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The [North] Vietnamese are no kamikazes. They have carefully weighed the risks, and they are taking precautions to avoid human and material losses to the maximum if Nixon should decide to punish Hanoi. Metal helmets have reappeared, hanging from bicycle handlebars in every variety, from French 1914-18 and Dien Bien Phu vintage to Japanese, Soviet and American. The day after the April 16 bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong, unexploded bombs were being defused. The next job was to clear away the debris. Human chains of girls and boys carrying small baskets, swaying at the ends of long poles, piled up the bricks that could still be used, and reinforced shelters with rubble. Metal from burned-out trucks and railroad cars was deposited on dumps. In Hanoi, where material damage was slight, youths fixed up a kind of "pop" shelter using the burned body of a car; they half buried it and covered it over with earth. Temporary houses were erected in a day. Ten bamboo poles, some thatch, and life can go on.
Nearly half the population of the city of 500,000 people has been evacuated in recent years and Hanoi today is ready to face another war of destruction from the air. Ten exhausting days have just been spent completing the latest evacuation program. First of all, people had to be convinced. In every street there was always one family which absolutely refused to budge. To cope with this situation, party members, usually women, went from door to door to explain the situation. Salary advances were granted so people could be equipped with mosquito nets, nylon fabrics and oil stoves. Departures took place generally at dawn, since American planes prowl later in the day. Families assembled under trees with their bundles. Old aunts invariably insisted upon bringing along bric-a-brac—absolutely essential for this kind of adventure. They brought the most extraordinary packages, held together with ingenious stringwork and fastened to the roof of a bus or to the back of a bike. Then off they went. Newspapers published advice: "Warning: in the country don't drink just any water. And here's what to do in case of fever."
The capital seems a little empty, especially without children; the little kings of the street, full of pranks and gaiety, curious and friendly. Poetically named streets around the central market—Silk Street, Money Changers Street, Weights Street—are deserted. The old trolley car, with its long pole, ambles on undisturbed, no longer obliged to sound its bell to clear the way of pedestrians. The tiny "pho" shops selling Chinese soup (which is not Chinese at all but Tonkinese) are closed. The Hanoi Chinese have all abandoned the city, the restaurant owners gone who knows where, perhaps to their cousins in China.
It is lonely in Hanoi. Cinemas are closed. There is a permanent alert. Antiaircraft defenses have been reinforced, but daily life goes on as usual. Sufficient personnel have been left in the city to maintain such basic services as electricity, drugstores, hospitals. Brewers send around small vans that stop under trees at street corners and everyone has his glass of beer. Factory restaurants keep serving meals. Shelters have been dug near by for those who have stayed on. The cost of living is relatively stable, and chicken still sells for about 500 a pound.