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- THE WEEKWORLD, Page 20Hanoi Show-and-Tell
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- To prove there are no POWs, Vietnam showers Senators with grisly
- artifacts
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- Determined to put to rest chronic suspicions that they are
- hiding live American POWs, Vietnamese officials pulled out all
- stops to cooperate with a visiting delegation from the U.S.
- Senate. Not only were Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and his
- colleagues permitted to wander freely about the Vietnamese
- military headquarters known as the Citadel, they were buried in
- previously withheld documents and paraphernalia from dead and
- captured Americans. Included among the wartime artifacts handed
- over to Kerry were a handful of Social Security cards, a charred
- diary, flight suits worn by downed pilots, and a helmet said to
- have been left behind by Senator John McCain, a member of
- Kerry's subcommittee on MIA-POW affairs who was a prisoner in
- Vietnam for five years. Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet said his goal
- was to "resolve all aspects of the issue of missing Americans"
- so that full diplomatic relations could be restored. Kerry said
- he would tell President George Bush that the Vietnamese had been
- "forthcoming." That may be the signal Bush is seeking to lift
- economic sanctions before he leaves office in January. "My hope
- is that the President will listen carefully to the arguments for
- why there ought to be a U.S. response," Kerry said. "You cannot
- make this a one-way street forever."
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