Toward Surrender

INDOCHINA

Near the bamboo conference hut at Trunggia, 25 miles north of Hanoi, the Vietnamese coolies were planting fresh green shoots for a new crop of rice. Communist Viet Minh soldiers watched them from the road. Inside the hut, beribboned French and Vietnamese truce officers faced five Communist officers across a long table. The three Vietnamese fidgeted uneasily in their seats: it was their country whose fate was being decided, but they were forgotten men there.

The Communists were cordial towards the Frenchmen, and they expansively had Western newspapermen round to tea; but they would have no truck whatsoever with the Vietnamese. The Red MPs crisply presented their U.S.-made carbines whenever French officers passed by, but they would not salute the Vietnamese. And the French, bent on a settlement in Indo-China, were quick to snub the Vietnamese delegates in conference; they unquestioningly accepted such Communist terms as "People's Democratic Republic of Viet Nam" instead of the customary "Viet Minh"; they did not protest when the Communists spoke only of the "French Union command" instead of the "Franco-Vietnamese command." The French and the Communists had so rigged Trunggia's ground rules that the Vietnamese were entitled to speak only through the senior French delegate--who did not choose to recognize them.

In such an atmosphere, the French and Communists quickly settled preliminaries (e.g., an exchange of sick and wounded prisoners) that had taken months to negotiate at Panmunjom. Then they agreed to discuss "readjustment of zones and regrouping of forces," meaning the abandonment of more Vietnamese land to Communism. At last, one top-ranking Vietnamese cried out: "Why should we stay here like puppets while the French give away our country?" Fear in the City. But the giving away went on. The French government deferred sending needed reinforcements to the Red River Delta. British and U.S. consuls advised their nationals to get out of Hanoi, which stands exposed in a corridor some 30 miles wide, more than 50 miles from the sea.

Hanoi's 100,000 defenders, more than two-thirds of them Vietnamese whose morale has been shaken by Geneva, are opposed by 300,000 Communist regulars and guerrillas, 50,000 of whom have already infiltrated the French positions. The Communists have six divisions within 25 miles of Hanoi, and the French are moving stocks of arms and ammunition to the sea. There were reports that France had asked the U.S. and Britain whether they could provide enough shipping to evacuate the Delta garrison.

In the city, there was cloying uncertainty beneath a merciless summer sun. The familiar guns booming at twilight, the usual outpost skirmishes conveyed new menace to Hanoi's 300,000 people and the 100,000 refugees who poured in around them. About 20,000 Vietnamese have already left for Saigon, and 120 fly out every day (Air Viet Nam space is filled up for all July). Refugees from fallen Namdinh crowded aboard buses for Haiphong in the second phase of their exodus.

Defiance & Resignation. There was as yet no panic in Hanoi: there was more than enough food to go round, and the piaster was steady at 75 to the dollar; there were many who looked forward to a profitable co-existence with the Communists. "The Viets will need good food," mused the French hostess of the fine Le Manoir restaurant. "We shall provide it for them." But Hanoi's one sure barometer, real estate, was sharply lower, and it was possible to buy a gleaming white villa for the price of a normal year's rental. And North Viet Nam's able, disillusioned governor, Nguyen Huu Tri, resigned his job. "Physically and mentally," he said, "I am tired."

In Saigon's safer atmosphere, Viet Nam's new nationalist Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem tried to inspire defiance. He formed a Cabinet of eager young Vietnamese who had never truckled to the French. "A cease-fire," warned Diem, "should not lead to partition, which no Vietnamese wants and which can only lead to a new and more murderous war." Unhappily, for Diem and for his people, he seemed to be talking against the wind.

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