The Mood of Hanoi: Lonely and Alert

From Hanoi, a city generally closed to American journalists, Correspondent Joel Henri of Agence France-Presse last week cabled the following report for TIME:

ON several occasions in the last few days, the B-52s could be heard "at work" south of the capital. The earth trembled for a few seconds [in Hanoi], houses shuddered. Then silence; even the crickets ceased to chirp. But then MIGs, returning from their mission, swept over the rooftops wing to wing, with jet engines screaming, and disappeared toward their airfields and underground shelters. At first, Hanoians stopped to look up at the sky, listened and wondered, "Are they ours or the Americans'?" Now they just carry on. Ears have become attuned to MIGs, Phantoms and B-52s, even when the B-52s are far off, invisible at over 50,000 feet. "They cheer you up, those MIGs," the Vietnamese say.

Hanoians are not awed by the giant eight-engine B-52s with their 30 tons of bombs. People who spent several years in the vicinity of Vinh Linh, near the 17th parallel, where B-52s were operating practically every day, explain to us: "Of course, if you're just underneath, you haven't much of a chance. But when you get used to them, you know how not to be underneath. Just look at Quang Tri. With their thousands of tons of bombs, they didn't stop our troops." And they add matter-of-factly: "Do you have a flashlight?" You reply, "No, why?" And they explain: "It's important at night when you have to get away." That suggests that you can get hurt more readily by falling than by being hit by a B-52 bomb.

Future Plans. Pham Van Dong, the Premier, who has stayed on in Hanoi, told a journalist: "Of course they can blow all of this up [meaning his offices]. And then what? That's not what's going to change the course of history." Then he talks about the future: plans for travel abroad to establish ties for cooperation with all those who showed understanding for [North] Viet Nam during these terrible, decisive hours. In ministry files, partly evacuated to caves on high plateaus, are plans for the Viet Nam of tomorrow, "reunited by the Vietnamese alone," as Pham Van Dong puts it. Joke or political gesture, some people here claim: "The Premier is quite ready to organize a 'political tea party' with a President Nixon who has finally understood the wisdom of the seven points of the P.R.G. [Provisional Revolutionary Government]." Peking, Moscow, why not Hanoi?

The [North] Vietnamese are no kamikazes. They have carefully weighed the risks, and they are taking precautions to avoid human and material losses to the maximum if Nixon should decide to punish Hanoi. Metal helmets have reappeared, hanging from bicycle handlebars in every variety, from French 1914-18 and Dien Bien Phu vintage to Japanese, Soviet and American. The day after the April 16 bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong, unexploded bombs were being defused. The next job was to clear away the debris. Human chains of girls and boys carrying small baskets, swaying at the ends of long poles, piled up the bricks that could still be used, and reinforced shelters with rubble. Metal from burned-out trucks and railroad cars was deposited on dumps. In Hanoi, where material damage was slight, youths fixed up a kind of "pop" shelter using the burned body of a car; they half buried it and covered it over with earth. Temporary houses were erected in a day. Ten bamboo poles, some thatch, and life can go on.

Nearly half the population of the city of 500,000 people has been evacuated in recent years and Hanoi today is ready to face another war of destruction from the air. Ten exhausting days have just been spent completing the latest evacuation program. First of all, people had to be convinced. In every street there was always one family which absolutely refused to budge. To cope with this situation, party members, usually women, went from door to door to explain the situation. Salary advances were granted so people could be equipped with mosquito nets, nylon fabrics and oil stoves. Departures took place generally at dawn, since American planes prowl later in the day. Families assembled under trees with their bundles. Old aunts invariably insisted upon bringing along bric-a-brac--absolutely essential for this kind of adventure. They brought the most extraordinary packages, held together with ingenious stringwork and fastened to the roof of a bus or to the back of a bike. Then off they went. Newspapers published advice: "Warning: in the country don't drink just any water. And here's what to do in case of fever."

The capital seems a little empty, especially without children; the little kings of the street, full of pranks and gaiety, curious and friendly. Poetically named streets around the central market--Silk Street, Money Changers Street, Weights Street--are deserted. The old trolley car, with its long pole, ambles on undisturbed, no longer obliged to sound its bell to clear the way of pedestrians. The tiny "pho" shops selling Chinese soup (which is not Chinese at all but Tonkinese) are closed. The Hanoi Chinese have all abandoned the city, the restaurant owners gone who knows where, perhaps to their cousins in China.

It is lonely in Hanoi. Cinemas are closed. There is a permanent alert. Antiaircraft defenses have been reinforced, but daily life goes on as usual. Sufficient personnel have been left in the city to maintain such basic services as electricity, drugstores, hospitals. Brewers send around small vans that stop under trees at street corners and everyone has his glass of beer. Factory restaurants keep serving meals. Shelters have been dug near by for those who have stayed on. The cost of living is relatively stable, and chicken still sells for about 500 a pound.

There is a friendly colony of pro-Vietnamese foreigners in Hanoi, among them a Swedish diplomat, Algerian, French, Italian and Cuban journalists, the reserved and solitary Chinese, some English and Canadians, and some Muscovites who never comment on any situation until they have read Pravda.

Last month there were important visitors like Konstantin Katushev, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R., and Nikolai Firiubin of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. They were courteously received and left convinced that the Vietnamese were determined to settle their affair with Mr. Nixon by themselves, a reliable source told me.

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