This decision by Hanoi may well, in the opinion of diplomats in Hanoi, have a major impact on the course of the war.

Visible evidence of damage caused by bombing is apparent to outsiders who walk down the streets of Namdinh or who try to reconstruct in their minds what the village of Phuly may have looked like before bombs virtually obliterated it. It is against these impressions of human suffering and devastation that air strategists' arguments concerning military objectives will have to be placed.

BOMBINGS INVESTIGATED

A Scottish member of a seven-man team that is investigating the bombings for Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, said:

"I am willing to concede that the Americans did not deliberately order their pilots to destroy villages, bomb out housing and kill civilians. It is even possible that the bombers consistently were striving to strike at purely military targets although this seems hard to believe in the case of miserable peasant villages that have been devastated.

"But the fact remains that, whatever the reason, bombs actually have leveled villages, killed large numbers of civilians and destroyed a very great deal that cannot be considered military by any stretch of the imagination."

Lord Russell's group is seeking evidence on "war crimes" to be used at a planned "trial" of President Johnson and other United States leaders. The tribunal, which has no legal standing, is scheduled to meet in Paris in March. The impact of continuous and detailed reports of the bombing by Westerners should not, in the opinion of diplomats sympathetic to the United States, be underestimated in Washington.

"Who remembers that the Nazis were trying to destroy the motor works in Coventry?" one diplomat said. "All we remember is that the Luftwaffe destroyed the cathedral."

The effect on world opinion may be heightened by television and documentary film coverage of North Vietnam. Japanese and French film crews are already at work there. It is likely that Hanoi will soon also let an American team take pictures for American television audiences of what the bombing looks like from the victims' side.

This involves delicate decisions for the North Vietnamese. Their military men are a little nervous about having so many foreigners, particularly Americans, moving about, making observations and taking pictures. But the basic decision clearly has been made that the advantages outweigh possible risks. This correspondent has worked under wartime conditions in many countries. Restrictions imposed during his fortnight in North Vietnam were remarkably light. There was no censorship of dispatches although they were read before being transmitted. Nothing was changed or deleted as far as he could ascertain. The only restriction encountered concerned his interview with Premier Pham Van Dong, which was granted with the understanding that certain parts of the talk were to be off the record. In addition the North Vietnamese Foreign Ministry proposed certain textual changes and deletions in a dispatch reporting the interview.

Jacques Moalic, the present resident correspondent of Agence France-Presse, said he encountered no censorship in four months' work in Hanoi with one exception. The authorities told him that they could not permit him to mention certain trips by Communist party secretaries outside the country.

On picture-taking this correspondent encountered similar liberality. Color pictures were not permitted because the North Vietnamese lack processing facilities. Black-and-white photography was permitted, but the film had to be developed and inspected by the military authorities. There was no military objection to any photos submitted.

The authorities asked that one picture not be used, not for military reasons, but because they thought it conveyed a poor impression of people who had been photographed.

No pictures were taken without permission. A textile factory manager once objected to having his factory girls photographed. His reason is difficult to guess. On another occasion a picture was snapped at Phatdien, showing a view across a canal and open field. A security man requested that no more pictures be taken in that direction. Presumably there was a military reason, possibly an anticraft battery beyond the rim of the trees.

This correspondent exercised care not to propose pictures that might involve military objectives such as railroads, bridges or antiaircraft guns. In more

than 20 years of work as a correspondent in virtually every Communist country of the world, one acquires a sense of what is likely to be regarded as a legitimate news photo by Communist officials and one that is likely to be regarded as violating either military security or the propaganda image of the country. Comparatively speaking, the North Vietnamese were more relaxed than, for instance, Soviet officials even under today's so-called "relaxed" Soviet regime. Many pictures of village life were taken that revealed a low standard of North Vietnamese life. Such pictures would probably have aroused objections by local authorities, for instance, in Mongolia.

All visits, trips and interviews were arranged through the press department of the North Vietnamese Foreign Ministry. Because of the delicacy of the correspondent's position "behind the lines," requests were submitted in general rather than specific terms.

For example, a request was made to visit areas in Hanoi that had been bombed without specifying which ones, requests were made for trips to towns and cities outside Hanoi where bombing could be inspected without specifying them by name, a request was made to visit country villages to see the life of people without saying which villages, to visit factories, schools and hospitals without specifying precisely which ones.

Some requests for interviews were specific-to talk with the Premier, with President Ho Chi Minh, with Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the Defense Minister, with the ministers of health, education and planning, with leaders of the Roman Catholic and Buddhist faiths.

Most requests were met. An interview was granted by Premier Dong, but not by President Ho Chi Minh or General Giap, but it was understood that only one of the trio was likely to receive the correspondent. The Planning Minister was said to be out of town and no good economic spokesman was forthcoming as a substitute.

A request to revisit Namdinh fell through, but this was not the fault of officials. A visit had been set up for New Year's day, but delays on a trip to Phatdiem made it impossible to carry out the Namdinh trip. Efforts to reschedule failed because renewed air activity after the New Year's truce caused the authorities to regard the trip as hazardous.

No request was made, specifically to visit Haiphong, and such a trip was not proposed by the authorities. The request was not made because of a feeling that Haiphong might be a sensitive military area. Actually, as conversations with diplomats revealed, the Hanoi-Haiphong triangle is open to diplomats, who travel there constantly despite air attacks.

Thus information on Haiphong and on the routes between Hanoi and Haiphong is already available in detail in world chancellories. Since Haiphong is constantly visited by foreign shipping; there is no real question of military security in that area.

One major request made to the North Vietnamese authorities failed of a positive response. This was a request for interviews with or information concerning American prisoners held in North Vietnam.

It was immediately indicated that this request would be "difficult." It was said that the prisoners were in the custody of the military and that it did not seem likely that the military would grant permission. The request was repeated up to the last day of the visit, but without success.

[Mrs. Joe Griffith, of Ithaca, N.Y., one of four American women who visited North Vietnam while Mr. Salisbury was there, reported after her return to the United States that her group had met two captured American airmen and brought back letters from other captured fliers.] Efforts to piece together information about the prisoners from other sources, including diplomats, provided little data. It was said by the diplomats that they believed the prisoners were being given relatively good care although it was understood some prisoners found the rice diet of the Vietnamese difficult.

The authorities said the prisoners were not held in Hanoi, but had been dispersed in small groups to various places because of the bombing danger. The prisoners were paraded through the streets of Hanoi last Aug. 1. Foreign diplomats who witnessed the spectacle found it unpleasant, particularly when one Communist diplomat stepped from the ranks and struck one of the wounded Americans.

North Vietnam's decision to open the country for Western inspection has been vigorously urged for many months by East European representatives, especially

Czechs, Poles and Hungarians. As far as is known to the East Europeans, neither the Russians nor the Chinese have urged North Vietnam to open its doors to the West.

"We told them again and again and again," said one Polish diplomat, "that they must let the outside world know their story. All they wanted to do was to invite delegations of their closest supporters. We told them that would not do. They must invite right-wing visitors, persons who do not sympathize with Communism, persons who are antagonistic to their system."

This diplomat told how he intervened with the North Vietnamese on behalf of a Scandinavian diplomat who wanted to come to Hanoi and how impressed the Scandinavian was with the results of American bombing and the North Vietnamese war effort.

"This man was a good bourgeois," the Pole said, "he was no friend of Communism. But he could not help but be impressed with what he saw."

The problem of handling the continuous influx of Western journalists and visitors will not be easy for Hanoi. In many cases the North Vietnamese Authorities attach a physician to the visiting groups, although in the case of this correspondent they apparently felt he was rugged enough to get along without medical aid.

They do not like to move people on highways in the daylight as there is never any certainty that American bombers may not appear at any moment. Visitors are usually driven in the early evening or pre-dawn hours to points outside Hanoi. This is not always possible, of course, and diplomats visiting Haiphong have had to take shelter en route.

Hotel facilities for visitors exist only at Hanoi and Haiphong, and even if hotels in Namdinh and Ninhbinh, for example, had not been bombed out, the authorities would be unlikely to permit visitors to stay overnight because of the possibility of attack. On trips about the country, visitors are more likely to be put up in small village hostels.

The number of interpreters and escorts is small and provides another limitation on the size of any Western influx.

Outside of casual shopping and errands and visits to foreign missions in Hanoi, this correspondent did not venture out without an interpreter, not only because of the language barrier, but also because of the delicacy of his position “behind the lines." This provides an unusual quality to a visit by an American to North Vietnam.

To, an American who is constantly taken to see houses blasted by American rockets; hospitals where men, women and children hurt in the bombing are being treated; who hears survivors tell how wives, husbands or children were killed, or who hears provincial authorities proudly announce the number of American planes shot down or describe the capture of an American pilot, there is a nightmarish quality that is hard to avoid.

TWO KINDS OF AMERICANS

This aspect seldom leaves the mind of an American visitor, but seems hardly to bother the North Vietnamese, who have been trained by the Government's propaganda to divide Americans into two categories "American ruling circles." responsible for the war, and ordinary Americans, presented as individuals of goodwill and sympathy. The average North Vietnamese, on meeting an American in Hanoi, automatically classifies him as a "good" American as distinguished from "bad" Americans in Washington and up in the skies.

An additional factor that limits the number of visitors that may be received in North Vietnam is air transportation. There are only two routes open-the plane of the International Control Commission which links Saigon, Pnompenh, Vientiane and Hanoi, and a Chinese plane that connects with services to Canton and Peking at Nanning.

The control commission plane, an old four-motor Constellation, makes the flight three times every fortnight. The service formerly was more frequent but the commission lost a plane over Laos last year, presumably shot down although the wreckage has never been found.

Because of the dangers of flying over North Vietnam in the daytime, the commission plane remains on the ground at Vientiane until dusk, then takes off for a two-hour circuitous journey to Hanoi. The Cambodian airline maintained a Pnompenh-Hanoi service until late last summer, but suspended it after a plane had encountered United States jets on a bombing mission. The jets warned the

Cambodian plane away. It flew back to Pnompenh without landing at Hanoi and further service was suspended.

The commission plane normally arrives in Hanoi about 9 P.M. and takes off on the return trip about 4 A.M. the following morning. This enables it to get across North Vietnam and northern Laos in darkness when ground fire is not likely to be encountered. The impression of travelers is that people on the ground in Laos and North Vietnam are trigger-happy and open up on anything they see in the skies on the assumption that it is out to bomb or strafe.

The Chinese planes flying in from Nanning also make the trip in darkness, usually coming in and taking off the same evening. There are one or two planes weekly on the Chinese service. Both the commission and the Chinese cancel flights at any indication of possible trouble.

Thus access to Hanoi is not easy and has not been made easier by the increasing reluctance of the Chinese to permit the transit of Western visitors bound for Hanoi. There has been speculation that the Czechoslovak airline, which now flies to Pnompenh, may add the Hanoi link, but nothing has been done thus far.

It was an eerie experience to touch down in Hanoi shortly after 9 P.M. on Dec. 23, wondering what kind of reception lay ahead. All the way from Pnompenh and through a pause of several hours at Vientiane, while waiting for darkness to fall, a Canadian sergeant who frequently traveled from Saigon to Hanoi, talked dourly about the dangers of the flight, the possibility of being shot down by ground gunfire or fighter planes of the two or three fighting forces engaged in the mountains of northern Laos.

When Hanoi came into sight, it was not the brilliant pool of light that might have been expected from a city that was supposed to have a population of more than 1,000,000 with its suburbs. The streets were marked by strings of dim little bulbs and the edges of the city faded raggedly into darkness.

When the plane touched down, the runway lights were almost immediately switched off and the aircraft taxied up to the ramp in darkness. When the engines were cut off, the plane was dark except for the wavering light of one flashlight in the hands of a stewardess. The doors opened and two North Vietnamese border control officers stepped aboard and, by the light of the flashlight, checked off the names of passengers and took up passports.

COLOR FILM SURRENDERED

On the ground two young men who identified themselves as a representative of the Foreign Ministry and a representative of the Hanoi Journalists Association, stepped up and led the way into the dimly lighted small terminal.

There was a half-hour wait while baggage was unloaded from the plane and the authorities checked the passports. The only questions dealt with films and the only request made was that all color film be surrendered against a receipt with the proviso that it could be picked up on exit from the country.

Then the correspondent and the two young Vietnamese got into a black Russian Volga automobile and drove into town along streets that were as dimly lighted as they had seemed from the air.

The weather was on the chilly side and the first impression was one of great activity in the streets and on the highway leading out past the airport. There were bicycles and trucks and people in constant motion in the darkness. This, as soon became evident, was a customary feature of the Vietnamese nighttime landscape.

The highway paralleled a railroad line and a long train, moving slowly behind a small locomotive, first could be heard and then dimly seen in the gloom. The hotel, once called the Metropole, but rechristened the Thong Nhat (Reunification Hotel, proved to be a cavernous old French establishment. Four or five Europeans were chatting under potted palm trees in the lobby. The dining room was empty except for a head waiter and two waitresses.

A quick dinner was rustled up and the headwaiter then explained that the restaurant's working hours were 6 A.M. to 8:30 for breakfast, 10:30 to 2 P.M. for lunch and 5 P.M. to 8:30 for dinner. The restaurant had been kept open after hours to provide dinner for the late arrival. A bar at the end of the hotel lobby began work at 8 A.M. and stayed open until 11:30 P.M.

While this correspondent was in North Vietnam, foreign visitors included a labor union delegation from Moscow, four American women representing peace organizations, a Japanese group to investigate "American war crimes," another investigating committee sponsored by Lord Russell, the English philosopher, a

group of four West Germans including Pastor Niemöller and Msgr. Hüssler and a Cuban camera crew.

To each of the larger groups, several interpreters and guides were assigned. A physician accompanied the American women and examined Pastor Niemöller, who is 74 years old, to be sure that he could stand the physical strain of traveling in the countryside.

Different organizations appeared to be acting as hosts for various groups. Some were under the wing of North Vietnamese peace organizations and others were attached to a North Vienamese organization devoted to collecting evidence of American "war crimes."

The groups were all housed in the same hotel. Some were given private dining rooms for their meals, others took their meals in the public restaurant.

Most of the visitors were taken to see the same towns and villages damaged by bombing. But in each case the schedule seemed to be made up individually. For example, on the New Year's weekend, this correspondent was taken to Phatdiem. He drove to the village complex Saturday evening, spent the night there and then toured the villages Sunday, talking with local inhabitants and officials. That same day at least two groups of visitors were brought to Phatdiem-the Russell committee members and the four American women, but their paths did not cross.

The Japanese group made an extensive tour of North Vietnam. Some of its members went to the demarcation line at the 17th parallel, studying the effects of bombing in many of the smaller villages in the demilitarized zone and along the coast.

The Russell committee split into two sections to carry out inquiries in different parts of the country. Most of the trips arranged for visitors were to the south. The American women were taken on one trip about forty miles north of Hanoi. As the volume of visitors to North Vietnam grows, it seems likely that most parts of the country will be covered although there is an obvious reluctance to take groups into areas where heavy bombing is expected.

NORTH VIETNAMESE ROADS COME TO LIFE AT NIGHTFALL

Following is the second 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. 11.-At 3 o'clock Friday morning, across Long Bien Bridge in Hanoi, moved a procession of women, each with a bamboo pole on a bowed shoulder and burdens balanced on each end.

The women moved silently through the night with a delicate half-step, halfshuffle that carried them rapidly across the bridge. Occasionally they halted to rest. The burdens on the carrying poles, mostly bulk paper, vegetables and wrapped bundles weighed 50 or 60 pounds.

There was nothing unusual in the sight-nothing for Hanoi and North Vietnam, that is. All through the night, people are carrying heavy burdens on their backs into and out of the city and out along the network of roads and trails that thread through a maze of rice paddies and canals in the Red River delta, moving supplies south and moving food into the city.

CYCLISTS CARRY GOODS

The movement goes on not only on the backs of women with their delicate, swaying bamboo carrying poles. Goods also move on bicycles. Toward dusk, groups of 100 or 200 cyclists collect at various points in Hanoi and outside.

There the burdens are put on bicycles, up to 600 pounds per bike, and the bicycle caravans start out on their way through the darkness.

With the coming of dusk, olive-drab, jungle-camouflaged trucks, topped with brush and leaves, start rumbling out of Hanoi onto the southward trails, and empty trucks begin moving back into the city, having delivered their goods farther south. At nightfall, the central railroad station of Hanoi comes alive, and trains begin to pull out, laden with people and freight.

To a remarkable extent North Vietnam has become a night country. It is darkness that provides the greatest protection against American bombers. And it is in the dark hours when movements of supplies and troops are carried out.