Effects of the Bombing

For ten weeks, U.S. Air Force and Navy bombers have pounded North Viet Nam with unprecedented fury, using a new technology of "smart" bombs guided by television or laser beams to destroy bridges, power plants and factories. The U.S. purpose, according to Lieut. General George Eade, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, has been threefold: to prevent new supplies from reaching North Viet Nam from the Soviet Union or China, to destroy supplies already on hand and to prevent additional ones from reaching the North Vietnamese forces in the South.

What has been the effect of such concentrated bombing? By the evidence of aerial photographs, the physical damage to North Vietnamese industry and transportation has been immense. General Eade judges that "we have very nearly stopped rail traffic from the North." Hanoi has lost about 60% of its meager industrial capacity and most of its electrical power stations. All of the country's rail lines and most of its main bridges have been knocked out. On one day alone last week, American planes flew 340 strikes and damaged ten bridges and a pontoon factory; next day they went back and destroyed another 14 bridges.

The raids have obviously hurt North Viet Nam's ability to make war and, on the evidence of the slowed offensive in the South, may have accomplished Washington's immediate objective of severely impairing delivery of supplies --though U.S. intelligence has been fooled on that score more than once before. Le Due Tho, Hanoi's chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks, recently conceded, in a definite understatement, that "Mr. Nixon's actions of intensifying the war naturally cause certain difficulties and losses to the North Vietnamese people." More surprisingly, North Viet Nam's official party newspaper Nhan Dan recently admitted quite openly that the bombing had caused "very serious economic problems."

The question is: How serious? There is no sign that the raids have eroded popular willingness to support the battle in the South--any more than did the bombings of 1965-68. One of the lessons of the Viet Nam War is that a basically agricultural economy such as North Viet Nam's is far more resilient than an industrialized one. Rail lines can be cut, but bombing roads is not so effective. Trucks can always drive around craters, and there has been a marked increase of truck traffic in the North--perhaps at the expense of transportation of supplies to troops in the South. Swedish journalists who have visited North Viet Nam report that the country has numerous small diesel generators to make up for the loss of power plants. One State Department expert has calculated that there are 22 ways to get supplies across a bridgeless river --from small boats to flotation collars to pontoon bridges.

Still, in the latest offensive, North Vietnamese tanks and trucks relied heavily on the POL (petroleum, oil and lubricants) that U.S. planes have been concentrating oir in their attacks. The final returns will not be in until the dry season returns to South Viet Nam in the fall and the North Vietnamese either launch a second round to their offensive or are visibly unable to do so. Hanoi's Central Committee and Politburo are known to have recently debated how they should react to the raids, though whatever decision they reached, if any, has not been revealed. Russia and China are continuing to send supplies, but at a much reduced level; both regard the invasion as a costly mistake that gave Washington occasion to unleash the bombers.

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