TNAG-0890-FCO40-1100-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 50

5

an advance commitment on aid.

We next met with the Vietnamese in New York for several

rounds of informal discussions in the fall of last year.

Initially, the Vietnamese appeared reluctant to aband on

their position on aid but eventually stated flatly that they ́

would not longer demand a U.S. commitment on bilateral economic

assistance as a quid pro quo for normalization. In addition,

the Vietnamese indicated they would continue to make efforts

to provide us with an MIA accounting. For our part, we

reiterated our belief that the Vietnamese should be doing more

to provide us with an accounting of our MIAS. As Bob Oakley

indicated during his testimony last month, when troublesome

developments of concern to us began to appear in Vietnamese.

actions and statements during the fall, we asked the Vietnamese

for clarification. We requested that the Vietnamese inform us

of their intentions toward Kampuchea, given the massive SRV

罩

troop buildup then underway along their border with that country,

increasingly harsh Vietnamese public statements attacking the

Kampuchean government and calling upon the Kampuchean people

to rise up in revolt against it, and announced Vietnamese

support for the so-called National Salvation Front as the

preferred replacement government. In so doing, we made clear

that we were not taking sides in Vietnam's dispute with Kampuchea,

that we ourselves had long been at the forefront of those

nations denouncing the Pol Pot Government for its terrible