Thousands turn out at midnight to welcome Clinton to Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam - President Clinton began a historic visit Thursday to Vietnam, stirring painful memories back home of America's longest and most unpopular war and promising a former enemy ''to build a different future.''

Clinton arrived in the communist capital late at night, the first U.S. president ever in Hanoi, a city once bombed by American warplanes. The welcoming ceremony was put off until morning, but that didn't stop thousands and thousands of Vietnamese from turning out at midnight to catch a glimpse of Clinton's limousine and jam the square in front of his hotel.

Even though the visit received scant advance publicity, the Vietnamese lined the streets, some just looking on and others waving and clapping when the president's motorcade passed.

''This only happens once in a thousand years,'' said homemaker Tran Thi Lan, 50.

Clinton was to be formally welcomed Friday by President Tran Duc Luong at an honor guard ceremony in the courtyard of the French-built presidential palace on Ba Dinh Square.

Reaching out to a generation of students born after the war, Clinton will speak at Hanoi National University to describe his vision for a new chapter in U.S.-Vietnamese relations. State-run television, in an unprecedented move, was to broadcast the address live.

More than 50 U.S. corporations sent executives to Vietnam during Clinton's visit in hopes of gaining a foothold in what they believe is a vast untapped market of 78 million people.

As a young man, Clinton ''opposed and despised'' the Vietnam War, organized protest marches and avoided the military draft. As commander in chief three decades later, Clinton acknowledged that ''A lot of people still bear the wounds of war'' in both countries.

The war cost 58,000 American lives and tore the nation with suffering and turmoil. The U.S. military buildup began in 1961, growing to 60,000 combat troops within four years and to 543,000 by 1969. U.S. forces in 1973 made a humiliating withdrawal that still haunts the Pentagon. North Vietnam's army captured Saigon in 1975, leading to the unification of the country under communist control.

The losses to the Vietnamese people were staggering: 3 million dead and thousands missing.

''The best thing that we can do to honor the sacrifice and service of those who believed on both sides that what they were doing is right, is to find a way to build a different future, and that's what we're trying to do,'' Clinton said in an interview with The Associated Press.

In a cautious rapprochement, Clinton lifted a trade embargo against Vietnam in 1994 and the next year restored diplomatic relations. He opened the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi in 1996 and in 1998 issued his first waiver of a law that bars trade relations with communist nations that deny citizens the right to emigrate. In July, the United States and Vietnam signed a sweeping trade agreement.

''I think it's a new chapter,'' Clinton said. ''The thing what makes America work over time is our ability to visualize new futures and achieve them.''

Even as Washington and Hanoi look to the future, the United States still searches for missing servicemen and pursues rumors of Americans left behind when the last known POWs went home. Clinton said that ''so far all the rumors and all the leads have turned up dead ends.''

The United States lists 1,992 Americans unaccounted for from the war. The Pentagon has stopped pursuing 646 of the cases, and the rest remain open.

Clinton on Saturday will go to a rice paddy outside Hanoi where experts are trying to recover remains at a site where it is believed Air Force Capt. Lawrence G. Evert, of Cody, Wyo., crashed in an F-105 jet on Nov. 8, 1967.

Clinton is the third U.S. president to visit Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson went to Vietnam twice as president and Richard M. Nixon once, in 1969.

Pete Peterson, the former pilot and POW Clinton sent to Hanoi as the first postwar U.S. ambassador in 1997, said Clinton would see a rapidly changing nation.

Peterson said Vietnam has made significant political and economic reforms even though it is one of the world's poorest nations, with a per capita annual income of $372. He said the Vietnamese are enjoying significantly greater individual freedom but human rights problems persist.

Clinton will not meet with political dissidents during his visit, Peterson said. ''Obviously we want to have as constructive a visit as we possibly can.''

''We don't need rose colored glasses here,'' Clinton said in the AP interview. ''We still have differences with the Vietnamese about the form of government they have. ... But I think it's time to write a new chapter here.''

Clinton was accompanied by his daughter Chelsea and mother-in-law, Dorothy Rodham. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived Thursday from Israel where she delivered a eulogy at the funeral of Leah Rabin, widow of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Clinton flew here from economic talks in Brunei with Pacific Rim leaders. He met separately with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Clinton and Jiang made progress toward curtailing Beijing's missile exports and decided tentatively to resume human rights talks, a senior State Department official said.

---

On the Net: CIA World Factbook http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/vm.html