[originaltext] The first United States ambassador to be appointed to Vietnam

The first United States ambassador to be appointed to Vietnam has been sworn in at a ceremony in Washington. He is Douglas Peterson, a former US air force fighter pilot who was shot down near Hanoi during the war with Vietnam and spent six years as a prisoner of war. Mr Peterson, who later served in the United States House of Representatives, said he saw his main task as trying to heal the wounds left by the conflict which ended with Vietnamese victory over the Americans in 1975.