreciation for their efforts or anything --

MacNEIL: No thanks?

Mr. TERZANO: No thanks or anything like that.

Mr. BIRD: You see, what they stressed with us in the first meeting was their process and how difficult it is to implement their process --

MacNEIL: But that they really are trying, you mean?

Mr. BIRD: And they are trying. They have teams in the field now trying to locate remains. They then explored the Vietnamese psychology of how it is to go out into the local areas and get local people`s aid in finding the remains.

MacNEIL: Which is difficult?

Mr. BIRD: Which is very difficult, they say.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you this. Until now, the Vietnamese, as I understand it, their official position is that they weren`t going to cooperate on identifying MIA`s until -- at least, up until a couple of years ago -- until the United States paid up the reparations that the Vietnamese government thought it was owed under the Paris agreements. Now, is that still the case? Are they withholding until those reparations are paid?

Mr. TERZANO: No. In fact, they dropped the reparations demand when the Woodcock Commission went over to Vietnam when we were very close to establishing diplomatic relations with them back in 1978.

MacNEIL: So that is no longer-

Mr. TERZANO: That is no longer the --

MacNEIL: That is no longer holding it up. Do you get the impression that they are with-holding information and they want something for it? That they want something else for it -- if not reparations, they want aid or they want to barter it for diplomatic relations, or what?

Mr. BIRD: I got a strong sense from them that they`re not looking for a trade-off on it. It`s a really bottom-line statement, but at one point in the discussions with them they said that, "What is of great concern to you is of no concern to us," And from there --

MacNEIL: Meaning what, did you figure?

Mr. BIRD: Meaning the MIA issue, as we relate it to them. They related it back to us that, "It is of no concern to us. We proceed in this action of locating men missing in action on humanitarian levels only. We do it out of humanitarian concern for the American people."

MacNEIL: If there are 2,500 unaccounted for, did you get the impression that, because of their researches, they have found wreckage or bodies or graves, or local reports or dog tags,, or whatever, and that they are sitting on a list of verifiable information, and just waiting to release it, or that they haven`t any? What kind of feeling did you get about that?

Mr. BIRD: It was -- I was thoroughly amazed by them in our meetings with them. They at points brought up the warehouse, which is an infamous place that a former Vietnamese mortician has cited is where 400 American remains are casketed away. You know, they freely brought that up.

MacNEIL: You mean, this is a claim that has been made from outside Vietnam?

Mr. BIRD: This is a claim made in America back to Vietnam. They brought that up to us without us bringing it up to them, and --

MacNEIL: What did they say about it?

Mr. BIRD: They just said that it -- you know, they made slight of it. They made that it does not exist.

MacNEIL: But, if there are 2,500 missing, and they have been doing all the searching that they`ve told you that they`re doing -- whatever the difficulties, it would stand to reason they might have turned up some, and that they`d be sitting on some kind of evidence. Do you have the impression that they are, and want something for that evidence, or not?

Mr. TERZANO: I just got to go back to, once again -- because they were very strong in emphasizing this -- when they released the last set of remains, which took two years for them to identify -- the whole process. They were given a list of names from a congressional delegation that went over there, and they found the remains of three of the individuals -- three out of the four -- and it took them over two years before they released that information and they got everything corroborated and whatnot. But, since that time, since they released it -- and, you know, they were supposedly -- not supposedly, they were slapped in the face by the State Department and the publicity that was going on back in the States -- they dropped it. They completely dropped the MIA issue and said, "We will no longer deal with the Reagan administration on this issue.

MacNEIL: So do you think, as a result of your visit, that they may now make further efforts to identify some MIAs?

Mr. BIRD: Yeah.

Mr. TERZANO: That`s the important thing, and that`s, you know, that`s why we really concentrated very hard on the MIA issue. None of us were experts. We didn`t go over there with the list of names or anything like that. Our principal objective was to go over there not as diplomats or statesmen, but as soldiers to soldiers and say, "Let`s talk."

Mr. BIRD: We related to them on such a level that we got into talking about how important it is to the Vietnamese people to reclaim their dead, their dead soldiers, because they`ve got a cultural and religious heritage that states if the soldier is killed in battle and his body isn`t reclaimed, his soul wanders lost, you know, for eternity. You know, we said, "We know that`s your culture, and, well, we`re coming to you because we believe that`s our culture." They respected that. We tried to get the diplomacy and the politics out of the question and appeal to them one-on-one as soldiers. They eventually respected that, and agreed in principle to inform us first and foremost of any new information they have on the MIA question.

MacNEIL: I see. Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Yeah, just to follow up on that quickly, did you explain to them that maybe the reason the United States didn`t say thank you was that they still believe there are 2,500 others that are unaccounted for, and that`s the concern -- that three out of 2,500 was not something to be that excited about? Did you explain that feeling to them, Mr. Terzano?

Mr. TERZANO: We explained how important of an issue it is here in the United States. And I`d just like to add one little caveat to that, and put it into even more perspective. In World War II and Korea, we had an MIA ratio of 22%, and they were already KIAs, but they were listed as MIAs during World War II and Korea. In Vietnam, that ratio is 4%, which is a tremendous recovery process so far. And when giving the triple-canopy jungle, and given a lot of the circumstances that the planes or helicopters or camps were overrun and guys were just never found, I think that`s a tremendous achievement.

LEHRER: Well, look, on the other major item on your agenda, Agent Orange, what did you want them to do, and what did you tell them about that, Mr. Terzano?

Mr. TERZANO: What we principally asked the foreign minister, Mr. Co Thach, was if he would allow American doctors and scientists to come to Vietnam to work with their doctors and their scientists in helping us resolve the Agent Orange issue. We have been lobbying the Congress for a number of years now. As you know, the Agent Orange issue has been around for well over three years now, and we still are faced with basic, fundamental problems.

LEHRER: What are those problems -- the basic problems?

Mr. TERZANO: Lack of scientific data. And where better than going to the place where it was used to find that scientific data? They have people that we can construct a group on that we know were exposed to Agent Orange. And Dr. Tung, who is their premier scientist on this issue, has already done studies on people who were exposed and people who were not exposed. And if we can just get our American scientists over there to corroborate what Dr. Tung has already learned, that would help us here in America tremendously in solving the issue.

LEHRER: Well, what did they say? They want to do it?

Mr. TERZANO: They welcomed the idea.

LEHRER: I mean, specifically, they will allow U.S. scientists to come over and collaborate with Dr. Tung? What did you say his name was? Tung?

Mr. TERZANO: Dr. Ton That Tung. T-U-N-G.

LEHRER: They will allow that to happen?

Mr. TERZANO: Yes, they will.

LEHRER: Do they see the Agent Orange, Mr. Bird -- what was your impression? Is Agent Orange as big a deal to them as it is to you and other Vietnam veterans here in this country?

Mr. BIRD: Yes. Even -- they took it -- Dr. Tung took it one step further, and that was -- his concern, of course, was with the veteran or the person that was exposed to the Agent Orange in the first place, then to the spouse, then to the offspring. But he`s really interested in how it`s going to manifest itself beyond that into future generations- That`s their real concern, and it kind of impressed me that they`re thinking that far into the future.

LEHRER: Well, did he give you any indication of what his findings have been so far? You said he has run some studies.

Mr. TERZANO: Yes, he has. For example, they have found tremendous high incidence in lung cancer. The chloracne, of course, is a problem. But they`re really done a lot of studies on the lung cancer, and he has given us some of his studies. A lot of them are already here in the United States, already available. They are in French, unfortunately, and so we`ve got to get some of it translated for our own use. But, yes, he did.

LEHRER: Did you get the feeling, Mr. Bird, that their willingness to cooperate was based on something they would like in exchange, or what was their attitude about Agent Orange?

Mr. BIRD: I have to say that their attitude was one of genuine excitement over what we were proposing to them. One of my impressions about Vietnam today on a whole was they are in tremendous need of scientific and medical help. And we made an exchange of documents ? with them. We presented them with some Agent Orange studies done here in America and some of the international reports that have been done on Agent Orange. And they took those reports from us with so much excitement that I felt that these people really need help in this area, and so I feel that there`s just a genuine openness to receive the help we`re offering without any -- you know, without any trump card in the deal.

LEHRER: I see.

Mr. TERZANO: They fully understand that by American scientists and doctors going over there, that that would primarily benefit the American Vietnam veteran. Of course, I`m sure they realize that, as a result, there would be a trickle-down effect, and they would eventually benefit by that information, also. But they realize, you know, that we come first and foremost.

LEHRER: Well, what happens next, Mr. Terzano? I mean, they said they`d cooperate; now, what are you going to do to facilitate the cooperation, if anything?

Mr. TERZANO: We have as our legal counsel on Agent Orange a wonderful person by the name of Jodi Bumstein. Jodi was the general counsel to HHS under the Carter administra-tion --

LEHRER: That`s the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. TERZANO: Correct. And she was also the first chairperson for the interagency work group on Agent Orange -- a government task force on Agent Orange. She has a tremendous amount of knowledge and contacts in this area, and we`ll be developing a program through her. For example, the National Academy of Sciences were there in 1974, and it would behoove them, you know, if we can get them to come back over and follow up on some of their earlier studies.

LEHRER: Well, in this area, finally, you both came away with a feeling of hope that something might be accomplished in this area, right, in Agent Orange?

Mr. TERZANO: Most definitely.

LEHRER: Okay. Robin?

MacNEIL: As you know, The New York Times reported today from Hanoi -- the reporter who was there at the same time as you were, Bernard Weinraub -- that the welcome you gentlemen received was an indication that the Vietnamese would like to open up contacts and go on and establish diplomatic relations. Now, I know you were not there as diplomats. Did you get that feeling? Can you corroborate what he reported?

Mr. BIRD: I would back off that at this time because the process that we wanted to implement is so new, and I think it has to be developed along a very trust-building -- it has to be built on trust -- that to project that far into the future is -- that`s not ours to do.

MacNEIL: Well, I realize that, but did you see the welcome you got as an indication that the Vietnamese would like to take it further?

Mr. TERZANO: I saw the welcome we got as one of individuals showing their own warmth, their own hospitality, their own kindness. I mean, let`s make no mistake about it. The foreign minister, Co Thach, said, you know, "Yes, we would like to" -- you know -- "begin relations and get the process going," etc., etc., and whatnot. But that`s not what we were there for. We were there on a humanitarian effort to open up a set of dialogue and a line of communication, and --

Mr. BIRD: They relate to us as victims of the war, and they, too, are victims of the war, and they stressed that as a continuing theme. They also stressed that we are the American people, and we are separate from the government of America, and they are -- somehow, in Vietnam, the people and the government are one and the same; in America, it`s the people and the government being two separate entities.

MacNEIL: Well, let me ask you this. The New York Times also reported that their motives for wanting closer relations with the United States now might be that they face economic crisis; that there are terrible food shortages - - they`ve had two monsoons that have wiped out the rice crop; there have been a lot of mistakes in collectivization, and so on, which they admit; their relations with the Russians are very uneasy. What kind of feeling do you get of the sort of shape the Vietnamese are in?

Mr. BIRD: In our first meeting with Mr. Vu Hoang, we had a very open question and answer period over dinner, and I addressed that very thing. What are Vietnam`s needs? And I really didn`t expect the question to be answered, but they put it in the order of medical supplies are needed, food, and foodstuffs. They are their three principal needs at this time. Of course, they weren`t in the position to say where they expected to get that aid from.

MacNEIL: Do you -- what does it feel like there? I mean, does it feel like a country where there`s a lot of malnutrition and where there are real -- where they`re on the verge of economic crisis? What does it feel like?

Mr. TERZANO: It`s amazing to go back into the country that has already gone through, already, their first five-year plan -- getting the economy back on the road and whatnot -- and see that it hasn`t changed from when we were there 10 years ago. I mean, the comparison that a Western diplomat, that two of the gentlemen met with when we were over there, gave is, "Bangladesh on a good day." We met over there an American by the name of Nina McCoy who works through the Swedish embassy, has been there for two and a half years teaching English to hospital staff. And she said, in her hospital alone, they`re going to run out of powdered milk within three months -- 50% of the children she sees are malnutritioned. If they get one meal of rice a day, they`re lucky. They have a very, very severe crisis when it comes to food. I mean, people are literally starving over there. They have a lot of com- pressing needs, and you know, I think they are looking for ways for help, but they also made it very clear that they wanted, you know --

Mr. BIRD: They don`t want aid that comes with conditions, you know. They want uncondi-tional aid; they don`t want conditional aid. I think that`s one of the things that`s upsetting them with the Soviet Union, is I think they`re recognizing that the Soviet Union is building -- you know, giving them aid and the conditions are starting to become more and more evident as to, you know, what is expected in return for the aid. Double that up with the fact that the Russian people in Vietnam kind of look down on the Vietnamese and don`t mingle with them --

MacNEIL: Did they tell you this?

Mr. BIRD: We observed it ourselves.

MacNEIL: Really?

Mr. BIRD: I tried every -- we stayed in a Cuban-built hotel called the Victory Hotel, and most of the guests at the hotel were Russians and East Germans. And every day I tried to look them in the eye and say hello, and it was real Cold War time -- real Cold War time. So if they were that way with us, I don`t know what they`re like with the Vietnamese, but it would be much easier to look askance or down on them than it would be on us.

Mr. TERZANO: The people, when we were walking the streets of Hanoi, you know, they would look at us and, you know, they would say, "Russian?" and we would say, "No, American," and you`d get a big smile on their face, you know. They were, you know, very happy to see us.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Yeah, Mr. Bird, I read today that, when you first -- when the plane first arrived in Hanoi, that you got off the plane, or started to get off the plane, you saw some Vietnamese soldier standing there as a welcoming committee, and you turned around and went back on, the plane. You had some uneasiness. What was that all about?

Mr. BIRD: Well, the report in the paper is a little off. What actually happened is, we landed at Hanoi International Airport, and we were kind of surprised that this was an international airport because it struck us to be, you know, an airport out in the middle of, you know, the midwest, somewhere out in a wheat field in Kansas. And the first person that stuck his head inside the plane was a Vietnamese soldier. And totally unexpected on my part was my reaction to seeing the red star on his hat and the red star on his lapels. And it was a very hostile, aggressive one. Mr. Muller and Mr. Harbert were sitting across from me and they said, you know, they saw me kind of leap forward to go after this Vietnamese soldier, then I sat back in my seat, and then I got up and walked to the end of the plane to cool out. A few minutes later, when we carried Mr. Muller down the stairs - -

LEHRER: This is Bobby Muller, who is the head of your organization, and is in a wheel-chair as a result of injuries in Vietnam.

Mr. BIRD: Yeah. When we carried Bobby in his wheelchair down the stairs, I still had trouble, you know, with the Vietnamese soldiers on the ground. It was just for years, it seemed, I remembered those red stars of the North Vietnamese soldiers` uniform, and had built up this real, you know, anger and hostility towards it, and seeing them in person for the first time in 15 years, all that anger and hostility came rushing back, and I had to make an extra effort to cool out because I didn`t expect it, and that`s not what I wanted to project to them.

LEHRER: Well, what happened? Did that feeling diminish the longer you were there? What --

Mr. BIRD: For the first couple of days we would have our meetings with the Vietnamese, and we`d sit down at tables and sit across from our counterparts -- very -- in accord with real protocol. I felt like we were involved in those talks that are always taking place in the Korean DMZ. And I noticed myself looking at the guy across from me, and all the wrong things were going on in my mind. I mean, you know, "How can I take this guy out?" You know, "I don`t like this guy." I mean, "Maybe we can still beat them." You know, all the wrong stuff was coming up. And it eventually subsided after a couple of days as -- I suspect, that their friendship and kind of genuine warmth towards us kind of won me over, and I started to realize, "I`m not here for that, now; I`m here for another purpose." And I had to keep working for that other purpose. It took about three days to get kind of like a warring attitude out of my mind. We also, on the way back from the airport, passed little villages and saw, you know, the mountains in the distance, and I know Mr. Muller and myself, you know, saw those hooches go ablaze and saw the, you know, flares and mortars popping off in the distance. And we didn`t know where it came from. It was like unexpected flashbacks.

LEHRER: What about you, Mr. Terzano? Did you have any flashbacks?

Mr. TERZANO: Coming into Hanoi and being on a Navy destroyer as I was -- most of my time when I was there in 1972 was spent up north around Haiphong Harbor, you know, doing the shelling of the North when we had the blockade and stuff. I did see some of the countryside go up -- and remembering some of the strikes and watching the B-52s and coming back, and their stuff. But, as what happened with Tom and Mr. Muller, after a couple days, when we made the trip back to the airport, that was all gone.

LEHRER: Let me ask you this. We just have 30 seconds left. Mr. Bird, it has been suggested -- there were some people, some other veterans at the press conference today that have said that you four men have become tools for propaganda purposes of the Vietnamese. How do you respond to that?

Mr. BIRD: I would wish, and I would hope that they would be able to sit down with us and hear our side of the story before they, you know, jump to conclusions and announce those conclusions at a press conference. I think we did make progress. It`s going to be very slow and tedious, but I think the only way it`s going to be done is according to their rules because, you know, they`ve got what we`re looking for. And I would like to sit with those guys and talk to them about it.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yes, Tom Bird, John Terzano, thank you very much for joining us. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.