Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 17, 1992 TAG: 9202170030
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HONG KONG LENGTH: Medium
VIETNAM RUNS PR CAMPAIGN
A MARATHON BRINGS together an international group of runners - and a world- lass public relations outfit.
Vietnam's marathon campaign to end a U.S. economic embargo on the CommunistO country switched into high gear Sunday with the real thing: the first Ho Chi Minh City International Marathon.
Public relations giant Hill and Knowlton was there to help, as were some former American GIs and an American-owned sports promotion company, Sports Asia Ltd. of Hong Kong.
Vietnamese officials said they hoped the race through the heart of what was once Saigon would help catapult the poverty-stricken country out of its international isolation.
"It represents an opportunity to show that we are running towards an era of increased international cooperation," said Le Buu, a former Viet Cong soldier who now directs Ho Chin Minh City's Sport and Gymnastic Service.
"We're all part of the same world," said Bob Farmer, a 43-year-old American veteran who was among several former GIs who came for a weekend of international running events. He was blinded in one eye during the Vietnam War while on a patrol in the demilitarized zone.
A wheelchair division marathon was canceled Saturday, said Brian DeLaporta, an executive for the public-relations firm of Hill and Knowlton, which is promoting the marathon.
DeLaporta said the event was eliminated apparently because the Vietnamese do not take part in sports events for the handicapped.
"Of course it's disappointing, but we still achieved two of our goals," said George Gentry, 50, of Long Beach, Calif., who lost both legs in a mine explosion in Vietnam in 1967.
He said some handicapped athletes were giving Vietnamese three racing wheelchairs and "extending the Vietnamese a hand of friendship."
A Hong Kong-based Briton, Tim Sautar, won the men's marathon, and a Vietnamese, Dang Thi Teo, was the top woman runner. About 50 Americans were among the 350 entrants from 26 nations.
The presence of Hill and Knowlton, part of the British-owned WPP conglomerate, highlighted Vietnam's desire to combat the U.S. embargo imposed in 1975 when North Vietnam overran South Vietnam.
The firm's American subsidiary occasionally has taken on controversial clients and drawn accusations of trying to shape U.S. foreign policy. Among past clients were China after its crackdown on the democracy movement in 1989 and Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion in 1990.
Executives in Hill and Knowlton's Asian office stressed they were working for Bruce Aitken, the American owner of Sports Asia, and not the Vietnamese government. But they acknowledged the end result was the same.
The firm issued a detailed information packet on the race and persuaded normally suspicious Vietnamese officials to issue temporary credentials to scores of reporters in the country on tourist visas.
Thomas Mattia, managing director of Hill and Knowlton Asia and also an American, said he agreed with the goals of the race.
"It does help the rest of the world see that Vietnam is a real place with real people," he said.
Mattia said Americans could be associated with the marathon because they were not paying Vietnam anything.
Vietnam has been pursuing radical economic reforms since 1986. But success has been constrained by U.S. policies, which deny Vietnam access to loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Per-capita income hovers around $200 a year.
Last year, the United States told Vietnam that normal relations would require more cooperation in the search for American servicemen missing from the Vietnam War and help in ending the civil war in Cambodia.