Mosquitoes &the Sledge Hammer

INDOCHINA

How is the war going in Indo-China? Last week, from the Southeast Asia front where Communism is reaching for new conquests, TIME Correspondent Wilson Fielder reported:

The bull-necked French captain stood at the rail of his U.S. made LCI moored up the Mekong river 70 miles from Saigon. Along the marshy jungle bank moved a column of tough, tired fighters--Foreign Legionnaires, Senegalese, Algerians, a few French--back from a day's action by naval-ground-&-air forces against the elusive Viet Minh (Communist-led) guerrillas. Two of the legionnaires had been wounded by a booby trap. Behind them, over banyan and bamboo groves, rose the smoke of a straw-hut village they had put to the torch. With them the legionnaires brought a small batch of women and children captives.

The captain watched morosely. "When they hear we are coming in force," he said, "they disappear into the swamps. So we must fight them another way. The native shacks burning out there contained Viet Minh literature, or guns, or large stocks of rice." The captain swatted at buzzing insects with an old French newspaper. "They never fight us unless they outnumber us," he went on. "We can never win this fight militarily. It's just like trying to kill mosquitoes with a sledge hammer."

A Finger In Butter. The French expedition had chugged out at dawn from its downriver base. From the undergrowth ashore sounded warning signals--rifle shots that said the French were coming.

In a small clearing the expedition found three deserted straw shacks. On a table in one rested a freshly cut papaya. In another coolie clothes hung on a peg. Chickens scratched in a tiny garden patch. As they pulled away, the French tossed a grenade into a frail native dugout on the riverbank; it disappeared in an upheaval of water and swamp hyacinth. "It's hard on people who live here," explained an officer, "but if we leave their craft, the Viet Minh use them for moving ammunition and supplies. Small boats are the transport of this battle ground."

By midmorning two French battalions had disembarked and advanced up each side of a creek, combing the adjoining marshland in extended squad formation. They made no contact with the enemy. An air liaison officer had called out three fighter planes (P-63 Kingcobras) for reconnaissance and strafing. As they circled overhead, sometimes diving earthward, a lieutenant said, "It's always like this--like pushing your finger into butter. The butter spreads and when you pull your finger out you don't have much. Well, anyway, when the Viet Minh come out of hiding they'll find life difficult with no rice or boats."

So would the peasants upon whose land this war lies.

Beau Geste Forts. The hit & run war centers around Saigon in the south. The French do little raiding in the north, where the Reds have their main base-There, at widely separated strong points, the French sit in Beau Geste-like hilltop forts waiting for surprise attacks on convoys that move along their supply line.

The French can go anywhere they want only if they put enough men in the field, fight along mountainous roads and take their losses.

Under Red boss Ho Chi Minh, Viet Minh now has a regular uniformed army of 70,000. Its armament approaches French standards, though there are shortages in heavy machine guns, mortars, artillery. Viet Minh also has a "popular army"--some 70,000 irregulars who never leave their native provinces, wage organized guerrilla actions. Finally, on the village level there are "militia" who fight as individuals.

The French have 130,000 troops, not counting Viet Namese levies now being recruited and trained. In the air, they have three transport squadrons (used mainly for air drops in the north), and a striking force of P-63s, strength undisclosed. Their on-the-spot navy (8,500 men and officers) includes one cruiser, 14 sloops, 12 minesweepers, some 150 smaller craft. In the past 4 1/2 years the Indo-China military operation has cost France $475 million annually--a total expenditure almost equal to all ECAid for France.

Iron Heart & Backbone. The ideological struggle between the French-supported Viet Nam headed by Emperor Bao Dai, and the Red-led Viet Minhese is decidedly uneven. Ho Chi Minh has grabbed the slogan "Liberation," a dynamic word in Indo-China today. Said a ranking French adviser in the Bao Dai government: "Ho Chi Minh is a real leader, a man of iron heart, a man to be feared because of his popular following. Bao Dai is a clever man, intelligent and courteous, but like many Asiatics he weaves. He doesn't follow a straight line."

Many intelligent Viet Namese feel that Bao Dai sold them down the river when he signed the March 8, 1949 agreements which gave Viet Nam something less than dominion status within the French Union. Nowhere do the accords mention the right of Viet Nam to withdraw from the Union. There are other limiting clauses--heads of Viet Namese diplomatic missions to foreign countries must be approved by the French; in civil and penal courts "French law will be applied every time a Frenchman is implicated"; a "privileged place will be maintained for the French language which is the diplomatic language of Viet Nam," etc.

Some French officials admit "our system in Indo-China is not democratic," but they feel Viet Nam "needs a strong backbone" to give it security, and that this backbone must be French-armed strength. Says High Commissioner Leon Pignon: "Military aid will be the best economic aid for Viet Nam . . . Crisis and poverty are the result of insecurity."

IndoChina's restless intellectual youth is refusing to rally to Bao Dai's support. Many businessmen, administrators and politicians either work actively with the

Viet Minh or aid it by refusing to accept places of responsibility in the Bao Dai regime. The vast majority of Viet Nam's leaders consider the emperor a puppet. They say: "We will solve our Communist problem after we get rid of the French." They argue that the Viet Minh following is only 20% Communist and 80% Nationalist, then talk hopefully--and probably foolishly--of holding elections to prevent the Reds from dominating the country.

This sentiment, which inevitably weakens the Western hope behind Bao Dai, creates as difficult a problem as the swatting of mosquitoes with a sledge hammer.

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