More of the Same And Hope for the Best

And Hope for the Best Once again U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was back in Washington after a fact-finding trip (his fourth) to South Viet Nam. Gist of his recommendations, duly accepted by President Johnson: More of the same and hope for the best.

The U.S. will step up aid to Saigon by $30 million to $40 million a year (current rate: $500 million), will send in "limited but significant additional equipment" and provide more American combat advisers if necessary. While reporting "clear and unmistakable" evidence that the Viet Cong guerrillas are directed from Red North Viet Nam, Johnson did not follow up previous hints that the U.S. might carry the war to the north. Instead, he expressed the fervent hope that the new Premier, General Nguyen Khanh, will win the war in his own bailiwick, praised him for acting "vigorously and effectively."

It all sounded like a familiar refrain. But McNamara and his party were genuinely impressed with Khanh, returned convinced that he deserves wholehearted U.S. support. In Saigon, Khanh was at least trying to consolidate his leadership in ways big and small, and with a lot of brave talk. He dispatched his comely wife on visits to Vietnamese and American military hospitals, pleased Mekong Delta poultry farmers by halving the export tax on ducks, ordered the late President Diem's old palace converted into an arts and science museum. The little Premier also announced a tightening up of the influence-riddled draft system under which wealthy youths in Saigon have long dodged military service. "It is difficult to admit," said Khanh, "that there are two Viet Nams--one fighting in the countryside, the other in Saigon, feasting every night. In the fight against Communism, all must participate. We will not hesitate to shoot or give life imprisonment to those who have not awakened."

The Program. Khanh wants more manpower for several projects--all tall orders and all previously tried in various forms by either the French or Diem. Khanh promises to create "a highly trained guerrilla force that can beat the Viet Cong on its own ground," wants to strengthen the often timid paramilitary forces, such as hamlet militias. He has begun training a corps of civil administrators to rebuild war-shattered local governments. And he proposes to revive and improve Diem's strategic-hamlet program; however, instead of forcing peasants into the armed compounds, Khanh says he will make the program voluntary, and he wants to make it less passive.

The overall plan, which the U.S. terms "clear and hold," is to establish base areas, called "oil spots" or "ink blots" by Khanh, and slowly spread government influence to surrounding Viet Cong territory (see following story). McNamara is convinced that the "ink blot" program can work, although he concedes that "they do not yet know where to put all the blots."

Khanh last week also launched diplomatic moves to repair relations with his country's two neutralist neighbors, Laos and Cambodia, and, if possible, to slow the flow of Communist men and materiel that keep filtering through.

In Laos, South Viet Nam reopened its embassy in Vientiane, which it had closed in 1962 as a protest against Laotian recognition of North Viet Nam. Neutralist Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma announced that he was pleased, but he had little else to smile about. In the endless fighting that goes on in the balled-up little country between its three ruling factions, the rightist forces last week accused the pro-Communist Pathet Lao of launching yet another attack. Talks were under way aimed at arranging a conference this week between the faction leaders, namely Souvanna Phouma, his half brother Pathet Lao Leader Prince Souphanouvong, and Rightist General Phoumi Nosavan. The object would be to get the Pathet Lao back into the coalition government, which in effect they quit out of fear a year ago, by guaranteeing their leaders' safety in Vientiane should they choose to return. But there is faint expectation of agreement, even if the conference does materialize.

In a supreme show of gall, the Pathet Lao demanded henceforth to be cut in on U.S. aid, such as rice, which the U.S. airdrops to refugees and soldiers of the rightist and neutralist factions. Why shouldn't the proCommunists, asked the Pathet Lao, get their fair share?

In Cambodia, a ten-member South Vietnamese delegation was on hand to try ironing out longstanding border disputes between the two countries. Cambodia's Prince Norodom ("Snookie") Sihanouk had just tried to hold similar border talks with North Viet Nam--an interesting endeavor, in view of the fact that Cambodia has no border with North Viet Nam, only South Viet Nam. Apparently rebuffed by a mystified Ho Chi Minh, Sihanouk protested that Hanoi's Reds had been "as vague as the Anglo-Saxons." But that did not necessarily make him any friendlier toward the South Vietnamese delegates.

Hardly had that delegation arrived when a serious border incident erupted. In hot pursuit of a gang of 20 Viet Cong, South Vietnamese armored cars and planes attacked the village of Chantrea four miles inside Cambodia. Sihanouk called it "savage aggression," reported that 16 Cambodians had been killed. Pleading faulty map reading, the embarrassed Saigon government admitted the intrusion, apologized, and promised indemnification. But it countered that several guerrillas had been found in the village, thus tending to confirm the well-known fact that the Viet Cong operate freely out of Cambodia. As usual, Sihanouk had some more words. Over the Pnompenh radio, he claimed that American advisers had been in on the attack--and that a Cambodian plane shot down a U.S.-made South Vietnamese spotter plane. And naturally he cabled the U.N. announcing that Cambodia would take its aggression charges to the Security Council.

All in all, it was another perfectly normal week in Southeast Asia.

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