The Cautious Conquerors of Saigon

Almost two years to the day after the collapse of the Saigon regime, the U.S. and Viet Nam's Communist rulers last week took an important step toward reconciliation. At the end of two days of cordial talks in Paris between Richard Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, and Phan Hien, Viet Nam's Deputy Foreign Minister, the U.S. agreed to stop opposing Viet Nam's admission to the U.N., which Washington has blocked three times since 1975. The U.S. also promised to lift a trade embargo after diplomatic relations are established. For their part, the Vietnamese pledged to intensify their efforts to provide information about the estimated 2,527 Americans still unaccounted for in the war. Although Hanoi pressed for U.S. economic aid, it received no assurances from the American negotiators. Late last week, in fact, the House of Representatives voted to keep in effect a legislative prohibition against any form of economic aid.

The Hanoi regime has dramatized its desire for normal relations both by avoiding anti-U.S. polemics and by permitting more Westerners to visit the southern half of the now unified Viet Nam. Australian Journalist John Shaw, a former TIME correspondent who covered the war in Viet Nam for two years, returned to Saigon and cabled this report:

The Communists now call it Ho Chi Minh City, but it still looks much like the old Saigon--at least at first glance. A stroll along busy Tu Do Street--renamed Dong Khoi, the Street of the Simultaneous Uprising--remains one of the most fascinating city walks in the world, a gauntlet of boutiques, cafes and attractive women in the traditional ao dai--a long, slit-skirted dress. In sharp contrast with Hanoi, where I found nearly everything in short supply, Saigon's peddlers hawk an abundance of goods, from government-sponsored lottery tickets to ceramic elephants and noodle soup. The 250-seat Rex Cabaret continues to operate, featuring some of the performers who once entertained American troops. On a recent evening, for example, Cathy Hue belted out her rendition of Granada to about a dozen tea-sipping Australian tourists.

Scattered around town are various ghosts of the American presence. The imposing white U.S. embassy stands completely abandoned, guarded only by a couple of bored North Vietnamese policemen. Tan Son Nhut Airport--at one time the world's busiest--now handles only half a dozen flights daily. In one of the control towers, a costly piece of equipment left behind by the Americans continues to receive signals from U.S. satellites and dutifully churns out a daily photochart of the weather pattern for all of Southeast Asia; it will probably do so until it runs out of its supply of American-made film.

While the Southerners have been spared the kind of bloodbath inflicted on their Cambodian neighbors, there is much less freedom than there was under the Thieu regime. Cadres of North Vietnamese Communists, who hold just about all key positions in the South, impose a strict political orthodoxy and uniformity. Gone are the open protests by political critics such as Buddhist monks. The main instrument of Hanoi's control is an almost invisible network of neighborhood political "committees" composed of Communist Party professionals. Says a Hanoi official: "We call them guerrillas of the street."

Harsh Existence. In the past two years, 700,000 residents of Saigon have been packed off to the countryside--either to the hamlets they abandoned during the fighting or to a harsh existence in the so-called new economic zones. Over the next four years, the Communists say, an additional 900,000 people will leave, reducing the city's population to about 2.5 million. Also targeted for resettlement are most of the 30,000 political prisoners--there are far more, insist Western experts--that the regime admits are interred in remote "reeducation" camps. Many of these former military, political and security officials are in their third year of rigorous manual labor and intense indoctrination. The wife of one of these prisoners told me that she has not seen her husband, a former army officer, since April 1975; she receives a brief letter from him every three months.

The North Vietnamese have moved slowly in imposing a Communist economic stamp on the South. Hanoi dares not add to the South's massive unemployment by further disrupting its economy. The demobilization of the Thieu regime's forces dumped at least 1 million men onto the labor market. Hanoi has thus allowed private commerce to continue for the time being, although those employed in the free market are penalized. They must pay taxes and are not eligible for the cheap rice in the government shops.

Hanoi plans to revive the light industries--making, among other things, plastics, motorbikes and textiles--that are located between Saigon and Bien Hoa, 20 miles to the north. They kept going after the fall of the Thieu regime, but some of the plants ground to a halt last year when their supplies ran out. At the core of Hanoi's economic plans for the South, however, are the new economic zones--huge areas of arable land to be created from now inhospitable forests, jungle and swamps, primarily in the Central Highlands and Mekong Delta. These zones are intended to increase the country's food supply and relieve crowding in the cities.

Diplomats in Hanoi are optimistic about Viet Nam's long-range ability to extract its abundant resources (including offshore oil) and mobilize its population. Right now, though, Hanoi badly needs aid. It gets about $500 million yearly from the Soviet Union and its East European satellites. Other nations, such as China, Sweden and France, are contributing an estimated $500 million. But it is ironic that Viet Nam's biggest hope is its old enemy--the U.S.

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