Suggestions, Anyone?

SOUTH VIET NAM

Saigon last week wore the strained smile of a city denying reality. In the sensual half-light of the busy Tu Do nightclub, a chanteuse belted out "Non, je ne regrette rien," while in the harsh countryside the casualties totaled over 1 ,000 Vietnamese and a score of Americans in one of the worst weeks of the long war against the Viet Cong. Tall bottles of Krug champagne stood at attention next to Long John Scotch in the windows of shops filled with luxury goods, and the cafes and milk bars were jammed with clothes-conscious students oblivious to the squawk of loudspeakers in planes flying overhead commanding all males between 20 and 25 not yet under arms to register for the draft.

In the Eden Palace movie theater, Judgment at Nuremberg played to a packed house, while Saigon's 1,000-bed Cong Hoa military hospital overflowed with 3,000 war victims. The fashionable French high schools are desperate for teachers to satisfy the demands of wealthy Saigonese who want to enroll their children, and "curfew parties" start at midnight and end at dawn.

Saigon is suffering from Weltunter-gangstimmung (an end-of-the-world mood), a local psychiatrist told TIME Correspondent James Wilde. "There's something of the feeling here that existed in the Middle Ages when the plague struck," he added. "You have big feasts and orgies." Brief Reprieve. There was even a festive air at the trial of 13 officers and seven civilians charged with attempting to unseat General Khanh last month.

The five-man military tribunal wore dress white and medals. As the accused entered the prisoners' box, they turned and smiled to their waving and applauding wives and children in the packed gallery. Although the defendants are all former friends or classmates of his, Khanh has insisted on the trial to discourage further coups and to satisfy Vietnamese Buddhists, who felt the "coupette" that failed was essentially anti-Buddhist. On the other hand -- such are the balancing acts required in Vietnamese politics -- if the accused were to draw overly severe sentences, much of the army would be antagonized.

For Viet Cong Terrorist Nguyen Van Troi, however, there was no tempering of justice. Troi, convicted of trying to kill Defense Secretary McNamara last spring had got a brief, bizarre reprieve when Venezuela's Castroite F.A.L.N.

kidnaped U.S. Air Force Lieut. Colonel Michael Smolen and announced that it was Troi's life or Smolen's (TIME, Oct. 16). But last week Smolen was released unharmed in Caracas, while in Saigon, Troi was tied to a post in the garden of Saigon's Chi Hoa prison and executed by a Khanh firing squad.

Northern Threat. Meanwhile, Khanh and the High National Council of civilians, set up to give South Viet Nam a new constitution, were at loggerheads. Though the constitution had been due for unveiling last week, with popular elections to follow, Khanh was insisting on virtually autonomous control by the military in exchange for turning over the reins of power to a civilian government--a notably self-contradictory plan even by South Viet Nam standards. At any rate, the Council wisely announced, popular elections were ruled out, since they might well result in a Communist victory, given the extent of Viet Cong control of the countryside in the provinces.

Indeed, the Viet Cong for the second straight week seemed to be stepping up the tempo of the war. They now have virtual control of four of the six northern coastal provinces of South Viet Nam and thus the potential to cut the country in two.

The northern provinces had been largely free of Viet Cong until the Vietnamese 25th Division was pulled back to help clear the infested provinces immediately around Saigon three weeks ago. The move is paying off: at week's end, in a series of battles largely around Saigon, the Vietnamese inflicted heavy losses--300 casualties in one day--on the Viet Cong. But meanwhile the Viet Cong have come down from the mountains in battalion strength to fill the vacuum left by the 25th's departure, are now forcing peasants in the undefended area to collect and carry the rice harvest north to feed Communist troops.

Feasibility Six. Under the circumstances, all suggestions were welcome to harassed officials in Viet Nam, and in fact the U.S. military command in Saigon disclosed that since last January it has been running a suggestion box to elicit ideas on how to win the war in Viet Nam. It has received more than 500 ideas from all over the world, ranging from the terse "Go north" of a sergeant in Texas to four detailed pages containing 15 suggestions from an officer based in a Vietnamese jungle camp. A nine-man committee screens the entries, rates them from one to six in terms of feasibility.

Some advocate impractical schemes such as population transfers and scorched-earth zones to weed out the Viet Cong. Other suggestions are already in use, such as a kind of Trojan-horse proposal to send Vietnamese troops in mufti by bus into isolated Viet Cong areas. Most-applauded contribution so far: design for a new nylon jungle hammock, both lighter and cheaper than the bulky standard issue it has now replaced. Unfortunately, the war in Viet Nam will not be won from better hammocks.

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