(17 Nov 2000) Natural Sound

U-S President Bill Clinton opened a historic visit on Friday to Vietnam with a red-carpet welcome ceremony near the mausoleum of the legendary Ho Chi Minh, architect of the communist victory over U-S-backed forces 25 years ago.

Curious onlookers, some of them waving, stood three and four deep on the streets as Clinton's motorcade rode to the French-built presidential palace on Ba Dinh Square.

The palace is a stone's throw from the gray stone building where long lines of Vietnamese line up each day to pay respects to the late leader known as Uncle Ho.

A military band played the national anthems of the United States and Vietnam as Clinton and President Tran Duc Luong stood under a canopied platform in the warm morning sun. An honor guard of military troops stood at attention.

On a visit that stirs painful memories back home of America's long and most unpopular war, Clinton promised "to build a different future" with its former enemy.

Clinton arrived in the communist capital late on Thursday, the first U-S president ever in Hanoi, a city once bombed by American warplanes.

The war cost 58-thousand American lives and tore apart the nation with suffering and turmoil.

The U-S military buildup began in 1961, growing to 60-thousand combat troops within four years and to 543-thousand by 1969.

U-S forces in 1973 made a humiliating withdrawal that still haunts the Pentagon.

North Vietnam's army captured Saigon in 1975, leading to the unification of the country under communist control.

The losses to the Vietnamese people were staggering: 3 (m) million dead and thousands missing.

Thousands of Vietnamese lined the streets at midnight for a glimpse of Clinton's limousine and jammed the square in front of his hotel.

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