Winning Instead of Wishing

"From his letters, you'd get the impression he was on a vacation," said the mother-in-law of a U.S. Army lieutenant when she learned last week that he had been wounded in a fierce nighttime confrontation with the Viet Cong in South Viet Nam. "We never knew he was in the thick of things."

Few Stateside Americans have been altogether aware of the scope and savagery of the war in Viet Nam, or even perceived how deep in the thick of things their nation is there. Despite all the headlines, all the vignettes of heroism and horror, all the demonstrations and counterdemonstrations in the U.S. itself, the average American, cushioned by prosperity and a span of 8,500 miles, has found it hard to realize that the struggle in Southeast Asia is indeed a war. But it is--and that fact was driven home last week as never before when a fresh, division-strength Communist force laid the bold and bloody siege of Plei Me in the rugged jungle highlands 215 miles northeast of Saigon (see following story").

Plei Me is pronounced "play may," and the incongruity of the name must have struck millions of Americans as they watched the if grim film clips on TV screens night after night. Even motorists who flipped on their car radios must suddenly have got a tense, terrifying ringside impression of the war. "In one minute," said the voice of a CBS radio reporter in Plei Me, where several wounded G.I.s were awaiting evacuation, "an air strike will begin and a if helicopter might very well be caught in it. They have loaded two men on. Here comes the air strike. The helicopter is still on the ground." Suddenly, the frantic voice of a U.S. soldier broke into the narrative. "Get him up! Get him out! Get him up!" he screamed. Back came the CBS man: "The helicopter takes off quickly, heading straight north. The air strike is held for a moment. The chopper makes it safely."

Semantic Problem. While Americans generally were at last beginning to realize that this was no remote frontier skirmish but an all-out war, there was still considerable confusion over where it would lead. To many, the very word "negotiations" had talismanic power, as though a swift and honorable solution were waiting readymade if only the statesmen could find the magic formula. To be sure, U.S. officials have taken every opportunity to underscore their determination to negotiate peace terms. But even if North Viet Nam were to agree to sit down at the bargaining table tomorrow, the killing might well continue for years beyond that.

The problem is partly semantic. To many Americans, "negotiations" is virtually synonymous with "cease-fire." Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson exorcised this chimera in Washington last week in a significant speech pointing out that 9,000 American soldiers died in Korea between the time that armistice negotiations began and a cease-fire was finally declared, two years later. All told, the two sides met 575 times; while they talked truce, 1,000,000 Americans were drafted, upwards of $10 billion went into the war, and nearly as many U.S. servicemen were wounded as before the negotiations got under way.

Moreover, if Hanoi were actually to halt the fighting--a remote prospect at best--the U.S. commitment to South Viet Nam would not end but merely enter a new phase. As General Johnson warned: "Even if the level and scope of hostilities in Viet Nam were to decline, a sudden phasedown in our strength would not necessarily follow. Communists historically have been too intransigent, too insidious and too intent on victory at our expense. While active conflict may subside, the security of the people and the process of nation building will still be required. We should have no illusions about achieving success quickly in Viet Nam."

For, added Johnson, even after negotiations have begun, the U.S. is still committed to establishing "a climate of order in which lawful government can function effectively. We achieve order by imposing control, and control can be imposed only by closing with and defeating the enemy." As for the cry that the U.S. has no legitimate interest in Viet Nam, Secretary of State NETT Dean Rusk pointed out last week in a speech at Dallas' Southern Methodist University that every U.S. President since World War II has considered Southeast Asia's security and freedom an essential bulwark of the non-Communist world. "If anyone doubted this," said Rusk, "we'd be on the road to catastrophe."

Catcalls. While catcalling Viet-nik demonstrators in recent weeks have suggested that a sizable segment of U.S. opinion disagrees, every opinion poll to date has shown resoundingly that vastly greater numbers of Americans recognize and support the nation's Asian policy. If anything, the "get-out-of-Viet Nam" protesters have had the unexpected catalytic effect of arousing a degree of support for the war that had not previously been apparent.

At dozens of U.S. universities, students and faculty have scheduled "bleed-ins" to provide blood for the fighting men in Viet Nam.

"Operation Sweet Tooth" has been launched to send them candies and cookies. Christmas packages are heading there under an

"All-American Gift Lift," letters and greeting cards under a variety of programs ("Viet Nam Mail Call," "Letters of Good Will"). In Germany, one American G.I. went on a three-day hunger strike because he was not being sent to Viet Nam. In New York, where 10,000 demonstrators marched three weeks ago in protest against the U.S. role in Viet Nam, 25,000 counter-demonstrators jammed Fifth Avenue last week in its support.

Particularly in the months to come, support and understanding may be all the more necessary. Thirsty for even one showcase triumph, the Viet Cong are showing signs of suicidal desperation, and may well inflict some sobering reverses. Not only at Plei Me but also in enemy assaults on the U.S. enclaves at Chu Lai and Danang, this go-for-broke approach last week marked a significant shift from the canny laws of survival on which the Communists' guerrilla strategy is based.

Missed Mousetrap. At Plei Me, a victory was badly needed to bolster sagging Viet Cong spirits, to "blood" two untested North Vietnamese regiments totaling 6,000 men, and reassure Hanoi that this is not the kind of war that effete Americans are prepared to fight. The Reds got blooded, all right, but not as they intended. When their mousetrap at Plei Me failed to snap shut, they turned to another battle-tested stratagem: suicidal airbase raids. They brought off a minor tactical gain--18 U.S. helicopters and two Navy Skyhawks destroyed, 22 other choppers and five Skyhawks damaged at Danang and Chu Lai--that only six months ago would have blown up scare headlines in the U.S. This time, though, it was the Viet Cong who took the greater loss--in dead and wounded.

In the long term, the shift in Communist tactics shed a hopeful light on the war. As one senior U.S. officer said last week: "If you put them all together, they spell 'We've got to do it' for the Communists." That, as any soldier knows, can lead to dangerous risk-taking.

Eventual Dissolution. The new feel and direction of the war are sufficiently tangible to lead some officials in Washington to ask whether negotiations may after all prove unnecessary, even undesirable. Retired General Maxwell D. Taylor, onetime Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who served as Lyndon Johnson's ambassador to Saigon from 1964 to last July, ventured last week that the U.S. has "recaptured the initiative" in Viet Nam and, with its ever-increasing strength, is likely to keep it. If that happens, he added, the war may very well end without a single session of formal truce talks but with the "eventual dissolution" of the Viet Cong apparatus and an undeclared halt to guerrilla activities. Meanwhile the cause of peace can realistically be advanced only on the battlefield.

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