A US Army team trying to deactivate Chinese land mines in Cambodia discovered they were smart mines, with a computer chip made by a Motorola factory built in China.

7/10/98 Fox News: "The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-1 today to endorse President Clinton's efforts to create normal trade relations with Vietnam. The move stymied an attempt by Sens. Bob Smith, R-N.H., and Jesse Helms, R-N.C., to overturn Clinton's action. On June 3 he issued a waiver exempting Vietnam from the 1974 Jackson-Vanik law, which imposed trade restrictions on communist governments as a penalty for limiting emigration. The law allows a president to waive the restriction if he determines it would entice the other government to allow freer emigration. Clinton has granted a waiver under the same law to China to renew "most-favored-nation'' trade benefits. The China waiver is not due for congressional votes until later this month.

7/14/98 AP "The brother of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has met with Cambodian strongman Hun Sen and praised the Southeast Asian nation as a "tremendous" business opportunity.Hun Sen has been heavily criticized for ousting his co-prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, in a bloody coup last year. His campaign has been marred by allegations of violence against opposition campaign workers.The news conference was held at a Phnom Penh hotel owned by a local businessman barred from the United States because of suspected involvement in drug trafficking. Rodham said he was unaware of the connection.."

7/21/98 Laissez Faire City Times Richard Ehrlich "The US State Department and American Ambassador angrily denied allegations that they are blocking an FBI investigation into a deadly bombing in Cambodia which killed more than 20 people and injured 100, including one American. Former finance minister Sam Rainsy, who hopes to win Sunday's election to become the next prime minister, sparked the feud after claiming the State Department and American Ambassador to Cambodia, Kenneth Quinn, pressured the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) because the bombing case allegedly incriminates Prime Minister Hun Sen. Rainsy said he recently delivered to the FBI a fugitive who confessed to throwing the handgrenade, and the new confession was now being covered up."

Reuters 2/10/99 ".China's president Jiang Zemin.on Wednesday lauded reconciliation in Cambodia at a meeting with visiting Prime Minister Hun Sen, but there was no mention of a possible trial for leaders of the murderous Khmer Rouge.. The two men avoided any public reference to growing international cries to put on trial leaders of the Khmer Rouge, fanatical Maoists whose 1970s rule killed an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians. The issue is prickly for Beijing because it backed the Khmer Rouge's bloody 1975-79 rule and continued to support them into the 1980s as they battled a Vietnamese-backed government in Phnom Penh. ."

Freeper SIT-REP 4/15/99 "...The Communist Vietnamese government was seeking to smuggle $70 million worth of illegal weapons into the United States in violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act. The Customs sting, code-named Leatherneck, was set up to seize the contraband on the high seas. SIT-REP found that according to Downie's findings, the representatives of the Vietnamese government suggested that the weapons were going to criminal elements such as street gangs, drug dealers and other underworld figures in the U.S. and that some of the heavy weapons were even intended for sale to terrorist sponsor Muommar Khaddafy of Libya. The military ordinance included a staggering 400,000 fully automatic M-16's, 750,000 M-1 carbines and M-1 Grands, M-2 carbines and other rifles along with billions of rounds of ammunition; 40mm Mk 19 and M-79 grenade launchers, TOW missiles and LAAWS rockets, 60mm mortars, Red Eye shoulder-fire surface-to-air missiles and assorted heavy machine guns, all taken from the vast $5 billion arsenal abandoned in the U.S. military's hasty exit from Southeast Asia in 1975. Downie was even offered light tanks, howitzers with shells, Huey helicopters with rebuilt engines and F-4 jets destined for Third World killing fields...."

Freeper SIT-REP 4/15/99 "...Last month we described the apparent sabotage of the sting operation by corrupt elements at the highest levels of the Treasury Department. As we noted, Downie believed that after Operation Leatherneck was scuttled, "the arms shipments from Vietnam had already begun through other buyers." In May of 1994, federal authorities seized a ship, owned by the ubiquitous Cosco line, carrying comparatively modest quantities of Vietnam-era M-16's and AK-47's off the coast of northern California. Downie believes that the Vietnamese have since been bringing the huge arsenal into this country gradually in smaller shipments. …Well, the San Diego Union-Tribune broke the story of another massive shipment of arms consisting of grenade launchers and fully automatic M-2 carbines discovered by accident in a warehouse on the U.S.-Mexican border just south of San Diego. The arms were traced back to Vietnam. [Note: this is not to be confused with the 2,000 AK-47's seized in Oakland; May 1996]. Incredibly, not only were the arms found to have originated in Vietnam, but they arrived through the port of Long Beach [See the San Diego Union-Tribune, March 21st, 1997]. Customs officials described the seizure to the Associated Press: Thousands of unassembled grenade launchers and M-2 carbines were discovered by a warehouse worker...The arms were packed in two cargo containers measuring 20 feet long and 8 feet wide...a spokesman for the [Customs] said it could be the largest cache of arms ever found in the United States. ..."

Freeper SIT-REP 4/15/99 "...Louis Semon, a San Diego Customs spokesman described the seizure to reporters: "I can't recall anything that big". [Note: The previous record had been set by the 2,000 AK-47's in Oakland]. The two containers were listed as containing "strap hangers and hand tools" but warehouse workers suspicious of the shipment, which had apparently been held up at the border for problems with papers, decided to pry open the crates and reported the contents to law enforcement authorities. After initial speculation that the weapons may have arrived on a Cosco ship, it was determined that they were transported by a South Korean shipping line, with a major presence at the Port of Long Beach, named Hanjin, whose officials expressed the customary "shock" at the illegal shipment via one of their vessels. Valerie Alvord of the San Diego Union-Tribune, who broke the story, quoted a Customs source who said the seizure indicates "huge holes in the system." The customs agent added, "These arms were part of an in-bond shipment, which means, in the normal course of business, no one would have ever opened them. They were discovered by a fluke. In-bond is all on the honor system." An "in-bond" shipment means that the merchandise may be "just possing through" the U.S. on its way to another country. The Union-Tribune noted that this is part of an official Customs policy to "facilitate trade." However, it also offers a smuggling loophole big enough to sail a Cosco ship through: ...the people who do the inspections have long complained that not only are container shipments not examined but they are not carefully tracked to make sure they really leave the country.

Freeper SIT-REP 4/15/99 "...One customs agent provided the following revealing comment: "Theoretically, we can look at anything we want, but in fact, if it's in a container and its sealed, and it's transiting the United States, the bottom line is, we don't open it." A follow up article on March 21st by the Union-Tribune quoted one Customs source who stated that only 2% of the containers are inspected, "so, if you're a smuggler, you can figure you've got a 98% chance of getting your stuff through. Those aren't bad odds." The 20 x 8 foot containers described above are the "intermodal" shipping containers which were off-loaded from a ship at the Port of Long Beach and placed on semi-trucks. The trucks were bound for Mexico City by way of Tijuana. An AP story noted that "Customs agents believe six trucks of arms were expected, indicating that four might already have slipped through." The gun and grenade launcher parts were unassembled, with other parts and possible other weapons in the missing containers. The light, compact M-2 carbine is a fully automatic weapon which was provided by the United States for use by South Vietnamese troops, who were small in stature. The San Diego Union Tribune reported that, since the M-2 is illegal to sell, it wouldn't be readily available on the legitimate gun market. However, one local gun distributor stated, "some people, like gang members, would probably give their eye teeth for one of these things."

Freeper SIT-REP 4/15/99 "... A follow-up article in the March 21st San Diego Union-Tribune, revealed that shipping records showed: the third container did a U-turn out of Long Beach to Ho Chi Minh City. ...From there it went to Thailand, then was put aboard another vessel, the Hanjin Beijing, that carried it across the Pacific to Long Beach. On March 6th the container was loaded on a train which arrived in New York City on March 18th. There, the Hanjin tracking system lost its trail. ..."

Freeper SIT-REP 4/15/99 "...According to the veteran undercover operative, the violators in the original Vietnamese weapons deal repeatedly assured him that the sale was protected at the highest levels of the U.S. government, including "guaranteed Congressional protection". He maintains that there was even a sitting Congressman linked to the sale, but asked that his identity remain off the record...."

EWTN 6/28/99 (Population Research Institute) The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has a soft spot for totalitarian governments and Draconian population policies, to judge from this year's population award recipient. The National Committee for Population and Family Planning of Vietnam (NCPFP), the official Vietnamese governmental organization implementing a population policy made in China, has just been awarded the UNFPA's highest award. Billed as a mandatory one- or two-child policy, the Vietnamese family planning program dictates maximum number of children; minimum age of child-bearing; minimum years between children; mandatory contraceptive usage (preferably IUDs or sterilization), and prescribes punitive measures for compliance failures on any of these points....Policy implementation is various and creative. Newlyweds often receive two tickets at their wedding, one specifying the window in which their child-bearing may take place, the second outlining punitive measures leveled against transgressors. Incentive payments (bribes) encourage sterilization and vasectomy. The policy, however, generally focuses on disincentives: denial of housing and education benefits; fines of up to 800 kg of rice per unallowed child; dismissal from jobs, and forced IUD insertion...."

LA Times 7/21/99 Dave Lamb "...Twenty-four years after the end of the Vietnam War, an agreement establishing fully normalized trade relations between the United States and Vietnam is within reach and could be signed within days, officials on both sides say. The accord, known as the Bilateral Trade Agreement, has been the subject of three years of negotiations in Washington and Hanoi. It appeared doomed to failure as recently as 10 months ago. But concessions on both sides led to a breakthrough last month, and negotiators meeting in Hanoi say major differences have been resolved. Only "small, knotty" issues remain, said one....."

Reuters 7/25/99 "… Former enemies Vietnam and the United States struck a landmark trade pact Sunday, moving closer to full commercial ties and signaling Hanoi's intent to integrate with the world economy. U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Richard Fisher and Vietnam's Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen reached "agreement in principle'' on the deal after several days of marathon talks, including a 17-hour session Saturday. Fisher told a joint news conference in Hanoi he hoped the agreement could become effective by the end of the year after some technical issues had been finalized and the U.S. Congress and Vietnam's National Assembly had approved the pact…."

UPI 7/26/99 "...If the United States and Vietnam successfully hammer out an agreement to establish normal trade relations, President Clinton may celebrate the breakthrough with a trip to Vietnam within the next year, a White House official told United Press International (Monday).... "

Reuters 7/30/99 Mary Binks ".... Scientists have wiped out mosquitoes that carry the potentially fatal dengue fever in a village in northern Vietnam, a feat believed to be a world first. Pivotal to their success is a microscopic, one-eyed crustacean, which is eating its way into medical history with a voracious appetite for the larvae of dengue-carrying mosquitoes. The experiment was pioneered by Australian and Vietnamese scientists, who say the results could have global implications for combating a disease for which there is still no vaccine nor specific cure...."

House of Representatives 4/15/97 Rep Cunningham "...After receiving $1.1 million from Indonesia, Mr. Huang began aggressively arguing for U.S. trade policy toward Vietnam only 1 day after joining the Commerce Department, and again with no security clearances whatsoever or background check, in July 1994, and pushed the idea for the next 17 months when Lippo Group sought to expand its investment empire into Vietnam itself. He also attended interagency meetings of an Indonesian working group. The next month, a United States trade mission to China resulted in a $1 billion power plant that Lippo would finance and benefit from. This is at the same time when the President agreed to give Communist China $50 million for a Chinese coal-burning plant...."

Associated Press 8/9/99 "...Pope John Paul II has sent well-wishes to the people of Vietnam, but the greetings made no mention of a hoped-for visit to the communist-led country. The Vatican on Monday released the text of the pope's message for this week's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary in La Vang, Vietnam...."

The Guardian 8/17/99 John Gittings "…US diplomats have returned to their mission's original home in Ho Chi Minh City - formerly Saigon - nearly a quarter of a century after their predecessors scrambled to safety from a besieged rooftop at the end of the Vietnam war. The US yesterday officially opened its consulate-general in leafy Le Duan Boulevard, built on the plot of land which once housed the Saigon embassy. The speeches by an assistant secretary of state, Mary Ryan, and Pete Peterson, the ambassador to Hanoi, focused on the prospect of profitable business flowing from a new trade pact concluded last month. No one wished to dwell on the humiliating events of April 29-30 1975, when 2,000 evacuees were lifted by helicopter from the roof of the embassy as North Vietnamese tanks prepared to enter the city….."

Miami Herald 8/22/99 Juan Tmaayo "…Retired Air Force Col. Ed Hubbard says he holds no hate for ``Fidel, the Cuban government agent who viciously tortured him and 17 other US prisoners of war in North Vietnam three decades ago. Almost daily for one year, the man the POWs nicknamed Fidel whipped them with strips cut from rubber tires until their buttocks ``hung in shreds, and trussed them in ropes and wires to tear at limbs and cut into flesh. Fidel was one of three Cubans sent to North Vietnam by Havana to deal with American POWs, in what became known as the Cuba Program. He whipped and kicked one POW so fiercely in 1968 that the American went into a catatonic state and later died, in what a new book on US POWs in Vietnam calls ``one of the most heinous and tragic atrocity cases. Hubbard himself was beaten so brutally by ``Fidel'' during one 1967 interrogation session that fellow POW Jack Bomar recalled finding him afterward unconscious on a cell floor, ``a bleeding, broken, bruised mass. Concealed for decades by official U.S. secrecy and the shadows of a war that many simply wanted to forget, the full story of Fidel and the so-called Cuba Program is finally becoming public….."

Taiwan Security Research AFP 9/9/98 "…Vietnam on Wednesday denied Chinese allegations that Vietnamese troops had seized coral reefs in the Spratly islands, saying its "installations" were for civilian fishery operations. "We once again confirm that two scientific technological economic service installations for fishing -- as described by China's foreign ministry -- are merely civilian works belonging to the Ba Ke submerged reefs of Vietnam's continental shelf, not the Spratly islands," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said. "They are normal civilian activities under Vietnam's sovereignty, totally appropriate to international law, especially the UN Convention of the Sea in 1982," she added. Vietnam's foreign ministry issued the statement in reaction to claims by China's foreign ministry on Tuesday that Vietnam had seized the Ernan and Jindun submerged reefs to the southeast of the Spratly islands….."

China Times AFP 10/18/99 "....Vietnam has held off signing a landmark trade agreement with the United States out of deference to China and a desire to distance itself from its former wartime enemy, analysts and diplomats say. Hanoi's stalling on the deal comes as a blow for US negotiators who worked hard to hammer out an agreement in principal that was signed, amid much fanfare, in late July. The US side was ready to sign the full text of an agreement within days, and ambassador Pete Peterson expressed confidence the deal would be ratified by year-end. But the euphoria proved premature. Just days before the mid-September Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Auckland, where President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai were expected to sign the final agreement, the Vietnamese backed away. Diplomatic sources say the deal broke down after comments by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about Vietnam's poor human rights record to party general secretary Le Kha Phieu in Hanoi on the eve of APEC......"

CNSNews.com 1/23/2000 Jim Burns "….Calling it "rank appeasement" is how Frank Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy, termed President Clinton's foreign policy and criticized his scheduled to visit Vietnam before his term ends next year. "This president has, of course, normalized relations with communist Vietnam. We're now told he may finally go to Vietnam. This year before his mandate runs out. I think that's wrong. I think it's wrong for this country and I think it's wrong for the world," said Gaffney, which drew strong applause from those attending the Conservative Political Action Conference……"

Inside China Today 2/24/00 Reuters "…..Vietnam Thursday declared that Taiwan was the "inseparable territory" of China and that it saw the Beijing regime as the sole government of all China. The statement came in response to a White Paper on Taiwan issued in Beijing earlier this week which warned the island to open talks on reunification or risk an invasion. "Vietnam recognizes the government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal representative of all of China. Taiwan is an inseparable territorial part of China," said foreign ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh in a statement. …."

Washington Post 2/22/00 AP "…..Vietnam has criticized Republican presidential candidate John McCain for claiming he was tortured during 51/2 years as a prisoner of war in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" and using derogatory terminology for Vietnamese. "John McCain's words and statements, which lack goodwill, have hurt the Vietnamese and Asian peoples," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement issued Monday in response to queries from Hanoi-based foreign correspondents. …."

Associated Press 2/18/00 "…..The Ho Chi Minh Trail, the snaking jungle thoroughfare that funneled communist troops and supplies during the Vietnam War, is to become a two-lane national highway. The Vietnamese government announced at a news conference Friday its plans for a roughly 1,000-mile road from the northern province of Ha Tay to the southern hub of Ho Chi Minh City, along the old route of Vietcong supply lines. Currently, Vietnam has only one north-south road stretching the length of the country. The government hopes the new road will ease congestion along National Highway 1, which is routinely flooded in the monsoon season. The planned two-lane road, slated for completion in 2003 at a cost of $375 million, would cut through 10 provinces and dense tropical jungle in less flood-prone territory. It's ultimately hoped to widen the highway into six lanes. ….."

EWTN 3/6/00 "…..Overseas Vietnamese have alerted the Fides news service to the systematic persecution of Catholics in the diocese of Hung Hoa, in the north of the country, and say the same is reported from all over northwest Vietnam. For eight years now, Catholics in the Hung Hoa diocese have been without a bishop. Government authorities have persistently refused to accept the nominations of the Holy See. Some years ago, the government declared Hung Hoa a "New Economic Zone," and encouraged settlement of newcomers...."

AP 3/12/00 Robert Burns "…..A quarter century after the end of the Vietnam War, at the start of a new era of U.S. military commitment to Asia's future, Defense Secretary William Cohen arrived in Vietnam early Monday to push the pace of reconciliation. After his Air Force jet landed at the Hanoi airport in a heavy haze, Cohen was greeted by a small group of Vietnamese military officers and Pete Peterson, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. Cohen told reporters on the flight from Hong Kong that he intended to thank Vietnamese officials for their cooperation in searching for missing U.S. servicemen and suggest ways to improve the overall relationship. …."

South China Morning Post 3/13/00 Huw Watkin "….. During his three-day visit, William Cohen will travel to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and will see the crash site of an American fighter shot down during the Vietnam war. That should give the media a chance to write some moving copy, but Vietnam has no intention of allowing foreign photographers to indulge in a little espionage. Virtually everything even remotely concerned with military matters in Vietnam is considered a state secret, and only reporters travelling with Mr Cohen on his East Asian tour will be allowed to accompany him on a trip to Hanoi's Defence Academy…."

WorldNetDaily 5/2/00 Col David Hackworth "…..The 25th anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam was like a slow-moving, thousand-mile-long funeral procession. The media relentlessly barraged us with worn memories. The tube, magazines and newspapers picked at the scars of the war until they got down to the bloodless bone. Rarely was anything substantial covered…… For the past couple of weeks the war's been dissected, resected and intersected. Once again the guilty were nailed to the cross and the flawed strategies rehashed. The Black Wall was shot from every TV angle, along with the mourners gathered there -- the amateurs with their cameras and the Old Guard professionals dressed in their standard, now-very-tired camouflage gear and beribboned hats. Strangely, in all this dark deliberation, precious little has been said about the grunts who fought in Vietnam. You remember them, the kids who were sent there to be cannon fodder, so badly trained and with hardly a clue about the purpose of the conflict. You know, the 18- and 19-year-olds who toted the Black Stick, the M-16 rifle, the worst infantry weapon ever placed in an American soldier's hands. A favorite, of course, of the racketeers in Washington who I'm sure bought Colt Industries low and sold high oh-so patriotically. ……"

Russia Today 5/16/00 "……."We are on the threshold of large-scale military and military-technical cooperation between our countries," Interfax quoted Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk as saying on 13 May, following a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham Van Tra. The two sides plan to sign a five-year military cooperation accord by September. "Ukraine is ready to sell military equipment to Vietnam. ….."

AP/Orlando Sentinel 8/23/99 "……Jack Bomar still has nightmares about the beatings administered by "Fidel," a Cuban government agent in North Vietnam who tortured him and 17 other U.S. prisoners of war some three decades ago. "I wake up at night and I am in a situation back there," the retired Air Force colonel said. "Sometimes I am trying to bail out of my airplane, or sometimes it might be Fidel there, waiting to hammer me." Recently declassified Defense Department documents say three Cubans were sent to North Vietnam by Cuba to deal with U.S. POWs in what became known as the Cuba Program. …..Now, some former POWs are thinking of suing the Cuban government for reparations, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. ……"

The Washington Times 7/14/00 Carter Dougherty "…..The United States and Vietnam Thursday signed a historic agreement to open trade between the former enemies, capping a nearly five-year-long roller coaster of efforts that began when the Clinton administration lifted the decades-old American economic embargo on Vietnam in 1995. President Clinton welcomed the deal at a ceremony at the White House Rose Garden Thursday afternoon, saying it would hasten the reconciliation between two nations that were at war only a quarter-century ago……."

WorldNetDaily 8/10/00 Jon Dougherty "..... Though expanding trade worldwide has been a priority of the Clinton administration, as well as pro-trade factions within the Republican Congress, most Americans show little support for re-opening normal trade ties with former U.S. enemy Vietnam. According to Portrait of America, only 22 percent of respondents to a new poll measuring support for a recently signed deal with Vietnam favor any U.S. trade with a communist country. Further, poll analysts found, 49 percent say the U.S. should not trade with Vietnam specifically. Also, "Portrait of America found little substantive difference in attitudes toward Vietnam between Americans who had an immediate family member in the Vietnam war and Americans who had no one in their close family involved in the war," the survey said. ....."

WorldNetDaily 8/23/00 Geoff Metcalf "…… President Clinton reportedly plans to visit China and Vietnam before the end of his term, and, according to high-ranking Navy officers, the commander in chief will alter long-standing naval regulations to allow the American flag to fly below that of Vietnam when he sails into the communist nation's territorial waters on a U.S. Navy ship. Highly placed Navy sources who spoke on condition of anonymity believe this action on the president's part would further devastate already tenuous Navy morale. …….. As part of his swan song, Clinton reportedly intends to visit two ports aboard Naval vessels. Trip one takes him to the People's Republic of China, which has a regulation that no war ship of any country may enter its territorial waters flying a flag higher than that of the People's Republic of China. According to one Navy source, China and the U.S. have effected a compromise whereby both flags -- the U.S. and the PRC -- will be flown from U.S. naval vessels at the same height. But visceral outrage is resulting from a proposed change to Navy regulations that would result in the American flag being displayed subordinate to the flag of Vietnam. ……"

San Antonio Express-News 9/15/00 Sig Christenson "…… Former Vietnam prisoners of war in Texas and around the nation greeted word of President Clinton's planned visit to Vietnam this fall with anger, skepticism and, in some cases, grudging approval. Revealed by the White House on the eve of POW-MIA Day, the trip was cautiously welcomed by Brig. Gen. Robbie Risner, who led POWs at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" for much of his 71/2 years in captivity. But retired Air Force Lt. Col. Lauren "Laurie" Lengyel, a POW for 51/2 years, echoed others in ripping Clinton, saying he is the wrong man for the mission because he avoided the draft during that war. The trip to Vietnam will be the first by a president since Richard Nixon went there in July 1969. ……"

ABC News.com/Reuters 11/19/00 "….President Clinton ended a historic visit to Vietnam Sunday saying years of animosity were past, despite sparring over human rights and political freedoms with the country"s communist rulers. Clinton"s three-day visit was the first to the country by a U.S. president since the late Richard Nixon in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, which killed more than three million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans. Clinton, his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea drew enthusiastic crowds in the seat of communist power Hanoi, and also in Ho Chi Minh City..."

New York Times 11/18/00 AJ Langguth "…..As President Clinton talked with officials in Hanoi this week, he undoubtedly hoped to lay groundwork for more progress in what is already a much improved relationship with Vietnam. And chances are his hosts, who have much to gain from stronger ties, did what they could to build a case that a friendly and prosperous Vietnam is very much in America's interest. In 1997, when the American visitor to Hanoi was Robert McNamara, General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnam's legendary hero in its wars against France and the United States, carried the theme to what might seem an extreme: he broached the idea of a future American-Vietnamese alliance……."

AP 11/17/00 "……A controversy arose over the way President Clinton's speech was translated Friday at Vietnam National University, but there was nobody to blame except the State Department. The U.S. embassy assigned a translator who spoke in a southern Vietnamese dialect, which can be confusing to people in the north, embassy officials said. ……"

The Hindu 11/8/00 P Jayaram "...... HANOI: India's warming relations with Southeast Asian countries are not directed against any other country, including China, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said on Wednesday. They are only a "reaffirmation of the ancient, geographical, cultural andpolitical links. This is not directed against anybody or any other country," he said. Singh was responding to a question at a press conference about China'snon-inclusion in the proposed Ganga-Mekong Swarnabhoomi (land of gold) Linkage project that he and his counterparts from Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are scheduled to launch at the Laotian capital of Vientiane on November 10...."

Bahrain Tribune 10/31/00 David Brunnstrom Hanoi "……When President Bill Clinton visits Hanoi next month Vietnamese and American actors will aim to show him the hippy-era dream, make love not war, can be a reality. Just before Clinton arrives in mid-November as the first US President to visit Vietnam since the late Richard Nixon in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, the Hanoi Opera House will premiere a unique version of A Midsummer Night's Dream...."