Doomed City

There were 300,000 people in Pyongyang (an equal number had gone north with the Communists in October). When it became known last week that the Allies would not defend the city, refugees began streaming south. To prevent them from blocking troop movements on the roads, the Allies barred two Army bridges across the Taedong River. But some refugees climbed down a levee in the shadow of a quiet Buddhist temple, and crawled across a shattered old vehicular bridge. Others waded across. They were pitiful reflections of defeat--wretched, fear-stricken and numbed with cold.

Dull explosions rocked the city as Allied commanders blew up ammunition and supply dumps. There was no panic or looting, but some underground terrorists were already active. They distributed leaflets urging the underground to sabotage the Allies in every possible way.

The U.S. planned to take out some 1,500 civil officials, clergymen and others who had actively aided MacArthur's forces, to save them from Communist vengeance. In the city hall, Lee Keun Tae, wispy chief of the administration section, already had his overcoat on. Where were his men? "All gone," Lee said. He himself was planning to go all the way to Seoul, taking his wife and seven children. How would they go? "Probably walk," said Lee. A man in a black overcoat with a mink collar joined the conversation. But another man came in, whispered "The car is ready," and the man in the mink collar left immediately.

In an inner office of the city hall, Lieut. Colonel John Joseph Livingston of Alexandria, Va., deputy chief of the U.S. Army's civil assistance team, sat wearing a sheepskin vest with a pistol strapped around his chest. His telephone rang. He sent an officer down for the mayor. The mayor had gone home. "Get somebody else, then," Livingston said. The officer went down and came back again. "There's nobody, Colonel. Only one man, and I don't even think he works here. I think he's a social friend of somebody in the office and maybe he doesn't even know that his friends have gone."

"You know," said Livingston, "these government teams are set up for when you're moving forward. When you're moving back it's a different color. We're staying till the last troops leave, all right. But for a job like this, what you need is a good battalion of military police to control the city."

A light snow fell on Pyongyang, drifting down past boarded shop fronts on the city's main street. The Communists had once named this thoroughfare for Stalin, and now, after an absence of 40-odd days, they would probably so name it again.

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