Word: viet
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...poured cold water on Hanoi's offer of a nonaggression pact. The pact was apparently designed to allay ASEAN fears that have been raised by the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, but Hanoi's prospective partners in the treaty would have none of it. Malaysia, which is probably Viet Nam's closest friend in ASEAN, pointedly noted that if Hanoi wanted to prove its sincerity, "deeds should speak louder than words...
Soviet "volunteer" technicians assist not only in the operation of Viet Nam's major airfields, but also in keeping open its ports. To move Hanoi's troops between its forward bases in Cambodia and the China border and the rest of Viet Nam, Soviet pilots fly them in mammoth Antonov-22 transports. Tan Son Nhut airport near Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) is kept busy handling incoming flights of Ilyushin-76s, carrying pallets of artillery ammunition for use, presumably, in Cambodia. Danang airport, almost a ghost field after 1975, now serves as a refueling base for long...
Even the old Air America routes in Laos have been partly taken over by Soviet pilots in Antonov-12s. There have been reports that some of the pilots supplement their income by smuggling Laotian gold into Viet Nam. Observed a cynical military attaché: "Without the Russians it would be almost impossible to move around the greater Vietnamese Empire, er, excuse me, the Greater Indochina Co-Prosperity Sphere...
...Viet Nam, which once touted itself as a model of socialist development, has become a troubled pariah. It is only now recovering slowly from the bloody but inconclusive border war with China. Although the repressive regime of Cambodia's Premier, Pol Pot, has been driven out of Phnom Penh, Vietnamese forces are bogged down in what appears to be a protracted guerrilla war in Cambodia...
...delegation from the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong that he would "fly to New York" the following day, if necessary, to reopen stalled talks with the U.S. on normalizing relations. He even hinted, preposterously, that Hanoi might permit the U.S. military to use its former bases in Viet Nam if relations improved. "There are two eventualities facing Viet Nam," he said. "One is normalization with the U.S. to diversify our relations. The other is no normalization and no diversification. The door is very widely open...