AFTER "TET'., MEASURING AND REPAIRING DAMAGE

In the first shock and confusion that followed the Communists' country wide Tet offensive six weeks ago, it was difficult, dangerous and, in remote areas, impossible to assess accurately the damage done by the enemy. Now, with roads, communications and security gradually being restored, a firmer measure can be taken -- even though the final, definitive picture may not emerge for some months yet. For military and administrative purposes, South Viet Nam is divided into four corps areas that run from north to south, plus the special capital zone of Saigon and surrounding Gia Dinh province. Last week TIME sent a team of five correspondents from its Saigon bureau, one to each of the corps areas and the capital zone, to find out just how much havoc the Communist at tacks had wrought, and what the allies are doing to repair it. Their reports:

I Corps

Viet Nam's northernmost corps, unwilling host to some 55,000 North Vietnamese invaders, is less a pacification prospect than an open battlefield. It was there that the 24-day battle for Hue took place, the most determined of the Communists' 35 attacks on South Vietnamese cities. Some 5,350 civilians were killed in all, including 4,100 in Hue; another 4,500 were seriously injured. The existing refugee ranks of 250,000 were swelled by an additional 107,000, some 90,000 of these from Hue alone--out of the city's pre-Tet population of 130,000. Three-fourths of the 12,000 houses destroyed and the 10,000 heavily damaged were in Hue; destruction was made easier, of course, by the fact that in many parts of I Corps, as elsewhere in Viet Nam, houses are often primitive and fragile structures.

Largely because of interdicted roads and waterways, business and commerce throughout I Corps is down some 20%. Pre-Tet, me pacification program embraced fewer than 300 of the corps' 4,000 hamlets. Even so, two-thirds of the Revolutionary Development pacification teams had to abandon their assigned hamlets when the shooting started. Some 80 R.D. teams have since gone back to their hamlets.

The allies are making major efforts to improve security along the highways and waterways; two weeks ago the first truck convoy since Tet, bearing relief goods for Hue, moved up the vital Highway 1 from Danang to the stricken city. In the face of the massive Communist threat throughout the corps, little else but mobile defense is being undertaken. Some 2,000 civilian volunteers are being armed in Hue, Danang, Quang Tri City and other cities as "people's self-defense forces."

II Corps

Despite the savage fighting in Kontum and Pleiku during Tet, the early evidence indicates that the large central part of Viet Nam--the Highlands--may have escaped with less damage than any of the other corps areas.

The civilian dead in II Corps total 1,100, the wounded 4,000, the new refugees 103,000. Some 12,000 houses were destroyed and another 4,000 heavily damaged. The security of the corps' road network is about the same as pre-Tet, but that is not saying much; even then, an armed convoy was needed to traverse all major roads. Sixty of the 252 R.D. teams assigned to hamlets are still out of position, unable to go back because security cannot be guaranteed them. One area abandoned: the coastal strip just north of Qui Nhon. "The '68 pacification program has been set back," admits Major General William R. Peers, acting commander of Field Force I, "and we'll have to take another look." Nevertheless, as another U.S. official put it: "My heart went up into my throat when the Tet offensive came. But now it appears that we did not get hurt as badly as we first thought."

III Corps

The overall situation in strategic III Corps, a 10,000-sq.-mi. area ringing the capital zone of Saigon, remains guardedly favorable. There is firm evidence that if the government reacts promptly enough, it may be able to recoup practically all the losses sustained at Tet.

Before Tet, CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support) estimated that 82% of the population of 5.3 million lived in secure hamlets, some 13% in contested hamlets and only a scant 5% under hardcore Viet Cong hegemony. "We're still in a state of flux concerning recent losses or gains," says CORDS Deputy John P. Vann. "We're not sure what resulted from drawing in over 6,000 R.D. cadre and some of the regional and popular forces to province and district towns." But the estimates are that Communist real estate and population gains will be small in III Corps. Civilian casualties were also low: 188 dead, some 1,000 wounded or missing. But 10,000 houses were destroyed, and the area has 50,000 new refugees.

Fully 95% of the 5,000 R.D. workers are now back in their hamlets, and local officials have moved quickly to care for refugees and begin reconstruction of houses. In Tay Ninh province, building materials and food supplies arrived as soon as the Communists were routed from Long My, and cash payments of $42 were made at once to each homeless family. The Communists made a major effort to cut the corps' road system, mostly by blowing up bridges, but all but one of the corps' major roads have been kept open, with no break lasting longer than 24 hours.

The Saigon Capital Zone South Viet Nam's capital now wears the air of "nervous normalcy" to which more isolated province capitals have grown accustomed. Most businesses have reopened, but stocks are low. The western one-third of the Chinese quarter of Cholon is still insecure at night, the work of several hundred Viet Cong who are still holed up around the race track. Saigon lost, it is now estimated, 6,300 civilians during the fighting; another 11,000 were wounded.

A total of nearly 19,000 structures were destroyed in the city itself, and more than 2,300 in Gia Dinh province. All told, the capital district has 206,000 new refugees living in 114 temporary quarters and camps. It will probably take eight months to find adequate new housing for them all. For once, the Saigonese have given the government good marks--for its prompt aid to the refugees. There has also been a noticeable decrease in neutralism among the populace, which seems to be swinging more toward antiCommunism. The South Vietnamese army is getting an unprecedented average of 300 volunteers a day from the Saigon area.

IV Corps

The Tet blows left the Delta stunned --disoriented, inert, and so traumatized that it could not even assess its own wounds. But now there is a stirring in hot, flat, sunbaked IV Corps, a probing of wounds, an application of first aid, and even plans for recovery.

Estimates of damage and casualties in the Delta are spottier than elsewhere, because even pre-Tet the government's control was a sometime thing. Of the 5,274 hamlets in IV Corps, 2,000 were under Saigon's rule, 2,000 under that of the Viet Cong and the rest neither quite one nor the other. But 1,300 civilians are believed dead, 3,700 wounded. Before Tet, the Delta had 14,000 refugees; now there are 170,000, the product of 19,000 houses destroyed and 5,000 heavily damaged. Road traffic is a fifth or less of normal traffic.

"Some provinces are an exception," says Fitzhugh Turner, chief of U.S. psychological warfare in the Delta, "but, in general, we're pinned down." The other half of the Delta's transport system, its waterways, are running at nearly 75% of normal traffic loads, however. There is little shortage of food in the rice-rich Delta, and thus little inflation. The attacks closed the Delta's schools, pulled most of the 10,000 pacification workers into the towns. There is no doubt that the Viet Cong have added to their extensive Delta holdings, and will dig in.

The government has launched an ambitious program to put the Delta's new homeless back under their own roofs, but the actual rebuilding of houses is only just beginning. The schools will reopen within a month. CORDS officials are trying to organize commercial convoys--fleets of trucks guarded by military vehicles--over the enemy-interdicted roads. Some 70% of the R.D. workers have returned to their posts but, in some provinces, such as Kien Giang, Phong Dinh and Kien Phong, there is no chance of a return. The Viet Cong pressure is just too heavy.

When all the parts are added up, the dimensions of South Viet Nam's losses since Tet become clear: 14,300 civilians dead, 24,000 wounded, 72,000 houses destroyed, 627,000 new refugees. Of the 35 cities hit, ten suffered major damage: Kontum, Pleiku, Ban Me Thuot, My Tho, Ben Tre, Vinh Long, Chau Doc, Can Tho, Saigon and Hue. CORDS officials estimate that 13 of the country's 44 provinces were so badly hit that pacification has been set back to where it stood at the beginning of 1967. In an additional 16 provinces, it will take three to six months to get the program working again. Only 60% of the Revolutionary Development workers have so far been reported at their posts. And, even when nearly all the pacification workers are back on the job, it will be a different kind of job for quite a while: rebuilding the ruins of Tet rather than nation building for the future.

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