Nation: WATCHING FOR THE PEACE SIGNALS

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An unmistakable sense of movement was in the air. Saigon hummed with nervous anticipation, Washington with barely concealed jubilation, Paris with electric excitement. For the first time since the Viet Nam peace talks began 51 months ago, there seemed to be genuine evidence of a breakthrough toward peace. Rumors of the initiative roiled through capitals from Canberra to London. The word was that Lyndon Johnson, in the last three months of his presidency, was on the. verge of ordering a complete bombing halt over North Viet Nam. At week's end, Johnson had still made no overt move, and U.S. planes continued to range over the northern panhandle. Nonetheless, it seemed possible that, for once, both sides might be prepared to make the first crucial concessions that could breathe new life into the Paris negotiations.

Into the Woodwork. The most dramatic indicator was an intelligence report that between 40,000 and 60,000 North Vietnamese troops have withdrawn from South Viet Nam, many of them slipping into Cambodia and Laos from the northern provinces and from such metropolitan areas as Saigon. "They just seem to have disappeared into the woodwork," said a U.S. officer.

Still, the Communist units may have pulled back merely to regroup and refit, as they have done so often in the past. Washington concentrated on an amplitude of other significant clues that a bombing pause might be in the works. There has been an extraordinary flurry of diplomatic activity in recent weeks, ranging from Peking and Paris to the Pedernales. Three weeks ago, Cyrus Vance, the No. 2 U.S. negotiator in the slow-paced Paris peace talks, flew home to confer with the President. Early last week Johnson cut short a stay at the L.B.J. ranch to return to Washington, and White House Adviser Walt Rostow canceled plans for a weekend away from the capital.

Despite the flurry of diplomatic activity, the President found time to attend the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in Manhattan, where he shared the dais with Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon and New York's Archbishop Terence Cooke. Johnson was in good humor. Mimicking Nixon's farewell speech after he lost the election for Governor of California, he declared that "this is the last time you will be able to kick Lyndon Johnson around." For all his seeming relaxation, however, the President's attention was focused on any signs from Hanoi that might signal a desire for peace. In what could have been a significant move, word came that North Viet Nam's Ambassador to Peking, Ngo Minh Loan, had hurried back to Hanoi at about the same time that Johnson had left his ranch.

Other clues pointed to the possibility that the impasse might at last be breaking up. One was the return to South Viet Nam, at the invitation of President Nguyen Van Thieu, of Major General Duong Van Minh ("Big Minh"). The leader of the 1963 coup that deposed Ngo Dinh Diem, he had spent nearly four years in exile. Hanoi, which apparently sees Big Minh as a possible bridge between the present Saigon regime and the Viet Cong guerrillas, has accordingly taken pains to treat him gently. A sharp reduction in fighting in the South also took place. U.S. battle deaths have been declining steadily since the end of August, dipped to 177 during the week ending Oct. 12. During the first three days of last week, a total of seven U.S. servicemen died.