THE 'ENEMY': 20,000 MISSIONS LATER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400180010-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 10, 2004
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: October 11, 1965
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

NEWSWEEK 11 October 1965r~
THE WAR IN V I E TT N p r o v e d For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000"4 8 0 4 ??1-!; /w 3 ' 7 4
The Enemy . 207000 Missions Later
The Damage to North Vietnam Has Been Huge, but the Economy Survives
john's coming, John's coming," yell the bombing. But it is a city waiting to be Super Sabres and Phantoms have cra-
bare-legged little North Vietnamese attacked. Sidewalks are being torn up tered mile after mile of roads with their
children as they scurry through country and there are bomb shelters all over. bombs. They have smashed the single
lanes and village streets. "John" to them ? They're built with dirt walls and stove track railway and crippled its engines.
stands for "Johnson," and it is their way pipes coming out of the back. Where The city of Thanh Hoa, with its star-
of announcing to their neighbors that they don't have shelters they have fox- shaped citadel, has been bombed nearly
over again with its shrieking silver jets 5:30 a.m. and hear the young militia plant almost totally devastated.
and deadly bombs. groups coming back from the country. ? The big oil depot of the industrial city
Since February, in fact, U.S. aircraft They would study models of U.S. air- of Nam Dinh (North Vietnam's third
have flown nearly 20,000 missions over' craft and aim at simulated targets." largest) is no more after eight successive
Communist North Vietnam, blasting Other recent travelers-French and air attacks, and a nearby pagoda, hospi-
away with bombs and napalm at military Japanese journalists and an occasional tal and school were severely damaged..
targets from the 17th parallel to the European businessman-confirm Koch 's Still farther south, the four coastal prov-
very border of Communist China. And account of Hanoi's state of readiness. inces just north of the demarcation line
yet, most Americans have but the hazi- Perhaps 50,000 children and old people with South Vietnam have been punished
est notions about their "enemy"-for ob- , have. been . evacuated from Hanoi, they badly. The city of Vinh, capital of Ho, :'
paranoia, the government in Hanoi has guns point their gray muzzles toward the has been almost leveled. Highway.' 1,
as visit the country in the past ten years. badly battered that the local peasants',
Christopher Koch, the program director Brick by Brick: To escape the devas-,
of New York's controversial WBAI, who tation from the sky, thousands of Viet-
returned from North Vietnam last month. .. nameso have moved their homes, mud
Some of his impressions: J`w ryt tit - ?" , ' brick by mud brick, away from likely
"I stayed at what used to be the A ?"IFS, target's. Factories not yet hit by the
Hotel Metropole in the days of French / l ~~;'~./ bombers are taken apart and their
-
rule. No Vietnamese were allowed in Fh S .
~ f equipment scattered in villages where
then except by express invitation of the ?' workers try to resume production. To .
French. Now 'it's called Hotel Unity, a . I~ ~' r~ ,' :? protect small bridges, young trees grow- .'
quiet place with a few Czech, Polish r~r+r i ing on either side of the road are lashed
and Cuban technicians. There are ele-,,6 -.. ~`'`~.?~ ~` over them during the daylight hours.'
baggage up. The guests walk. The rooms have branches on their roofs as camou-
are elegant and always have a bowl of flage and their drivers keep their car
fruit on the table., The plumbing is fine-
L r radios tuned in for air-raid signals.
except there is no hot water. A..DOUaa rr... With the railroads destroyed, special
"French influence is still visible all Ho Chi Minh: Losing his grip? transportation companies have been or-
over the city: the wide tree-lined side- ganized to keep military supplies and in-
mansions-now mainly used as embas. ers blare out the latest official accounts ' ammunition trucks push along the bat-
sies. The old Vietnamese section of the on the number of U.S. planes knocked tered roads with their headlights turned
city has houses made of adobe or brick. down (over 600, Hanoi claims; 99 says, off. And as they did years ago during
There are few private autos. If I saw . the U.S.). UNITY, UNITY, CREATEn UNITY, the Indochina War, the North Vietnam-
200 or 300, I saw a lot. Most of the cars SUCCESS, SUCCESS, GREATER SUCCESS, the 'ese are increasingly turning to nonauto-
are French Peugeots, but the Chinese favorite motto of President Ho Chi " motive transport. In the province of Phu
.
Embassy, so the story goes, has a Ply-. Minh, is splashed everywhere. EVERY-.. Tho, north of Hanoi
a team of 1000
,
mouth, a Ford and a Chevy because ONE WORK AS Two, demand the street 'men on bicycles carried 100 tons of rock
they refuse to buy from the Russian banners. Hanoi is a Spartan city, possibly salt to the countryside on a single trip..
.'imperialists'." , the grimmest capital in the Communist And in nearby Viet Tri. 86 oxcart teams
newest ano test: "in the street, the world, but in one respect, at least, the move industrial goods from one plant to
trucks are mostly Soviet, but machines in authorities have relaxed their grip. Kiss- another.
the factories are all from China and the. . ing in public is no longer frowned upon, .. j Rebuilding also goes on at a feverish
Chinese built the newly completed and young Vietnamese lovers once again pace. As soon as an all-clear is sounded,
'March 18th Textile Factory of Hanoi' ? sit holding hands on the wooden benches road workers and draft laborers scram-
which I visited. The North Vietnamese facing the romantic Petit Lac. ble into action, filling the craters, repair-
probably took us to see it because it is Everything outside the capital is ing bridges, patching up ferries. (In one
their newest and best. Three-quarters of called "the front," and not many miles,,, area, working with hand tools by the
their production is still handicraft; only' south of Hanoi, where the October rice, light of hurricane lamps, 3,000 peasants
about a quarter is done by modem in. crop is beginning to ripen in the rain- put a 'bridge back in service in a few
dustrial methods.. soaked Red River' Delta, the Impact of hours.) When bombs fail to explode
Mc r__ L7 ....-t
????, -sw . #I mull spares tie cne V.ot air war Is smKln I r the Youth Shock Brigade
Approved For Release .2005/01/12 -1
~` . ? , Newsweek, October 11, 1965
 Aprr'oved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400180010-1
V
Approved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400180010-1