'Here, Everyone Suffers Equally'

In Hanoi, Ho and hardship are still omnipresent

Ever since Saigon fell in 1975, Viet Nam has been almost completely closed to Americans. In the past month, though, Hanoi's leaders have welcomed successive visits by two U.S. congressional delegations in a renewed campaign to win friends in Washington and secure U.S. diplomatic recognition. TIME Correspondent David DeVoss, who accompanied one of the groups, was permitted to stay on in the Communist capital through last week. His report:

Every morning at 6 a.m. loudspeakers on the ornate clock tower above Hanoi's Central Post Office crackle to life with the strains of the patriotic pop song, In Praise of Ho Chi Minh. Within the hour most of the city's 820,000 residents have mounted their bicycles to head for jobs and schools. No matter where they pedal they never get far from Uncle Ho. His exhortations to BE VIGILANT AND DEFEND THE COUNTRY AT ALL TIMES are posted throughout the city. His steely face surveys every foyer and office. It seems to personify the martial mind-set that still grips the Vietnamese and the discipline that characterizes life in Hanoi today.

The contrast with the old Saigon could not be more striking. Even toward the end of the war the southern capital exuded raffish energy from its thriving markets and lively night life. There are no cabarets in Hanoi, and since the departure of the city's Chinese, almost no restaurants. One can visit the Thuy Ta floating cafe at night to drink iced coffee and watch the moon glisten on the Lake of the Returned Sword, but many Hanoi residents consider that an extravagance. On humid summer evenings the largest crowds gather at the grassy esplanade in front of Ho's granite mausoleum.

Though it is swept clean several times each day, Hanoi appears dull and mummified. The once luxurious mansions along the graceful promenades and eucalyptus-shaded boulevards of the old colonial city look as though they have not been painted since the French defeat in 1954. Inside, families are packed two or three to a room: some even occupy old bathrooms from which the plumbing has been removed. With the exception of a Soviet-financed development called the Kim-Lien subdivision, little new housing has been constructed in 25 years.

During the colonial era, the four-block stretch from the lake to the French opera house was the fanciest shopping street in Indochina. Today the stores are eerily quiet. Little except 60-c- busts of Ho are available at the Fine Arts Emporium. An elegant photography studio hints at Hanoi's genteel past, but the only examples of the proprietor's craft are dusty portraits of Ho, Che Guevara and Jane Fonda. Inside the massive central department store, no amount of artful deployment of bicycle parts and condensed milk can hide the fact that little is being produced for public consumption. While officials claim that more than 20% of the economy works on an "open market" basis, the only items private hawkers sell are vegetables, spices and such miscellany as incense, pith helmets and plastic shoes. With monthly family incomes averaging $30 and prices up more than 600% above 1975 levels, few can afford anything beyond necessities. Just since 1978, observes one Western ambassador, "the standard of living has declined enormously."

Even though a good harvest is expected, Viet Nam this year will fall 3.5 million tons short of the grain required to feed its 51 million people. The official meat ration often disappears entirely. Vegetables and fresh fruits are scarce. Shoppers swarm to buy fresh bread when it hits the streets at 4 p.m. Says Dr. Ton That Tung, once Ho's personal physician: "If you want to know why people are leaving, look at what they eat. The Vietnamese are practically vegetarians now."

A profound lassitude has spread because of malnutrition. The inability of ill-fed workers to put in a full day on the job has contributed to serious delays in the construction of the Bai Bang papermill 67 miles northwest of Hanoi. Last year Norwegian scuba instructors employed in an AID project to teach Vietnamese divers how to service offshore oil rigs threatened to pull out unless their students were given more to eat; by the time the Vietnamese descended to the proper depth for instruction, they were too tired to continue.

Never having experienced a consumer economy and conditioned instead by 30 years of war, Hanoi residents show no resentment or anger. In fact, they take perverse delight in sacrifice. When the monthly rice ration recently was reduced from 33 to 29 Ibs., many citizens voluntarily increased their rice donations to people in border areas hit by China's invasion last winter. According to one senior European ambassador, this spirit of self-denial remains strong because the leadership sacrifices as much as the people. Says he: "The best thing you can say for the system here is that it is fair to everyone. Everyone suffers equally.''

Although Hanoi's factories, markets and services (particularly the trolley system), are woefully inefficient, the city does work on the social level. Citizens get free schooling, disability coverage, full retirement benefits and rest-home care, and even financial assistance for funerals. Hanoi is also safe. Officials claim that last year there were only three murders, just 100 complaints about pickpockets, and not one case of rape or armed robbery. The proffered explanation is that from their preschool years, Hanoi's conformist citizens have been taught that criminals do not risk being made to pay a debt to society so much as being expelled from it by their peers. "You'll find no beggars, prostitutes or drug addicts here," boasts Nguyen Dinh Hiep, deputy chairman of the 15-member People's Committee, which functions as the city executive.

In preparation for another possible invasion from China, captured American F-5 and A-37 jet fighters line the taxiway of Noi-Bai airport. At sunset munitions convoys roll north across the Red River toward the cities destroyed by the Chinese; ravaged border towns like Lang Son have yet to be rebuilt. Some analysts believe China, having already tried a frontal assault, may next attempt to attack the Vietnamese regime through subversion; as evidence they cite the dramatic defection to Peking of Hoang Van Hoan, deputy chairman of the National Assembly and old comrade of Ho Chi Minh. Viet Nam's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Nguyen Co Thach, argues confidently that any subversion attempt would surely fail. In the Hanoi regime, he says, "there is always dissension, but unity always comes forth."

Brave words, but some policies in the name of that vaunted unity have been unmitigated disasters. Thach complains that half of Viet Nam's fishing fleet has been stolen by departing refugees. He neglects to add that all fishing craft were nationalized last year without compensation to the owners. In deciding to join the other boat people leaving Viet Nam, many fishermen have only been reclaiming what was forcibly taken from them.

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