How the Prisoners Were Released

THE first contact leading toward last week's prisoner release came on July 1, two days before the North Vietnamese announced the move as a gesture in honor of American Independence Day. Xuan Oanh, of the Viet Nam Committee for Solidarity with the American People, cabled U.S. Pacifist David Dellinger, urging him to come to Paris to discuss matters of a similar character to Stewart Meacham's trip to Hanoi. The obliquely worded message referred to last year's release of prisoners to a delegation headed by Meacham, peace education secretary of the American Friends Service Committee. Dellinger, 53, a patriarch of the American peace movement, obtained a plane ticket from a "movement" travel agent and flew to Paris. He talked for three days with Xuan Oanh, North Vietnamese Negotiator Colonel Ha Van Lau and N.L.F. Foreign Minister Madame Nguyen Thi Binh.

A particularly sensitive point with Hanoi's representatives was whether the released prisoners would remain with escorts of the peace delegation all the way back to the U.S. In the first of two previous releases, the prisoners had been met in Laos by State Department representatives, who induced them to board military aircraft for the rest of the trip home, thus cutting them loose from their pacifist escorts. The North Vietnamese felt that this had reduced the propaganda effect of their gesture and were anxious to avoid a recurrence.

As a result, Dellinger called upon Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. Ambassador to the Paris peace talks. Lodge gave him assurances that the peace delegation would be allowed to escort the released prisoners all the way from Hanoi to the U.S.

Returning to Manhattan, Dellinger hoped to recruit a delegation that would span the spectrum of the peace movement. After days of negotiations, he settled upon Grace Paley, 46, a New York writer and worker in the Resistance, an antiwar organization; James A. Johnson Jr., a Negro who was one of the "Fort Hood Three"--three Army privates who in 1966 refused to serve in Viet Nam, and Linda

Evans, 22, a regional organizer for the Students for a Democratic Society. The leader of the group was Rennard C. Davis, the National Coordinator of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Viet Nam. A founding member of the S.D.S., Davis has been a longtime, virulent critic of the Viet Nam war and one of the most enterprising organizers of the radical movement. Dellinger and Davis are under indictment on charges of conspiracy to incite a riot during last August's Democratic Convention. With less than five hours left before his plane's departure, Davis managed to obtain a Federal Court of Appeals ruling permitting him to leave the country. Three days later, the peace delegation, along with three cameramen from an underground moviemaking group, The Newsreel, landed in Hanoi.

The North Vietnamese were not yet prepared to go through with the release. Though normally wary about permitting foreigners to roam about the country, they allowed the peace group to do some traveling while waiting. The American travelers were certainly not impartial observers--Hanoi has few more outspoken friends in the U.S. than Davis, for example--but they did make a fairly extensive tour of North Viet Nam. Davis reported that almost everywhere the standard of living seemed improved since he had last visited North Viet Nam in October 1967. Then, the state-run department store in Hanoi had been open only during the morning; now it was open all day and sold such previously scarce items as clocks and musical instruments.

The group took a six-day Jeep trip down the North Vietnamese countryside to the DMZ. They saw a great deal of devastation from the bombings, even though most bridges and roads have been repaired since the total bombing halt. "On our trip south," Davis said, "we estimated that nearly 100% of the cement and brick structures had been demolished. In the areas closest to the DMZ, we estimated that some 80% of the thatched and straw houses had been demolished. Along the road there was a bomb crater at least every three feet. We met person after person south of the 19th parallel who said they had lived underground for three years." The delegation visited one machine-tool factory inside a series of caves.

Davis described the actual release of the three prisoners: "We went to a building in Hanoi, where the major in charge of the camps told us the prisoners' names, how they were shot down and a bit about each man. Then the three of them came out and we shook hands. They said they couldn't believe their release; they'd been told that they were to go to the hospital--that was July Fourth. Later that day they were told they were to be released."

The day of the prisoners' departure, the North Vietnamese held a lavish farewell party, with an ample supply of lua moi, a rice liquor. The prisoners resolved to try to get drunk, but discovered that after months of imprisonment their constitutions did not take alcohol well. Later that day, Aug. 5, an ancient Boeing prop-driven airplane of the International Control Commission carried them to Vientiane and freedom.

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