The Retreat Begins

The guns fell silent last week across the Red River Delta and Central Viet Nam.

In defeat, some of the French commanders politely declined to receive visitors. "The colonel does not wish to be rude," said one bearded adjutant, "but he feels pain this morning for himself and for France. He would rather be alone." In victory, the Communists pressed sharp attacks against 50 French and Vietnamese outposts right up to the final truce deadline. In the campaign's last 24 hours they killed 21, wounded 64. Behind their lines, the Communists were already seizing hold: Vietnamese fleeing their rule reported that the Reds had executed several unfriendly village elders, had plundered Roman Catholic settlements. Inside the cathedral at fallen Namdinh, the Communists displayed a portrait of their President, Ho Chi Minh.

French Union and Vietnamese troops (less about 300 Vietnamese deserters a day) were pulling back from outposts to the west of Hanoi; tricolors were falling, yellow-starred Viet Minh flags were rising. More than 2,000 Catholic refugees streamed into Hanoi last week on the way to safety in the south, but in the city itself there was no panic; the Communists were not due for 80 days.

In the south, plucky nationalist Prime Minister Diem appealed to the 12 million Vietnamese north of the 17th parallel to join a mass migration south--if they could get away--and help win a "psychological victory" over the Communists; he set up a $20 million emergency program (with U.S. help) to move and resettle 700,000 evacuees, including 40,000 loyal tribesmen from the Red China border. He had not only to resist the enemy but to inspire his own people. "If only Viet Nam had a Magsaysay," said one U.S. observer. "Or even a Rhee."

From the other side came no such defeatist talk. The Communist radio broad cast a pledge from Ho Chi Minh that "without fail we will struggle shoulder to shoulder" with the people of South Viet Nam to "liberate them."

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