their own lives, are venerated as a kind of double Joan of Arc, with both religious and patriotic significance.

The next Vietnamese hero was Than Hung Dao, honored as the commander who defeated an invading force of 300,000 Mongols. Than's 31-year battle is much celebrated these days. So is the great victory of Nguyen Trai in the 15th century against invading Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. A monument to his feat still stands in Hanoi.

The Vietnamese frequently recall that the Chinese were defeated after a 10-year battle and, when they admitted defeat, were given food and assistance to return home. This exemplary tale is often recited to Americans.

The main line of the museum's theme really begins with the French take-over in the eighteen-seventies and the opening of the long struggle for Vietnamese independence, which is presented as a constant battle continuing to the present.

LIKE A CHAMBER OF HORRORS

The museum then becomes something like a chamber of horrors-an endless catalogue of the cruelties and tortures inflicted on the Vietnamese and of the ingenious and terrible weapons by which they fought back.

From the earliest times the Vietnamese employed iron arrowheads with a fishhook configuration that are impossible to withdraw. They were used against the French, and now, it is said, are still used by hill tribesmen against the Americans. Jagged spikes were implanted in jungle trails to pierce the bare feet of troops. A similar, more complex trap, constructed of dozens of whirling, barbed hooks that bite into a soldier's legs in a dozen points when he crashes through its leafy cover, is used against the Americans.

The museum displays daggers used to kill French officers and disemboweling knives assertedly used against Vietnamese men and women.

There are also contemporary horrors-captured arms turned against the French and then against the Americans, as well as samples of bombs dropped in Vietnam and photos of the effects of napalm and air bombardment.

Most of the Hanoi institution visited have at least a small collection of bomb fragments or samples of United States aerial weaponry, including fragmentation bombs. Two varieties are displayed.

An older type known to the North Vietnamese as the pineapple, which was dropped with wind vanes and exploded on contact, has a yellow canister about the size of a coffee mug. This, the North Vietnamese say, is being replaced by a more efficient device known as a Guava, which is a small cylinder. Three hundred Guavas, dropped in a large canister, scatter and roll some distance, then explode, saturating 600 square yards with pellets.

A FADING DISTINCTION

In Hanoi's propaganda, distinctions between the French and the Americans virtually disappear. Thus the great Dienbienphu defeat of the French becomes a classic example of the ability of a small Vietnamese force to deal a shattering blow to a powerful foreign enemy. If the North Vietnamese only fight on, eventually another Dienbienphu will be achieved-so goes the official line.

Official after official insists that there is no alternative to the continuing struggle because otherwise freedom and independence will be lost, and, they say, it is better to die than to be enslaved.

NO MILITARY TARGETS, NAMDINH INSISTS

(By Harrison E. Salisbury)

HANOI, NORTH VIETNAM, Dec. 30.-North Vietnamese sources said today that, as far as they are aware, a United States communiqué yesterday was the first to mention Namdinh as a bombing target. The communiqué said the Namdinh freight yards had been bombed.

[Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said in Washington Thursday that Namdinh had been mentioned three times as a target in communiqués from Saigon. He also said the targets in 64 attacks on the city were military ones.]

Namdinh, North Vietnam's third largest city, is about sixty miles south of Hanoi. Its population until recently was given by officials as a little more than 90,000.

REPEATED RAIDS ALLEGED

Namdinh has been repeatedly bombed since June 28, 1965, according to city officials. They contend that the city is essentially a cotton and silk textile center containing no military objectives.

It is the contention of city officials that, at least until yesterday's communiqué, the United States had never officially described Namdinh as having military objectives.

Are there or have there been military objectives in Namdinh? the railroad runs through town and presumably there are freight yards and depots. There are a textile factory and a rice mill, both of which this correspondent saw. Both are operating, but the textile mill has been severely damaged.

There was also a silk mill, which officials said had been destroyed. There are a fruit-canning plant and a thread cooperative.

Whether the cannery is operative this correspondent cannot report since he did not see it and the officials did not say. They said the thread cooperative had been destroyed. I saw the main street, where the thread co-op was said to have been situated, and it is badly smashed up.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

About an agricultural-implement plant nothing was said except that it was one of the city's industries. Was it converted to war production? This correspondent cannot say. Are there other war plants in town? This correspondent cannot say.

He saw intensive destruction of civilian housing and ordinary business streets in considerable areas-damage so severe that whole blocks have been abandoned. These areas lie largely but not entirely in the vicinity of the textile plant. There is severe damage all over town.

The bombed areas of Namdinh possess an appearance familiar to anyone who saw blitzed London, devastated Berlin and Warsaw, or smashed Soviet cities like Stalingrad and Kharkov. The effects of bombing at ground level seem to have changed little since World War II.

How was the destruction of Namdinh accomplished? The data on the bombings come from city officials, who have an elaborate dossier of times, dates, places. numbers of planes, casualties, houses destroyed, and so on.

OTHER PLANES MENTIONED

They contend that Seventh Fleet bombers carried out the most persistent and destructive of the raids, but they did not say that only the Seventh Fleet was involved. They listed strikes by F-105's and F-4's, RB-57's, A-4A's, A-6A's and A-3J's.

According to the officials, the first serious attack was that on Hang Thao (Silk Street) at about 6:30 A.M. on April 14 by two low-flying United States planes of unspecified type that dropped eight mark 84, bombs. Casualties in this attack were put at 49 killed, and 135 wounded, with 240 houses demolished.

The officials said the casualty rate was sharply reduced because only 2300 of the normal population of 17,680 remained there, the rest having been evacuated. The officials contend an attack was made on nearby Hoang Van Thu Street, formerly the Chinese quarter, on May 18. This attack, they say, was carried out by two F-4H's from an altitude of about 1,800 feet at 11:04 A.M. in heavy rain, which had flooded many raid shelters. Casualties were put at 13 dead, including a number drowned, and 11 wounded, and 372 houses were listed as destroyed. Only 230 of the normal population of 7,858 remained in the street, the others having been evacuated.

Regarding the question whether United States planes deliberately attempted to breach the Black River dikes, the city officials contend that on May 31 and July 14 six bombs were dropped on a mile-long section of the dike, causing a number of breaches.

There were other raids on July 20 and July 31, they say, and a large number of near misses at other times.

The damage has been repaired the officials say. However, bomb craters are still visible.

[The United States insists that no effort has been made to breach dikes, though it is conceded that they may have been hit accidentally.]

ATTACKS CALLED DELIBERATE

The Namdinh officials think the attacks were deliberate. The dikes are in the open area outside the city with no recognizable targets in the surrounding landscape, at least at this time.

In any event, officials take the view that the Americans will breach the dikes and are expending tens of thousands of man-hours building emergency supplementary dikes, which snake through the city itself, as well as massive secondary reinforcing earthworks outside the city.

The question of dikes is a question of life and death in this Red River delta. In the high-water season Hanoi lies possibly 20 feet below river level and most of the countryside would be inundated, with the ruin of crops and enormous loss of life should the dikes be blasted.

Vivid in North Vietnamese memories is the 1945 flood, when the dikes burst partly as a result of Japanese action. In the resulting disaster of flood, crop failure and famine, it is estimated, 1.5 million to 2 million lives were lost.

PROBLEMS OF COVERAGE

In the following dispatch, Mr. Salisbury describes how he arranged to get to Hanoi and the conditions under which he is working there. HANOI, Dec. 30.-To a correspondent with years of experience in Communist countries, reporting from Hanoi has many familiar aspects. But the fact that the reporter is behind enemy lines in a real, if undeclared, war gives the experience a special atmosphere.

The first problem in reporting from North Vietnam is of course, to get there. The effort to win Hanoi's permission for a visit began nearly 18 months ago and was pursued systematically through a number of channels.

The effort was intensified just a year ago when the fact that Hanoi had permitted a visit by Prof. Staughton Lynd of Yale University suggested that a reporting opportunity might be ripe. However, telegrams and letters to North Vietnamese officials produced no response then.

The endeavor was renewed last spring as a preliminary to a long trip around the perimeter of Communist China. In the hope that representations on the spot in Asia might bring a favorable response, this correspondent had his passport and that of his wife, who accompanied him then, cleared by the State Department for travel to North Vietnam, China and North Korea.

VISA AVAILABLE IN PARIS

In June Hanoi indicated that it might be possible to make the trip, but after hesitation, North Vietnamese officials advised that the time was not convenient but would probably be before the end of the year. After that there was nothing to do but wait and send frequent reminders of continuing interest.

The break finally came just before Christmas, when North Vietnam advised that a visa could be picked up in Paris.

Another problem in covering Hanoi, for an American journalist, is getting here. Communist China is issuing no transit visas for United States newsmen. The sole entry route for them is on the once-weekly plane of the International Control Commission, which flies the Saigon-Pnompenh-Vientaine-Hanoi route. I picked up my North Vietnamese visa in Paris Dec. 20, and boarded the Hanoi plane in Pnompenh Dec. 23, arriving at 7:30 P.M.

Details of coverage have been handled about as they would be for a correspondent visiting an Eastern European country a few years ago. Interviews, trips and visits are arranged by the Foreign Ministry's press department.

The first request submitted was for an opportunity to inspect sites in Hanoi that it was reported United States planes bombed on Dec. 13 and 14. The Foreign Ministry made a car and interpreter available and sent the party to streets where damage had occurred.

On the question of pictures, it was said that black and white film could be shot but not color film, apparently since facilities for developing color were not available. All film must be developed here for inspection by the military authorities. No photos taken by this correspondent have been held up so far.

ONE REQUEST REFUSED

Permission to take a picture has been refused only once-by the director of a textile factory in Hanoi who did not want photos of his girls working at their looms. In this case the objection seemed bureaucratic rather than military. Again because of the sensitive position behind the lines, this correspondent asked in general terms to be shown around the country where the authorities would permit. A trip to Namdinh on Christmas Day was the fruit of such a request.

Most trips are made with one or another correspondent. With the exception of the Agence France Presse man, all the others here are from either Communist countries or the Communist or left-wing press. There are always interpreters or Foreign Ministry or press officials accompanying the press parties.

Dispatches are submitted to the cable office through the Foreign Ministry, which obviously reads them before transmission but, as far as is known, has not censored anything.

ONE REQUEST REFUSED

These procedures are about what one would encounter on brief trips to many Communist countries. The authorities are not willing to expose a correspondent to the hazards of bombing, which are only too real outside Hanoi. Even for a trip of six or seven miles outside the city, cars are camouflaged.

The trip to Namdinh was deliberately timed for the Christmas truce and would not have been made otherwise.

Hanoi's Western colony is small. There is a French representative who is something like a consul. There is the Canadian component of the Control Commission, which is assigned to enforce the Geneva agreements on Vietnam. There is also a scattering of non-Communist diplomats, including the Indian consul general and the Indian component of the Control Commission, which also has Polish members.

There are two hotels populated generally by foreigners. Including a mixture of Eastern Europeans, visiting delegations and representatives of Asian and African countries.

Hanoi is not exactly a swinging town, but there is more bounce to it than one American at least had foreseen.

NORTH'S ECONOMY BADLY DISRUPTED DESPITE BIG DRAIN, IT SEEMS
ABLE TO CONTINUE WAR

(By Harrison E. Salisbury)

HANOI, NORTH VIETNAM, Dec. 31.-The North Vietnamese agree that the conflict in Vietnam is a rough affair for them.

Every official interviewed stresses the difficulties, handicaps and hardships that must be overcome to carry on in the face of American bombing.

A colossal number of manhours must be devoted to the transport of goods and supplies, to the repair of bombed railroads, highways and bridges, and to the dispersal of goods, people and industries over the countryside.

Effects on industry and agriculture are inevitable, but no precise statistics are available, possibly because they are regarded as military secrets. One official estimated food production last year at 6 per cent above 1964, but he had no figures for 1966.

Eastern Europeans here say the rice crop has fallen short by a substantial margin, largely because of bad weather but possibly in part because of a diversion of men and women to the war effort. The result is expected to be additional rice imports from Communist China and the Soviet Union, probably mostly from China.

Food is rationed and thus far, according to foreign sources, supplies have apparently been maintained. The rice ration ranges from 13.5 to 20 kilograms (29.7 to 44 pounds) a month, supplied at a low, fixed price. In December 10 per cent of the ration was provided in maize.

There is a monthly ration of half a kilo to a kilo of sugar and about the same for meat, which may be provided in the form of butter and fat. Vegetables and fruits are available in peasant markets, as are some chicken and other meats.

It is the conviction of non-Vietnamese that as long as the Communist Government is able to maintain the rice ration at about the present level, the ability of the populace to sustain the fighting effort will be unaffected.

The question of distribution is serious because of United States bombing of supply routes, but is being met at least in part by radical decentralization.

Observers from Eastern Europe who have been resident in Hanoi for a year or two concur that there has been a decline in the living standard in the last year and that the American bombing has had a serious impact on North Vietnamese industry despite valiant efforts to keep factories going.

In this connection, they point out that North Vietnamese industry never was extensive and that the general level of the economy was not dependent on advanced technology and comforts. The life of the Vietnamese is hard, but the Eastern Europeans say it has always been hard, so that the deterioration is not really tangible.

The Government has reduced prices on a handful of consumers goods, notably bicycles, which have been cut 30 per cent to 200 dongs (the dong is nominally valued at 3.53 to the dollar and there is no free rate). Bicycles, which are manufactured in North Vietnam, are vital to every aspect of life.

There has been a 50 per cent cut in the cost of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, 30 per cent in radios, to bring their price to 100 to 200 dongs, and 50 per cent in school textbooks, but none of these have much effect on every-day life. As far as interdiction of supply movement by American bombing of highways, railroads, supply depots, bridges and rail yards is concerned, discrepancies between United States estimates and ground-level observations will undoubtedly continue. Essentially the same argument raced all through World War II and was repeated in the Korean war, which provided conditions more nearly parallel to those in North Vietnam.

Korea demonstrated that, by the liberal use of manpower, night transport and multiple routes, amazing quantities of materials could be moved in the face of the heaviest bombing. North Vietnamese conditions are somewhat more difficult for ground movement, however, because so much must be transported across the flat delta region around Hanoi and Haiphong.

That is no easy task in view of United States air strength. It requires an enormous concentration of manpower, and the North has a population of only 17 million.

This population is almost totally organized. Even foreign embassies' cooks and maids must devote at least two of their free days to Government work each month. Children spend about a third of their time on studies, a third on defense or defense-related tasks and a third on farm or industrial production.

The same sort of utilization of labor runs across the board. In July, according to an official announcement, a million men and women were mobilized. They are used on defense, civil defense, and labor tasks such as repair of railroads and emergency dikes.

It is no secret that for months almost all supply and personnel movements have been as in Korea, only at night.

What happens when a bridge is knocked out by bombing? One non-Communist diplomat described a particular bridge between Hanoi and Haiphong that, to his knowledge, has been knocked out and quickly restored four times. Pontoon ferries of boats and bamboo are kept available and put into service within a short time. A labor force appears and goes to work with previously stockpiled materials to put the bridge back into service.

Another non-Communist source told of passing through Vandien, which is on the southern outskirts of Hanoi, and has been specified by United States communiques as the site of a truck park that has been attacked several times. The foreigner reached Vandien a couple of hours after a raid, he said, and found about a quarter-mile of railroad track plowed up by bombs. By the time he departed, he added, 1,000 men and women were at work and had already relaid a substantial section of the track.

One key favor in North Vietnam's ability to fight on lies in the aid poured in by the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries, and China. The quantities are closely guarded military secrets, but it is no secret that they are large and vital to the maintenance of the war effort.