Deeper & Wider

Physically and symbolically, the U.S. last week passed another notch mark in the Vietnamese war.

President Johnson decided to make another major increase in American troop levels in the war zone. There, in a series of savage engagements (see THE WORLD), combat-hardened U.S. fighting men mauled well-equipped and well-disciplined regular North Vietnamese divisions--proving again that man for man, gun for gun, the American soldier is as deadly a foe today as he was in the Pacific jungles and islands of World War II. And, as another, less-noticed measure of the nation's wider and deeper involvement in Viet Nam's war, the four-year toll of American lives lost in combat passed the 1,000 mark.

End of a Taboo. In one of the biggest battles yet mounted by U.S. forces, paratroopers and helicopter-borne troops of the elite 173rd Airborne Brigade plunged into eight hours of furious hand-to-hand combat with screaming, cymbal-clashing Viet Cong guerrillas 30 miles northeast of Saigon. The toll of Red dead may have reached 600. Three days later, in jungles controlled by the Communists for 20 years, a battalion of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division repelled scores of attacking Viet Cong, killed at least 150 before the assault was broken. At the coastal town of Chu Lai, U.S. Marines, backed by the Seventh Fleet, made an amphibious landing aimed at flushing out some 3,500 Viet Cong believed to be dug in near by.

Ending one of the war's longstanding taboos, Air Force and Navy planes smashed SAM missile sites well within the 35-mile radius of Hanoi that had hitherto been carefully bypassed by U.S. bombers. By week's end, 13 of 22 known SAM sites in North Viet Nam had been damaged or destroyed.

"Blunted & Defeated." The intensified U.S. role in Viet Nam did not come cheaply. In the first week of November alone, 70 Americans died, the highest seven-day U.S. toll since the American entry into the war eleven years ago. Yet the results continued to be encouraging. After meeting with President Johnson last week, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara told reporters: "The South Vietnamese, with our help, have blunted and defeated the Viet Cong monsoon offensive, and the Viet Cong have paid a very heavy price indeed."

Though the ratio of Viet Cong killed to American casualties (2.5 to 1) was not so high as in the past, the number and severity of engagements was markedly increased. To meet the growing demands of battle, the 160,000 U.S. troops now in Viet Nam will reach 200,000 by year's end, and by early spring will probably number at least 250,000.

The decision to send in more troops did not reflect any change of policy in Washington. On the contrary. Secretary of State Dean Rusk reiterated last week that the U.S. is simply "getting on with our commitment here--keeping open the possibilities of peace if the other side decides to pursue that tack." In fact, though, it is increasingly evident that Hanoi is as deeply committed to victory as the U.S. Five crack divisions of North Viet Nam's regular army have already been thrown into the struggle, more troops infiltrate every week. Thus the widening war in Viet Nam is by no means one-sided--as every American involved in it can testify.

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