Hanoi

Truong Chinh, a party founder, a key figure in five wars and the man regarded as Vietnam's strictest ideologue, was named Monday as leader of the ruling Communist Party in Vietnam. The 79-year-old Chinh succeeds Le Duan, who died last week, as the all-powerful party secretary general.

The six-member Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations today urged a normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam, saying the move is crucial in settling the Cambodian conflict. The appeal by foreign ministers of ASEAN--made up of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore and the Philippines--came a day after the group proposed indirect peace talks between Hanoi and an alliance of three major resistance groups led by former Cambodian monarch Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Do Muoi and Premier Vo Van Kiet arrive in Beijing today on a five-day visit aimed at formal normalization of ties. China had close relations with Vietnam's Communists from 1949 until the late 1970s, when Hanoi sent troops into Cambodia and Beijing responded by launching a brief border war. Throughout the 1980s, the two sides backed opposing factions in Cambodia. Sino-Viet relations have improved in recent years.

Vietnamese officials told Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and a congressional delegation Saturday that some Americans may still be living in remote sections of Vietnam that are not under government control. The Americans also were told that Vietnam soon will hand over the remains of 14 U.S. soldiers who were killed during the war and will provide information on an additional 70 listed as missing in action.

Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage denied Tuesday that the U.S. government has covered up reports that Americans are still being held prisoner in Indochina. Such allegations, he told a news conference, harm official efforts to determine the fate of about 2,400 Americans still listed as missing in action in the Vietnam War. Armitage headed a U.S. delegation to Hanoi that concluded talks Tuesday with Vietnamese officials on the American MIAs.

An emissary from President Clinton said Monday that two days of talks with the Vietnamese government have raised new doubts about the authenticity of a report discovered in Moscow that appears to show that Hanoi lied about the number of American prisoners it held at the end of the war. John W. Vessey Jr.

American senators who visited two prisons and a remote mountain area on Friday found no evidence of American POWs but came away impressed by Vietnam's new spirit of cooperation. The senators also returned with an appreciation of how hard it is to track down the missing in a land of jungles, hills and tropical rice paddies, a quarter-century after they disappeared. Two of them, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.