U.S., Vietnam Exchange War Artifacts

Hanoi—Top U.S. and Vietnamese defense officials exchanged letters and diaries of fallen soldiers taken during the Vietnam war, the highest level exchange of artifacts since the normalization of relations 17 years ago.

Vietnamese Minister of Defense Gen Phung Quang Thanh also announced that Hanoi would open up three additional sites to teams from the United States hunting for the remains of service members missing in action from the war.

Gen. Quang Thanh presented U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta with the letters taken from a 101st Airborne Division soldier, Sgt. Steve Flaherty, killed in 1969 and later used for propaganda broadcasts by North Vietnam.

Mr. Panetta, in exchange, presented a diary taken from a fallen North Vietnamese soldier by a U.S. Marine. The exchange took place in Vietnam's Ministry of Defense, the K2000.

"This historic exchange between defense leaders demonstrates the progress and partnership our two nations have made in the 17 years since the normalization of relations," said Pentagon Press Secretary George Little.

The diary, by Vu Dinh Doan, was presented to the Department of Defense by the PBS program "History Detectives," which tracked down the family of the Vietnamese soldier and asked the U.S. government to help to return the diary to the Vietnamese government. The diary was originally taken from Mr. Doan's body by a U.S. Marine, Robert Frazure.

Sgt. Flaherty's letters were taken from his body after he was killed in March 1969. After the war, a Vietnamese senior colonel kept the letters. In August 2011, in an online posting, the retired colonel made reference to the letters. A retired Department of Defense employee discovered the online posting, and raised the issue with the Pentagon, which requested their return.

The letters of Sgt. Flaherty, originally from Columbia, S.C., will be returned to his family.