Those are the Premier's precise words. Today they were officially restated as follows:

"The four-point stand of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam constitutes the basis of a settlement of the Vietnamese problem."

The four-point program is as follows:

1. Recognition of the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Vietnam and the withdrawal of United States forces from the area pending reunification of Vietnam.

2. Respect for the military provisions of the 1954 Geneva agreement, including those barring foreign forces.

3. Settlement of South Vietnam's internal affairs by the South Vietnamese in accordance with the program of the National Liberation Front.

4. Peaceful reunification of Vietnam by the peoples of North and South without foreign interference.

The circumstances of the Premier's statements should be explained. He received this correspondent last Monday afternoon in the Presidential Palace. He had familiarized himself beforehand with a detailed group of questions submitted in advance.

List of questions had been prepared not only for himself but for President Ho Chi Minh and the Defense Minister, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap. It was tacitly understood that the correspondent probably would be received by one, but there was no advance indication of which one.

Premier Dong said he would endeavor to discuss the questions, but not in a formal interview, which he finds uncomfortable. He said he would make a series of observations, then the observations could be discussed and questions put in an informal manner.

He asked that since the interview was being conducted so informally, anything written about it be submitted for checking to make certain that the quotations were precise.

With agreement on these ground rules, the discussion was launched. Mr. Dong divided his remarks into two main sections. The first was devoted to the war, its origin and prospects. The second deal with questions involved in a settlement. There then was considereable interchange, the whole discussion occupying about 41⁄2 hours and touching on most of the vital issues in the conflict.

Certain segments of the discussion were placed off the record. A dispatch reporting on the talk was submitted Tuesday to the Foreign Ministry, which checked it closely, proposing certain textual changes and deletions. Thus the dispatch as transmitted and published represented a careful, accurate report of the Premier's views.

Today's statement was not designed to dispute that dispatch. The ministry rechecked the text after the wave of speculation arose and made some minor clarifications, which are incorporated in the passages quoted in this dispatch as well as in the textual version that accompanies it.

What is the significance of all this?

It appears that the greatest care and caution should be observed in attempting to analyze official North Vietnamese statements. Even when precisely made, they may not be fully understood in the West.

The question of the four points is particularly complex. When Premier Dong says they are not conditions that must be accepted prior to peace negotiation, he is speaking quite sincerely. While Hanoi does not insist that they be agreed upon before it will sit down at the conference table, it does insist on a solution based on them.

Whether this is a distinction without a difference remains to be seen.

If the four points were made the agenda of a conference, the West would certainly presume that there would be give and take and that, in effect, the points were negotiable. But this may not be Hanoi's view at all, especially since the Premier says that the points constitute "conditions for a valid settlement" that "can be enforced."

The speculation and excitement aroused by the interview have been intensified, in the opinion of some diplomats in Hanoi, by a widespread failure in the West to realize that Hanoi has said much the same thing several times."

Whatever the situation, the Premier's entire statement contained a number of illuminating insights into North Vietnamese thinking, not all of which are readily apparent.

CLEARING SKIES BRING U.S. PLANES OVER THE CAPITAL OF NORTH VIETNAM

(By Harrison E. Salisbury)

HANOI, NORTH VIETNAM, Jan. 7.-When the sun finally broke through Hanoi's gray skies at noon yesterday, a resident of the Thongnhat Hotel nodded and said, "We'll be having visitors after lunch." He was right.

Almost on the dot of 2:30 P.M., Hanoi's sirens wailed, the pretty hotel waitresses grabbed their rifles and helmets and the guests filed out into the rear courtyard, where the hotel's three white roosters majestically strut in a tall cage.

Despite the urgings of a small, helmeted, gun-carrying porter, the guests did not enter the air raid shelter, but instead dallied in the warm sun, peering up at the almost cloudless sky.

RIFLEMEN ON ROOFS

On the roofs of nearby buildings, including the State Bank, men with rifles were wheeling right and left watching for planes. Suddenly came the crack of an old-fashioned antiaircraft gun close by, certainly within a block or so. The guests edged a little closer to the bunker's entrance. There was a pause. Then, with deep Martian thunder, Hanoi's SAM's, surface-to-air missiles, opened up and the guests heeded the warden's plea and walked down the concrete steps into the bunker.

The Thongnhat hotel's bunker probably is the flossiest in town. It has park benches and folding chairs on which to recline and a couple of fluorescent lights. It is long and narrow and the concrete floor is clean. It is equipped with oldfashioned red fire extinguishers made by a French concern with the unlikely name of "Compagnie Knock-Out."

After the SAM's had let go once or twice, a high-pitched distant whine was heard. It was the first time this correspondent had actually heard hostile planes overhead, although it was the eighth alert he had undergone in a fortnight in North Vietnam. The characteristic sound of supersonic planes was unmistakable. Veteran's of Hanoi's air raids identified them as F-105's, Republic Thunderchiefs, which may or may not have been accurate.

With the sound of the planes high over the city, the SAM's let go several more times and there was a heavy crash of conventional antiaircraft batteries, though they were mostly some distance away.

This was Hanoi's second alert of the day; there had been a 10-minute alert in the morning but without audible gunfire or planes.

After 20 minutes the all-clear sounded and the guests emerged from the bunker.

RESIDENTS NOTE A LULL

Hanoi residents say there has been a decided lull in close-in bombing since the attacks of Dec. 13 and 14.

Some have attributed this to the presence of a United States correspondent and have predicted that with his departure today the attacks will intensify. Actually there apparently has been considerable air action over Hanoi's more distant approaches.

Efforts by this correspondent to revisit Namdinh, the scene of controversial bombings by United States warplanes, were frustrated because of heavy air action reported in the last few days in areas between Hanoi and Namdinh, about 65 miles to the south.

Many Hanoi residents now consider themselves experts on United States bombing tactics. In recent weeks, they say, American planes have come in from almost any direction and not infrequently are over the city before, or almost simultaneous with, the siren's sound. They attribute this to a low-level approach, which makes radar detection and plotting more difficult.

Not infrequently United States planes are over Hanoi, according to residents, for considerable periods of time. They were reported to have been overhead for about 45 minutes in the Dec. 13 attack, criss-crossing the city as they singled out their targets.

One military observer here expressed some puzzlement over the Dec. 13 and 14 attacks.

He said the targets were small and difficult to hit and had to be approached through antiaircraft fire. He said he was not certain why they had been picked

out, since some seemed to have such small military value. The observers said that he knew from personal observation that there were only 12 or 14 trucks and buses being repaired at Vandien, in the southern outskirts of Hanoi, which was heavily hit.

It was reported that in this attack the Vietnam Polish Friendship Highschool, about three-quarters of a mile from the repair yard, was hit.

"There would seem to be more important military objectives in Hanoi, including, for instance, the Paul Doumer Bridge or the city power plant," the military observer said. "Bombs were dropped at either end of the bridge. But whether the bridge was not a target or the action was accidental or designed to show the bridge could be hit if the United States wanted to certainly wasn't clear."

Diplomats in Hanoi are not exactly pleased at the United States air action in and around Hanoi.

"I know just how the Hanoi people feel," one diplomat's wife said, "When American planes are overhead I'd shoot at them, too, if I had a rifle."

CANADIAN MISSION HIT

Among the buildings that have been hit, reportedly in the Dec. 13 attack, was one housing the Canadian mission to the International Control Commission. One Canadian took some metal fragments, put them in a box and sent it off to friends in Saigon with a note saying, "Look here, chaps, this is getting to be a little bit much!"

"I don't know how well they appreciated his sense of humor down in Saigon," another Canadian said.

A Western diplomat said it was only luck that prevented serious casualties and damage on Dec. 13 at the Chinese, Polish, Rumanian and Russian embassies, which form a quadrangle.

Diplomats from both East and West said that in the attack, a rocket from a United States plane hit a tree just outside the Rumanian Embassy. The rocket engine lodged there. A red-hot chunk of metal was said to have blasted through an open window into Rumanian military attache's office.

The blast is reported to have knocked Rumanians in a shelter in their garden to the floor. Pieces of the rocket shattered a corner of the Chinese Embassy and knocked many tiles from the roof.

Many of the charges and countercharges of the air war remain unresolved as this correspondent's fortnight in Hanoi draws to a close.

Efforts to prolong the stay have been gently discouraged. The original plan was for a one-week visit. This was doubled at this correspondent's request. One thing seems certain: this may have been the first visit of an American correspondent to wartime Hanoi, but it is not likely to be the last.

CATHOLIC CHARITY AIDE VISITING HANOI

(By Harrison E. Salisbury)

HANOL, NORTH VIETNAM, Jan. 7.-Msgr. Georg Hüssler, secretary general of a West German Roman Catholic welfare organization, has arrived in Hanoi-the first foreign Catholic functionary to visit North Vietnam since the establishment of the Communist regime.

Monsignor Hüssler's mission is one of relief. He came to Hanoi with the Rev. Martin Niemöller, a German Evangelical pastor and one-time submarine commander, who was imprisoned by the Nazis, to hold talks with North Vietnamese Red Cross and medical officials.

For some time the German organization, part of Caritas International, has been making a financial contribution to the North Vietnamese Red Cross, to the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front's Red Cross organization and to the Red Cross in South Vietnam.

Now Monsignor Hüssler is seeking to ascertain what medical supplies North Vietnam can use possibly penicillin and other antibiotics, quinine and surgical instruments.

His visit is regarded in other aspects as well. It is taken as a symbol of Pope Paul's deep interest in peace in Vietnam and of the Vatican's abiding interest in strengthening ties with Roman Catholics in the North.

Monsignor Hüssler was to confer with the Catholic hierarchy here, instituting the first personal contact between Rome and the Hanoi churches since the Communist regime took over the North in 1954.

One important aspect of Monsignor Hüssler's visit was understood to be a tangible demonstration that the Vatican's interest is not concentrated exclusively on the church in South Vietnam. The intimate association of the southern church with the Diem regime through the late dictator's brother, the Most Rev. Ngo Dinh Thuc, then Archbishop of Hue, was taken by many in the North as a sign of partisanship in the North-South struggle.

According to an estimate provided by the Rev. Ho Thanh Bien, pastor of St. Dominique Church here, and by what is called the Liaison Committee of Patriotic Catholics, a lay organization, there are just under a million Catholics in the North. No estimate of the number who went South in 1954 was offered, but the generally accepted figure outside Vietnam is a million.

Monsignor Hüssler puts membership in North Vietnam now at something over 700,000.

In the heavily Catholic district of the Phatdiem area, 75 miles south of Hanoi, local officials said approximately 10,000 of the region's population of 80,000 went south. The officials attributed the exodus to an intensive campaign by representatives of the Diem regime, who said that under the Communists the church would be suppressed.

The local authorities in the Phatdiem area maintain that they still have 82 churches functioning for a population that is again about 80,000.

Father Bien said that six of the North's 10 Bishops went south, and with them all 10 seminaries operating in the North. He estimated that two-thirds of the North's priests also went south.

He said, and Monsignor Hüssler confirmed, that since 1955 the Vatican had confirmed six new bishops and that all 10 dioceses now had bishops. Father Bien also said that the 10 seminaries had reopened and that about 100 priests were in training. He said the Most Rev. Trinh Nhu Khue, named Archbishop of Hanoi in 1962, was the principal church functionary in North Vietnam.

Both Father Bien and officials of the Patriotic Catholics said that they were in mail communication with Rome, that the Pope's edicts and other materials were being received and that they sent back acknowledgements.

Asked why there had been no personal contact, they insisted that this was not due to Government interference but that such contacts "depend on the situation." which they described as being complicated, at least in part because of the war. They estimated that 300 to 400 priests were serving churches in the North. Hanoi has 12 churches, with 10 priests and possibly 20,000 worshippers, they said, explaining that Hanoi had never been as strongly Catholic as the countryside. There are no schools of general education run by the Catholics, but children are given instruction at church, particularly during the two regular vacation periods each year, the churchmen said.

There are still a number of nuns and many convents operating, the churchmen said, but they conceded that many nuns had gone south.

They said the official position was one of noninterference in religious matters. According to these spokesmen, the Government provided considerable funds for rebuilding churches after partition.

Roman Catholic members of the diplomatic colony attend mass in Hanoi churches but have had little contact with the priests. One Frenchwoman goes to a Hanoi priest for confession. Another Catholic, a diplomat, does not, feeling that it might be embarrassing for the priest.

There are constant references in conversations with both laymen and priests to the exodus of Catholics in 1954, and it is evident that deep and bitter wounds have been left.

Regarding the Vatican's efforts for peace in Vietnam, neither priests nor clergy offered any more specific comment than that the church fully supported North Vietnam's peace proposals.

It was said that many churches had been destroyed or damaged by United States bombing and that two priests had been killed.

HANOI INVITING WESTERNERS TO INSPECT BOMB DAMAGE

Following is the first of a series of articles by an assistant managing editor of The New York Times summing up observations on his visit to North Vietnam.

(By Harrison E. Salisbury)

HONG KONG, Jan. 10.-The parade to North Vietnam has begun-not merely just of newsmen or of Americans-but of Westerners of all kinds.

The North Vietnamese Government has reached a momentous decision-to open its doors and invite the world in to inspect the results of American bombings. The trip of this correspondent to Hanoi was not the last there for an American correspondent.

There are indications that hardly a week will pass through the winter when one American newsman or another or a distinguished West European guest will not be taken for a walk through the shattered streets of Namdinh.

Visitors will tour the complex of Roman Catholic villages around Phatdiem. south of Hanoi, inspect the flattened village of Phuly or poke through the ruins of Hanoi's Pho Nguyen Thiep Street and the wasteland of the Phuctan area along the Hanoi Red River levee.

Before this correspondent left Hanoi in the pre-dawn hours Saturday on the plane of the International Control Commission, the truce observation body set up under the 1954 Geneva accords ending the Indochina war, the North Vietnamese capital was already receiving more visitors from the West.

The same plane that took this correspondent out of Hanoi had brought in two other Americans, Harry Ashmore, one-time editor of The Arkansas Gazette of Little Rock and now chairman of the executive committee of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and William C. Baggs, editor of The Miami News. With them was Luis Quintanilla, a former Mexican Ambassador to the United States, who made the trip as a private citizen.

Already in Hanoi were the Rev. Martin Niemöller, a West German Evangelical pastor and one-time submarine commander, and Msgr. Georg Hüssler, secretary general of Caritas, West German Catholic welfare organization. They came for talks on North Vietnam's relief needs.

Hanoi at long last has decided to open North Vietnam's doors not merely to Communists, fellow travelers, leftists, peace advocates and supporters of North Vietnam's cause. It has decided to admit a cross-section of political beliefs and sympathies and visitors from all kinds of countries, but particularly from the United States and Western Europe. Actually Hanoi has seemed to be inching toward this decision for months. For instance, this correspondent began his effort nearly 18 months ago, to persuade North Vietnam's authorities to permit him to visit Hanoi. The first indication that a visit might be possible came six months before the visa actually was granted, namely last June, when a formal visa application was accepted in Pnompenh, Cambodia.

In June the North Vietnamese authorities thought the trip could be made. then changed their mind and said it would have to be postponed, but promised it could be carried out by the end of the year.

It was about that time that Hanoi, after more than six months of requests, permitted the first resident Western correspondent to take up his duties in Hanoi-Jean Raffaelli of Agence France-Presse. During the summer and autumn two or three West European visitors were admitted, including Jacques Decornoy, correspondent of the newspaper Le Monde of Paris, who completed a visit to North Vietnam in early December.

APPLICATIONS RECEIVED

Ngo Dien, chief of information of the North Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said Friday that his ministry had received so many cables in the last fortnight for permission to visit Hanoi that it had been unable to read them all. He said the applications made a stack of cables nearly half a foot high and numbered in the hundreds from all countries of the world, but particularly from the United States.

This does not mean that North Vietnam will be admitting, all those who apply. It simply does not have the facilities to cope with more than a handful of visitors at a time. But the flow of visitors will undoubtedly be maintained, to include many Americans, especially journalists, and to cover all varieties of sympathies and viewpoints.