Population of Hanoi depleted

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33110, 28 December 1972, Page 9

Population of Hanoi depleted

(A'.Z. Press Association —Copyright) SAIGON, December 27. The population of Hanoi, more than one million in peace time, has been pared to the bone, leaving only essential workers and servicemen, according to diplomats familiar with the North Vietnamese capital.

Because of the heavy I • American air strikes in and| [near the city, many diplo-[ ([mafic missions have decided[ [to reduce their staffs if the; (bombing continues into the; •INew Year. ' Schoolchildren and old ! people were taken to the i relative safety of the country--side from Hanoi when President Nixon renewed the bombing campaign last April, (and thousands of non-essen-[tial workers left last week, (when Mr Nixon ordered the [Stratofortress bombers to the! (city’s edge. 1 the diplomats deny the I truth of a story from Ameri-

• The diplomats who have (reached Saigon are members. !of governments represented by foreign missions in Hanoi. •In at least one case, they [were in direct touch with the North Vietnamese capital as ! recently as Christmas Day. They say that Christmas in I Hanoi had little of the gaiety (of past years. Although, at ; the last moment. Mr Nixon [stopped the bombing for 36 ■ hours, he did not make news of the halt public. Reports from Hanoi say that Roman Catholic residents went to Christmas services, but the traditional walks from home to church in new clothes were dispensed with.

lean sources in Saigon saying [that the North Vietnamese (had ordered the complete (evacuation of Hanoi. Most families in Hanoi have been divided because of (the bombing, the diplomats say. Even where both mother and father of one family have been deemed essential to the war effort, they often live apart near their respective jobs. “I don’t think they would ever do that,” one diplomat said. “In the first place, they need many people to support the war effort in factories, and so on. In the second place, it would cause tremendous morale problems among the population to learn that the capital had been totally evacuated.”