World: AN EFFICIENT SLAUGHTER

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Soon after arriving in Hue I went in a Jeep with three Viet Nam officers to inspect sites where the bodie of executed men were said to have been found. We went first to Gia Hoi high school in District Two, east of the citadel Here 22 new graves had been found, each containing between three and seven bodies. It is still a horrifying place The officers told me that the bodies had been tied and, again, most had been shot through the head, but "some had been buried alive."

∙ There are about 40,000 Roman Catholic Vietnamese in Hué What happened to them? About three-quarters of the Roman Catholics in Hué live in Phu Cam, on the southern outskirts of the city. They resisted strongly when the enemy came in, and some were executed. Four Viet Nam priests were taken away and three foreign priests were killed. Two French priests were actually given permission by the Viet Cong to return to Phu Cam and help the sisters—and then they were shot on the way back. Another French priest was executed, perhaps because he was chaplain to the Americans.

Summing up all this evidence about the behavior of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army in Hué, one thing is abundantly clear and ought to surprise no one They put into practice, with their usual efficiency, the traditional Communist policy of punishing by execution selected leaders who support their enemies. In Hué as elsewhere, they were unable on the whole to capture and execute the more important officials, because these men were careful to protect themselves in heavily fortified compounds, defended by soldiers and police. In Hué as elsewhere, the more defenseless ; little people were the victims—the village and hamlet chiefs, the teachers and the policemen.

Already most of these positions have been filled again, and I find it impossible to write adequately about the courage of men who succeed the executed.