Games, but Grim

The first U.S. Marines to land on the shores of Lancelot are met by cheering natives. Lancelot's sovereignty is imperiled by guerrilla bands that have infiltrated from the neighboring country of Merlin, and the U.S. has sent the Marines to the rescue. The natives throng around their American saviors, tug at the Marines' packs, playfully grab their guns. In their enthusiasm, some of the Lancelotians seize field telephone wire and get it hopelessly snarled; others, trying to help land a truck, succeed only in pushing the vehicle deeper into the surf.

Now the situation really gets ugly. Here come several hundred other Lan celotians marching behind loudspeaker trucks. In their own tongue--a kind of pidgin Spanish--they shout anti-American slogans. They hurl fistfuls of sand in the Marines' faces, threaten them, push them and form human barricades. They are then joined in their hostility by the natives who originally had welcomed the Marines. "Form wedges! Form wedges, goddammit!" cries a harassed Marine sergeant. Finally, the Marines disperse the mob and start pushing inland.

Meanwhile, at the Lancelotian capital of Camelot, Brigadier General E. Hunter Hurst, in charge of the Marine brigade, lands in a helicopter, is met at the airport by the U.S. Ambassador to Lancelot, who quickly briefs the general on the situation while anti-Ameri can mobs close in on them. Fortunately, the ambassador and the general make it to a car that whisks them away into town . . .

These scenes were enacted with grim realism last week in the fictional land of Lancelot--actually a segment of the Southern California coast at the Ma rine Corps' Camp Pendleton. It was all part of Silver Lance, the most massive and elaborate war game staged by the U.S. armed forces in the two decades since World War II.

The exercise, which began Feb. 23 and ends this week, employed an armada of 60 ships, including three aircraft carriers, 520 Marine and Navy planes and helicopters, 3,200 motor vehicles; 66 tanks, 96 artillery pieces, 20,000 sailors and 25,000 marines, among whom were 5,000 playing the part of Lancelotian natives--men and women--and infiltrators from Merlin.

There were also such aids to verisimilitude as battle dressings that spurted blood-red fluid so vividly that some strapping young marines paled at the sight and hurriedly departed from the scene.

Outrageous Demands. Silver Lance is the creation of Marine Lieut. General Victor H. Krulak, 52, a toughened specialist in guerrilla and counterinsurgency warfare. Krulak and his staff began planning the exercises in September, finished with a four-inch-thick "script" that covered the histories of the make-believe countries, the developing political situations there, and the events that led to the Lancelotians' request for U.S. military aid. Also in the script: 2,000 "incidents," or problems, with which Krulak wanted his people encumbered, such as the pesky natives on the beach, a Lancelotian request for school textbooks, a native woman who wanted the Marines to arrange a baptism, scores of requests for food and medical aid, and a village chieftain who refused to deal with anyone less than the U.S. commander himself. That commander, General Hurst, had been given little notion beforehand of the devilish difficulties that Krulak had set up for him.

When Hurst arrived in Camelot with the U.S. ambassador (played by 37-year-old Palo Alto Attorney Paul McCloskey Jr., a Marine reserve major), he was confronted by the local mayor, the regional governor, various American assistance officers, and Lancelot's army chief of staff, all of whom peppered the general with outrageous demands and entreaties. It was up to Hurst to field each demand, each new problem, and he played his part well, as General Krulak observed from a corner of the room.

Landing Party. Hurst had his hands full, and not the tiniest of his troubles was the demanding U.S. ambassador, who wanted more security for American citizens in Lancelot, insisted that the military negotiate with landowners for the use of any appropriated property, complained that a Marine vehicle had run over a native and that no doctor had been summoned. To top it off, the ambassador was sore as blazes because some petroleum facilities owned by an American who happened to be a personal friend of the President of the U.S. had been sabotaged by marauding guerrillas.

Even though he knew it was a war game, Hurst nearly lost his temper. "Frankly," he said with sincere asperity, "it's tried our patience. The fundamental problem with the ambassador has been a lack of mutual understanding. He doesn't understand the military problem."

All the while, Lancelot's tenuous military situation was worsening. Guerrillas streamed into Lancelot, set up clandestine radios, pounded out propaganda, attacked and captured whole villages. Before the week was out, the U.S. ambassador himself was dramatically captured by enemy forces, and it looked as though the Marines would have to send a surreptitious landing party from an offshore submarine to effect a rescue.

Last week the whole affair came to a climax with an all-out invasion by an expeditionary force of 20,000 Marines. When the mopping-up is completed, referees will analyze their observations and tell General Krulak who won the game. Presumably, Lancelot will be saved, and the evil menace of Merlin whipped.

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