TERRITORIAL CLAIMS

The Front's picture of its political power and dominance in the South differs from what most Americans believe.

The Front has prepared maps that purport to show that four-fifths of the total area of the South is now in its control and that more than 10 million of the region's 14 million people live in "liberated" areas. It contends that even in Saigon large city areas are for practical purposes under secret Front control. It insists that underground Front organizations exist in all communities of the South and that when Front forces "liberate" a region the underground groups simply come to the surface and begin to carry out publicly functions that previously were accomplished secretly.

Even if only part of the contentions of the North Vietnamese and the Front are founded in fact, it would seem evident that the question of what would happen in Vietnam when peace comes is far more complex than is generally realized.

It is difficult to imagine a powerful, self-centered group like the North Vietnamese Communist party sharing power in any coalition rule, even if the other group is Communist or Communist-dominated. The possibility of open divergencies between the Front and Hanoi is a subject of speculation among Hanoi didlomats and is discussed seriously by Eastern European Communists.

SOVIET-CHINA RIFT HURTING HANOI AID-BUT NORTH VIETNAM
KEEPS CLOSE TIES WITH TWO ALLIES

Following is the seventh article by an assistant managing editor of The New York Times summing up observations on his recent visit to North Vietnam.

(By Harrison E. Salisbury)

HONG KONG, Jan. 11.-Nowhere are the tensions, conflicts and delicate sensibilities engendered by the clash of the Communist giants, China and the Soviet Union, more excruciatingly felt than in North Vietnam.

North Vietnam's fighting ability is almost completely dependent upon the aid and support of both China and the Soviet Union. Thus, the conflict between these two nations, in effect, poses a threat to the virtual existence of the small Indochinese Communist state, to its ability to maintain the struggle against America's superior material power.

An East European diplomat who has deep affection for the North Vietnamese and the Hanoi leadership spoke sadly of the "wonderful days," now long gone, when "we were all comrades together." That was back in 1954, just after the Geneva agreements that ended the Indochina war and established North and South Vietnam.

"I wish you could have seen Hanoi then," he said. "The city was so lovely. Every building had been painted, the streets were spruced up and there were flowers everywhere."

It was not only physically that Hanoi was attractive in that time, the diplomat said. The atmosphere for a Communist was fresh and invigorating. "Everything seemed possible then," he recalled.

"There was no hint of a split in the camp. Russia, China, all of us were working shoulder to shoulder to help Vietnam, to enable the Vietnamese people to create a Communist future."

Another man, also a Communist diplomat, but one of the contemporary generation, said seriously:

"I don't know how they do it, but the Vietnamese have managed so far to keep their relations with both Moscow and Peking. But, honestly, I don't think there is another man in the world who could have accomplished it. I give full credit to Premier Pham Van Dong. He is a miracle of tact and he has had to be."

Both the Soviet Union and China are vital to North Vietnam's defense effort. Both provide supplies, arms and material without which North Vietnam would be hard pressed to stay in the war. Without such aid, Hanoi and its allies in the South, the National Liberation Front, would be compelled to revert to smallscale guerrilla actions.

They would have to take cover in the mountains and jungles and dig in for the long 20-year pull that President Ho Chi Minh and the other leaders have warned may be necessary.

TWO ROUTES FOR SUPPLIES

There are two routes by which supplies from the Soviet Union and China and from other Communist states reach North Vietnam. The first is the railroad from China, which can be supplemented by truck deliveries. The second is the shipping route to Haiphong.

North Vietnam receives not only Communist aid through Haiphong. It is through this port that the country maintains small-scale trade with some Asian states, mostly in food products and consumer goods. This traffic is handled in ships of a number of flags in addition to Communist shipping. The United States has blacklisted shipping lines for engaging in this traffe, but it continues.

The Chinese said in late December that they were providing 70 per cent of the aid Hanoi was receiving. The Russians have not indicated what percentage they are supplying.

Foreign diplomats in Hanoi believe that China is the main supplier of foodstuffs, particularly rice. North Vietnam has been running a deficit in rice in the last two or three years, largely because of the war. Much manpower has been diverted from the paddies. And this past year was a poor year for a number of rice-producing countries, including parts of Indochina.

It is believed that the North Vietnamese may be dependent on China for as much as 600,000 to 800,000 tons of rice in 1967 because of a shortfall in the domestic crop.

Rice and similar bulk commodities are delivered by the land routes from China. It is probable that the North Vietnamese receive much of the rail replacement and angle irons and other repair materials for their rail system from the Chinese by rail and truck.

In addition to materials that originate in China, the North Vietnamese have been obtaining across Siberia and through the Chinese rail network a substantial part of the goods, including heavy armaments coming from the Soviet Union and other countries of Eastern Europe.

As the Chinese-Soviet split worsened, the problems of maintaining these shipments across China steadily increased. As long ago as last spring the Chinese were pointedly suggesting to the Russians that they ship their military material by sea. The Russians countered that the Chinese had held up shipments, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. There were occasions, the Russians charged, when the Chinese did not permit the Soviet arms to cross China at all.

ARGUMENTS OVER TRAFFIC

The Chinese rejoined that the Russians were putting up a smokescreen, that they had in fact been dilatory or reluctant to send aid to Hanoi and that Peking was the main supporter of the North Vietnam regime.

Peking said that far from being a true friend of North Vietnam the Russians were conspiring with the United States against North Vietnam's interests.

The facts behind these charges and counter-charges have been obscured by the polemics of Moscow and Peking. But knowledgeable East Europeans in Hanoi concur that there is fire behind the smoke. They say that on some occasions the Chinese have refused to let Soviet supplies come in and have told North Vietnam that the Chinese will provide the needed item.

"Then months go by and they send nothing," an East European Communist said.

The French Communist secretary, Waldeck Rochet, charged at his party's congress that the Russians, unable to get speedy delivery of essential supplies via the Chinese rail network, had petitioned Peking for permission to set up a special airlift for delivering urgently needed items. Peking was said to have refused.

Asked about this specific charge, a North Vietnamese official observed: "When people are angry with one another, they don't always tell the truth."

There have been rumors that the Chinese removed from flat cars some of the advanced military equipment that Moscow was sending to Hanoi, specifically, unassembled MIG-21 fighters, radar equipment and ground-to-air missiles. This allegation was doubted in Hanoi. It was said that most major shipments of this kind of materiel are supposedly now coming in by sea at Haiphong.

OIL STORAGE DISPERSED

The Chinese are not able to provide such items to Hanoi. They do not produce them themselves. In the armaments line, the Chinese are thought to have provided ammunition, some artillery, rifles, machine guns and possibly mortars. Oil supplies apparently come from the Soviet Union. At least the oil barrels strewn all over the North Vietnamese landscape seemed largely if not entirely of Soviet origin. These are big 50-gallon oil drums that presumably have replaced Haiphong and Hanoi oil storage facilities destroyed in United States air strikes. It would seem to be difficult to make a major dent in the oil storage reserves in the future since they have been dispersed in big steel drums over thousands of fields and roadsides.

CHINESE PRESENCE DOUBTED

There have been rumors in the West that the Chinese have provided labor battalions and construction crews to keep the North Vietnamese rail system functioning to the Chinese frontier. This correspondent can offer no direct evidence on that aspect of Chinese aid. No one in Hanoi, however, seemed able to confirm or deny the report. The general opinion among foreigners was that the North Vietnamese had mobilized ample labor resources of their own for this purpose.

It is generally agreed among foreigners in Hanoi that the North Vietnamese regime must have the continued support of both the Soviet Union and China to maintain its defense against the United States at the current level.

If the Chinese were to close their railroad to Soviet shipments entirely, it would be difficult to divert all the needed supplies to Haiphong. Neither shipping nor harbor facilities are readily available. Foreign visitors believe that Haiphong is already strained beyond capacity in attempting to handle the volume of freight pouring in.

It would be equally disastrous if the Chinese were to halt their own shipments, particularly foodstuffs. It would not be easy for Moscow to replace Peking as a supplier of rice, for instance.

THEORY OF 'PEOPLE'S WAR'

Thus far Hanoi has managed to maintain working relations with both Moscow and Peking because of a variety of factors. Historically, President Ho Chi Minh has had close connections with the Soviet Communists. Among his earliest Communist experience was work with Moscow's Comintern, the Communist International, between the two world wars. His relations with the Moscow leadership

have been warm.

At the same time, during much of his revolutionary career, he was actually based in China. He has equally close and long-standing ties with the Chinese party and at one time was a member of that party.

In ideology and political orientation, the North Vietnamese regime has always drawn on both Soviet and Chinese sources of inspiration. Its industry is set up largely on the Soviet model, its rural communes are much like those established by Mao Tse-tung in China.

Listening to North Vietnamese explain their theories of "people's war," a protracted popular struggle against an "imperialist" power like the United States, one hears echoes of the philosophy that underlies the essay of Lin Piao, Chinese Defense Minister, on the same subject. The psychology is much the same. But when asked about this relationship, the North Vietnamese will smile and say, yes, there are similarities, but each country has its own way of doing things.

RUSSIANS AND CHINESE

Because of the extended relationships that the North Vietnamese leaders have had with both the Soviet Union and the Chinese, they seem to have found it possible to a remarkable degree to keep their two great friends from coming to blows over the Vietnam aid issue.

Since Peking denounces any party or group that maintains speaking terms with Moscow, and since Moscow is almost as violent against any friends of Peking, this has required skillful tightrope walking.

One technique that North Vietnam has employed is to deemphasize foreign aid in its internal propaganda. On wall bulletin boards there are no displays

Vietnamese pose this question, they are really posing the question of direct confrontation between the United States and the two leading Communist powers in the world.

Lurking in the shadow of such a confrontation are the deadly armories of nuclear weapons now possessed by all three powers.

What would North Vietnam regard as an escalation so marked as to evoke the call for volunteers? At lower levels this was described specifically: carrying the land war north of the 17th Parallel, amphibious landings in the North, military action to cut off the land supply routes to China, possibly the bombing of Vietnam's dikes.

Would the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong produce a call? This is not being said specifically. At higher levels none of these eventualities is specified. The impression is left that in any of these events a determination would have to be made.

In North Vietnam there appears to be a general conviction that, judged by past conduct, the United States sooner or later will escalate and not merely by introducing 100,000 more troops. The indication given by North Vietnamese officials was that such an increase in United States strength was not what they were speaking of. They seemed to feel confident that they could handle many more troops in the South. Indeed, they suggested that more troops in the South would be more of a hindrance to the United States than a help.

But radical intensification of the war in the air or a move of land forces into North Vietnam apparently would come under a different category.

If a negotiated settlement is not achieved, what course does Hanoi think the war will take? Everyone there talks in terms of a war that will go on 10 or 20 more years if that is what the United States wants. They seem to have confidence that their people, particularly their youth, will not become exhausted.

APPEAR TO BE SERIOUS

When they speak of retiring into the hills and the jungles to carry on interminable guerrilla warfare against the United States, they appear to speak in utter seriousness. They point out that they have been fighting that kind of war for 20 or 30 years, that they have survived the experience and grown tougher in the process. And they think they can do it for two or three decades more and in the end come out with the possession they say is their most priceless, their liberty and independence.

Hanoi's version of what those 20 years of guerrilla warfare would be like is a picture of a total population dedicated to the struggle, to fighting the enemy, to providing an eternally hostile environment for the United States forces.

In this vision it is the total population that occupies the central position rather than the organized armed forces. Or there would be, as there already is, a blending of the regular army and the civilian population.

In two weeks in Hanoi this correspondent did not see a major unit of the North Vietnamese Army. But by the same token he seldom failed to see some members or units of the North Vietnamese defense forces.

The reason is that the defense forces now combine regular troops, newly mobilized youth groups, home guard units, civil defense units and ordinary housewives who carry a rifle with which to fire at United States planes.

They are all around, in the city streets, on bicycles or riding in big olive drab Russian trucks toward the south.

Is it possible to see any path toward a negotiated peace? It is possible but the path is thorny. The chief obstacle is certainly the deep suspicion held by Hanoi toward any and all suggestions of peace talks made by the Americans or others such as Secretary General Thant or the British Foreign Secretary, George Brown, or Pope Paul VI.

The suspicion the North Vietnamese feel is reinforced in part by experience with the Americans and perhaps in greater measure by experience with the French.

Hanoi feels that twice it went in to peaceful negotiations and twice it was robbed or cheated of the fruit of those negotiations.

The first time was when the French, in Hanoi's view, repudiated the 1946 postwar agreement made with Ho Chi Minh.

The second was when, again in Hanoi's view, the United States at French instigation repudiated the 1954 Geneva agreement and started the country down the path that has led to the tragic present.

Those two experiences, whether the North Vietnamese interpret them correctly or not, have left deep and possibly permanent scars. These have been exacerbated by the experience of the last two years with the United States. Hanoi contends that each peace move by the United States has been accompanied by or has been designed to conceal a step toward further escalation. It does not propose to be caught short again. The war has become a war for survival, for "life," as Premier Dong put it.

The populace has been aroused to a state of solidarity that represents a formidable asset for a country struggling against a foe many times more powerful in material means and techniques.

If negotiations should be embarked upon and came to nothing, officials feel, the fighting edge of the North Vietnamese would be lost and might not be regained, and if the war were resumed it might be on terms much less favorable to Hanoi. Since the struggle is viewed as a life-and-death one for Hanoi this is a risk it will not take. Premier Dong said this specifically. Other North Vietnamese echoed the thought.

Since the United States possesses the somewhat similar fear that if it starts on the path to the conference table it may touch off irreversible changes in the South Vietnamese political situation, the inhibitions toward taking the first step toward a conference are great on both sides.

There is another inhibition on the North Vietnamese side. Hanoi regards itself as the aggrieved party. Hanoi says it was the United States that attacked and has been bombing its territory, actions it categorizes as both aggressive and illegal.

Therefore, Hanoi says, the United States must be the one to halt-not North Vietnam. Nor, says Hanoi, should it be compelled to pay a "price" to persuade the United States to halt what it ought not to be doing in the first place.

This is not a mere semantic point. It bears directly on the question of which side will take the first step toward the conference table and what the other side will do once a first step has been taken.

The United States contends that it has said again and again it tis ready to negotiate but that Hanoi has not responded. Hanoi rejoins that there will be no response so long as the United States continues to attack her.

If the United States took a first step, would North Vietnam respond? This is the great question but the answer to it seems to have been given quite clearly in the past week.

QUESTION OF RESPONSE

While he made no specific promise or pledge, Premier Dong in speaking with this correspondent left the impression that if the United States acted positively, for example, by halting the bombing, North Vietnam would not ignore it.

This impression was strengthened by the statement of North Vietnam's representative in Paris, a senior envoy, who said that if the bombing stopped Hanoi would respond.

Speaking with a West German correspondent a few dyas later, President Ho Chi Minh echoed the same sentiment, saying that if the United States halted the war, "then we would take tea."

Mr. Thant has offered the opinion that a halt in bombing is a requisite to talks. This is the view this correspondent brought away from Hanoi.

But, if a conference were agreed upon, what kind of solution could be evolved? Here is the thorniest question of all. For the real issue then is the question of the fate of South Vietnam. Hanoi has said repeatedly and echoed the statement last week that the fate of South Vietnam must be settled between the North and South, dealing together as partners and that the appropriae representative of the South is not the Saigon Government but the National Liberation Front. There is no reason to doubt that North Vietnam would adhere to this position in any conference.

Would the United States accept such a solution? There has been no sign of it up to now. However, this correspondent uncovered some interesting areas for further research in talking with representatives of the Front and the government in Hanoi.

The two are not a single entity in so far as political, social and economic views are concerned. The stated differences are deep and would be difficult to compromise or bridge-if they are real. They suggest that another and closer look Light be taken at the Front to see whether on inspection it proves to be the puppet of the North that the common United States view has supposed.

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