Hanoi

HANOI, Vietnam -- After decades of war and estrangement, the United States and Vietnam formally established diplomatic relations yesterday in a simple signing ceremony that capped the 20-year process of the United States' coming to terms with the Vietnam War.The visit by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was loaded with symbolism, some intentional and some not, from the moment his jet taxied past a row of Vietnamese jet fighters at Hanoi's Noi...

Washington. SOME AMERICANS ARE upset when one of their countrymen goes to an enemy capital and speaks out against U.S. bombing, asserting that many civilians are being killed cruelly and unnecessarily. But it happens.It happened 19 years ago in Hanoi, and it happened last week in Baghdad.The outspoken American this time was not Jane Fonda, who won the sobriquet of "Hanoi Jane" when she went there during the Vietnam war and posed at an anti-aircraft gun pretending to fire at U.S. planes. She has sort of apologized since then, and her youthful indiscretions have not kept her from making millions the red-white-and-blue capitalist way.But another career controversialist has had the guts, or the monomania, or the political bitterness, to go to both Hanoi and Baghdad -- and say virtually the same thing both places.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Intel's billion-dollar Vietnam bet along the Hanoi Highway - its biggest semiconductor manufacturing plant ever - is rising from the flatlands of former rice fields. The Santa Clara, Calif., chip giant jolted the tech world two years ago when it announced it would build a huge assembly factory in this Southeast Asian country known more for making shoes and growing crops than assembling key PC components. Intel Corp. picked Vietnam, a nation of 85 million that lacks a single world-class university, over India, whose army of engineers has reordered the global software industry.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- The Dan Sinh black market still sells purloined Pentagon paraphernalia, from flak jackets to canteens to military timepieces labeled "Watch, Wrist, General Purpose."Out on the busy street, vendors sell U.S. dog tags, each stamped with a soldier's name, serial number, blood type and religion. Others peddle fake Zippo cigarette lighters, each marked with a soldier's slogan. "Let me win your heart and mind, or I'll burn your goddam hut down," says one, attributed to John D., Airborne, Tuy Hoa, Vietnam '66-'67.

At home in Hanoi; My favorite placeThere are places I have been to for which I have no address, but could, if pressed, describe how to find them. And then there are others that I could never find again if I tried, like the noodle shop in Hanoi where I ate a steaming bowl of po, seated on a pail turned upside down next to a young man named Tran. I arrived there on the back of Tran's moped and the insides of my calves were black with motor oil. I was one of only two women in this lean-to on a downtown side street, and this made me an oddity.

Resumption of full diplomatic relations with Vietnam, which President Clinton is expected to announce this afternoon, will fulfill the road map of reconciliation that the Bush administration drew with that country's regime in 1991.The carefully orchestrated normalization began with the opening of a U.S. office in Hanoi that year, to seek information on servicemen missing in action from the Vietnam war. President Bush eased the embargo to permit humanitarian sales. Before leaving office, he allowed U.S. companies to open offices in Vietnam and do feasibility studies.

TED SAMPLEY, 62 Vietnam veteran, activist for POWs Ted Sampley, a Vietnam War veteran and former member of the Green Berets who was a persistent activist for American prisoners of war and missing servicemen, and who later led smear campaigns against presidential candidates, died Tuesday at the VA Medical Center in Durham, N.C., of complications from heart surgery. Mr. Sampley was a founder of Rolling Thunder, the annual motorcycle caravan that raises money for POW/MIA causes. In 1994, he presented evidence that the Vietnam-era remains in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery were not anonymous after all. By painstakingly analyzing service records and maps, he concluded that the remains were those of a missing pilot, Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, who was shot down in 1972.

Remember last week on "The Amazing Race," when John had a few extended moments of crazy and got eliminated? That's still funny. But now it is time for the teams to leave Bali and head to Vietnam. "Word on the street," tweets Phil, "is that Hotel California by the Eagles is the #1 karaoke song in Vietnam. "   What happens at the travel agency stays at the travel agency Father and Son Dave and Connor are planning to leave the Race. Dave's surgeon at home has recommended surgery within seven days, so they plan to fly to Hanoi and be eliminated.

CU CHI, Vietnam -- Galvanized by the U.S. government's exhaustive and expensive search for its Vietnam war dead, Vietnamese families are renewing personal efforts and pushing their government to accelerate searches for the remains of more than 150,000 of their own soldiers who did not return home.Highly publicized searches by U.S. military personnel "have had a great impact on us," said Hoang Kim Lien, 34, a Hanoi resident whose brother's remains were uncovered this year in Cu Chi. "Before, we did not think it was possible.

In any bureaucracy, policies outlive by years the reasons for their existence. The Soviet menace has disappeared, in the considered view of the U.S. government. The word did not get out to all hands. The U.S. is still trying to contain that menace.The most obvious example is non-recognition of Vietnam. This is treated gingerly, as though sensitivities on the POW-MIA issue make it too hot to handle. But that is not why Washington refuses to recognize Hanoi.Nayan Chanda's carefully researched 1986 book, ''Brother Enemy,'' a history of Vietnam after the war, lays this out. Recognition was in the works during the Carter administration, backed by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.