Trying to Read Ho

Just as the pressures on the South Vietnamese government affect the Paris talks, so, too, do the pressures on the leaders of North Viet Nam. Are the North Vietnamese really weary of the war? Have the tremendous losses suffered by Hanoi's army in the South placed a burden on Ho Chi Minh's freedom of action? Do the North Vietnamese now want peace badly enough to make significant concessions?

The questions are vital, but the answers are hard to come by. Though the Communists are fully aware of the domestic pressures in the U.S. to settle the war, and try to manipulate American public opinion to their own advantage, the American negotiators have only the scantiest information about the mood of North Viet Nam or how that mood might affect the Communists' bargaining position. About all that U.S. policymakers can do is ponder the clues that slip out of Ho Chi Minh's secretive land by means of foreign visitors, an occasional defector, and the North's own radio broadcasts.

Hanoi's handling of its casualties is an especially intriguing point. Since the 1968 Tet offensive, the North Vietnamese have borne the brunt of the fighting in the South; during that time, they have suffered an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 battle deaths. Yet the Hanoi regime does not inform parents and wives of the fate of their dead sons and husbands. Possibly Hanoi's silence on the subject indicates that the government fears popular reaction to the big losses. On the other hand, the regime's behavior may simply indicate that it does not have to take public opinion into consideration.

On the other side of the casualty ledger, some North Vietnamese may be skeptical of their government's war reports, which continually boast of inflicting outsized losses on the enemy. A letter, signed by "Many Readers," appeared in the March issue of Popular Current Events, a party periodical, asking: "If, since the war began, we have annihilated 1,500,000 of the enemy, including 500,000 Americans, why does the enemy still have more than 1,000,000 troops in South Viet Nam?" The editor's reply was strictly party-line--that the U.S. is a huge industrial country that is able to mobilize great resources by draining its colonies. The interesting point was that the regime allowed such a question to be raised in public.

Conflicting Reports. What little direct reporting there is from North Viet Nam is sketchy and often contradictory. A Japanese businessman, who has made many trips to Hanoi during the past 14 years, returned home recently with the impression that the North Vietnamese capital was cleaner and more sprightly than he had ever found it. According to his tourist's-eye view, cafes and beauty shops were full of customers, food was plentiful and moderately priced, and Hanoi's women had blossomed forth for spring in new pink blouses. Boats on the artificial lake in the city's Unification Park were newly equipped with outboard motors for the use of visitors.

A defector from Hanoi, however, reported that life for the average North Vietnamese is grim, and that at least 50% of the people no longer supoort the government. The defector, a onetime portrait painter in his late 20s, testified that there is much discontent, but that people are afraid of talking honestly except among friends since the penalty for dissent is jail. Rationing is still strict, he said, and the 30-lb. monthly rice allotment is now 60% laced with Soviet wheat, a fact that distresses the North Vietnamese, who, like most Asians, find cereal grains untoothsome.

Morale Problem. From its monitoring of Hanoi's broadcasts and press, U.S. intelligence is increasingly convinced that the North now faces a morale problem. The U.S. reasoning runs like this: so long as the bombs were raining down, the North Vietnamese people saw the need for sacrifice. But once the bombing stopped, the populace began to look for some fruits of what their leaders said had been a glorious victory. None were forthcoming, and the regime has been forced to exhort its people more than ever to work harder and retain a warlike spirit. If this analysis is correct, then all the allied claims justifying the bombing as demoralizing to Ho's people would seem to have been in error.

A few U.S. experts, notably Hanoi Watcher Douglas Pike, profess to detect differences in the Hanoi leadership about how best to proceed with the war in the South. The dominant group, of which Ho and Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap are members, is made up of hard-liners who brush aside domestic considerations. They hold that the war can be won by pressing on with the present strategy of employing both conventional and guerrilla forces in the South. A second group led by Politburo Member Truong Chinh, so the analysis goes, favors a return to guerrilla warfare in the South in an effort to outlast the U.S. and the South Vietnamese while conserving the North's own manpower and other resources. The third, and so far least influential group, whose spokesman is Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh, supposedly favors seeking victory at the conference table and employing only limited guerrilla forces in the South. Though none of the three groups favors an end to the fighting except on their own terms, Pike believes, each of them can also find some advantage in attempting to bring about their aims at the conference table as well as on the battlefield.

Tough Facade. Whether such differences actually exist or not, the regime is still putting up a tough facade. In a meeting with his military leaders, Ho Chi Minh last week declared that peace will come "only when all American aggressor troops are completely swept out of our country and the puppet traitors are overthrown." Added Ho: "I look forward to hearing of great and glorious new victories against the enemy." It is bellicose talk, but no American analyst could say for certain whether Ho really meant it--or whether it was only rhetoric intended to strengthen the Communists' bargaining position before they enter serious peace negotiations. Most likely, it was part of the present effort to test the resolve of the new American President and to determine whether the Communists can gain the most by fighting or by talking --or by continuing to do both.

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