North Viet Nam: River of Aid

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Much of the Russian military hardware travels for weeks across the net work of rail routes that sweep southward through Eastern China and funnel through the cities of Nanning and Mengtzu to the North Vietnamese border. From there it is either reloaded onto North Vietnamese trains (the track gauge of the Chinese and North Vietnamese systems does not yet match) or hauled through the rugged border terrain on the backs of half a million North Vietnamese "porters. " Once in North Viet Nam, much of the materiel is shipped to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops in the South by trains, which are still running despite U.S. bombing, or by bullock carts, bicycles, or simply on more staunch backs.

A Face-Saving Solution. When China's Red Guards went on their ram page last winter, Russia accused China of harassing its pipeline to North Viet Nam. The Kremlin went so far as to suggest that the Chinese were taking new MIG planes off railroad cars and replacing them with used models, were uncrating SAM missiles to steal the secrets of their design. As it turns out, the Chinese did monkey with Russian shipments, but the argument was much exaggerated: the flow south never stopped. In their new agreement with Russia, the Chinese have come up with a typically Asian face-saving device. The agreement is said to give North Viet Nam possession of the Russian supplies as soon as they cross into China. Thus, the Chinese do not have to take a hand in transporting the goods of the revisionist Russians.