Saturday, May 27, 1972
Noose Tightens On Hanoi
by Evans And Novak
Although President Nixon's order to mine the ports of North Vietnam is more than two weeks old, there is still no sign that Communist China is rushing work troops to North Vietnam to protect vital rail links -a Chinese omission that fits perfectly the Nixon plan to choke off Communist war supplies.To the contrary, the relatively mild Chinese reaction to the President's blockade-by-mines of North Vietnamese ports strongly hints that Peking is not at all eager to repeat rail-repair assistance it gave North Vietnam during the height of U.S. bombing in the late 1960s.During that last extended period of major U.S. bombing of the two major rail lines connecting North Vietnam and China, 40,000 to 50,000 Chinese work troops were assigned one job: quick repair of American bombing damage. That mission not only helped keep open rail supply lines but also gave Peking political leverage in Hanoi to match Moscow's rising influence.Relations between Hanoi and Peking have steadily deteriorated since those troops went home in late 1968, reaching bottom with President Nixon's spectacular trip to Peking, which the Hanoi politburo regarded as an act of betrayal.Hard prediction of China's long-range reaction to the American blockade of its Communists ally's ports would be folly this soon. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe Peking's present leadership does not wish to become any more involved with the Vietnam war than the minimum necessary to prevent an open break with Hanoi.Because of this, Hanoi may have severe difficulty making up by overland transport from China the calamitous loss of war shipping into North Vietnamese ports. Hanoi's war machine, fueled about 15 per cent from China, is likely to find it difficult to keep even that relatively low level of supplies flowing by rail and truck route from China.Thus, the noose around Hanoi is now perceptibly and inexorably tightening. Experts here estimate that, with Haiphong's port facilities able to unload a maximum of between 30,00 to 40,000 tons of war supplies per day, the first two weeks or so of the blockade will cost Hanoi close to half a million tons.Quite apart from the deadly psychological blow that the supply cutoff must be causing Hanoi, its military significance is even more important. Commanders in the field at the hottest points of contact with the South Vietnamese army -Hue, Kontum and An Loc -now must begin to think about husbanding what heretofore had been a fairly constant stream of incoming supplies. No matter how much stockpile is available near these three main battlefronts, closing the logistics tap means an eventual end to assured resupply."Noose Tightens on Hanoi", by Evans and Novak, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Saturday, May 27, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright. 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.