Vietnam, host of US-North Korea talks, offers lessons in reconciliation

HANOI — The Vietnamese capital once trembled as waves of American bombers unleashed their payloads, but when Kim Jong Un arrives in Hanoi for his summit with President Trump he won’t find rancor toward a former enemy. Instead the North Korean leader will get a glimpse at the potential rewards of reconciliation.

By the time the Vietnam War ended in 1975, tens of thousands of tons of explosives had been dropped on Hanoi and nearly two decades of fighting had killed 3 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 Americans. Vietnam, though victorious, lay devastated by American firepower, with cities in ruins and fields and forests soaked in toxic herbicides and littered with unexploded ordnance.