Cutting Off Haiphong

Free-world trade with North Viet Nam has dwindled drastically in the past year, but even a trickle strikes Washington as too much. On White House orders, the U.S. Maritime Administration announced this month that vessels hauling freight to Haiphong would be barred from carrying U.S. Government cargoes anywhere in the world. Last week the A.F.L.-C.I.O. maritime unions demanded that such ships be denied entry to U.S. ports. Otherwise, they warned in a tartly worded telegram to President Johnson, waterfront workers in 29 unions would boycott all ships owned by any foreign nation that earns "blood money" by trading with North Viet Nam.

Actually, the Administration's blacklist is based more on principle than on strategic considerations. Of 119 free-flag ships that called at North Vietnamese ports in 1965 (v. 401 in 1964), only 44 did so after the President's July decision to build up U.S. military aid to Saigon. The U.S. faces a difficult problem in cutting the flow further, since this nation is not formally at war with North Viet Nam and must rely on persuasion rather than force to stop the trade. But the expressions of disapproval--and the high cost of insurance--have had some effect. So far this year, only eight small non-Communist tramps have made the run to Haiphong (v. 32 in the same period last year), mostly under British registry out of Hong Kong. Moreover, the British contend that this trade, while economically negligible, may actually benefit the U.S. "After all," said an English official in Saigon last week, "there are certain intelligence advantages in having a British skipper going into Hanoi now and then."

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