11/18/97
Diplomats see progress in ties with Vietnam
At a Brown University forum on the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese ambassador to the United States and his American counterpart say let bygones be bygones.

By RANDALL RICHARD
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- It's true, Vietnamese Ambassador Le Van Bang was saying last night. Even after a war that claimed the lives of more than 3 million of his fellow countrymen, the Vietnamese have a special affinity for American visitors, a fondness not so readily bestowed on his nation's other former enemies.

Part of it, he suggested after sharing a Brown University stage with his "old friend" and now opposite number in Hanoi, U.S. Ambassador Douglas "Pete" Peterson, has to do with American culture -- a culture so overpowering that Little House on the Prairie, as Peterson pointed out, is now Vietnam's most-watched television show.

Another part of it, he allowed, has to do with the ability of this nation to produce, at the same time, not only massive numbers of antiwar protesters, but people like Peterson, a former Florida congressman and Air Force pilot who spent 6 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, yet a man with the courage to put it all behind him and return as America's first ambassador to Vietnam in more than 30 years.

Putting it behind you, said Ambassador Le, is a trait the Vietnamese have learned well over the past few thousand years, and a trait they clearly respect when they see it in a man like Peterson.

And third, but not least, he acknowledged, is the recognition, both in Hanoi and in Washington, that it is now to the advantage of both countries to finally get down to the business of doing business with one another.

Peterson insists that the infamous Hanoi Hilton, where he spent so many years in captivity, is to him "now just another building that I drive by each day on the way to work." He said that while disagreements remain between the two countries over such questions as human rights and religious freedom, that progress in those areas is being made and that "the future is bright."

For his part, Le said he would like to see a few changes in some U.S. policies as well. Opening up the United States to Vietnamese visitors and tourists, he suggested after his presentation at Brown's Salomon Center for Teaching, would be another important step in furthering U.S.-Vietnamese ties.

For too many years, said Le, Hollywood has treated Americans to a steady diet of misleading Vietnamese stereotypes, and that while his countrymen see Americans as they are portrayed in Little House on the Prairie, Americans have been seeing Vietnamese portrayed as sadistic monsters in the Rambo films of the 1980s.

A little less Rambo along with the lifting of travel restrictions on Vietnamese citizens, Le said, might go a long way toward helping many Americans begin to understand the Vietnamese as well as many Vietnamese are beginning to appreciate their new friends in America.

Last night's forum, entitled "U.S.-Vietnamese Relations, A Dialogue Between the Ambassadors," was moderated by Ralph Begleiter, world affairs correspondent for CNN, and was part of Brown University's Stephen A. Ogden Jr. memorial lecture series.

The forum grew out of a conference in Hanoi last June at which former top officials from both the United States and Vietnam explored possible missed opportunities for ending the war in Vietnam.

Brown's efforts, through the Watson Institute for International Studies, to reexamine the policies and "mindsets" that led to the longest war in U.S. history, will continue over the next several years.

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