Simmering Along

In the capitals of the world last week there was more talk about peace talks than actual progress toward them. And on the battlefields of South Viet Nam, there was more preparation for heavy fighting than major action. Most battle contacts were limited to skirmishes scattered throughout the countryside, but few allied military men expected the comparative lull to last. One reason was a man who figured prominently in the week's news: Colonel Pham Van Thanh, a Viet Cong since 1945, who crossed lines to become the highest ranking defector of the war. Thanh brought with him the warning that the Communists were about to attempt a second round of attacks as a sequel to their countrywide Tet offensive three months ago.

Allied intelligence doubted that the Communists, who by allied count have lost 71,000 men since Tet, could muster a second offensive on the same devastating scale. But just in case they tried, allied troops were put on the alert throughout South Viet Nam. City dwellers were asked to stockpile food and fuel, lock their doors and stay home. Saigon police threw a cordon around the capital to block arms infiltration. The U.S. 25th Infantry Division was deployed around Tan Son Nhut airport and the allied headquarters there, and B-52s bombed the Communists' likely approaches to Saigon.

Up 300%. Colonel Thanh also confirmed that the Communists had not done so well during Tet as they had hoped, partly through faulty coordination and communications. In fact, discouraged by their failure, his units around Saigon began drifting away from their assigned positions after Tet. As a result, the vaunted second round of attacks, originally scheduled for late February, failed to come off. Nonetheless, the allies still credit the enemy with considerable capacity for causing damage.

Most of the Communist dead have been replaced with new recruits, many of them raw and untrained, who are now being given crash courses in tactics and fire discipline in jungle bivouacs. To remedy their communications problems in the Saigon area, the Communists have redivided the capital's command zones, creating a forward command center near the city and five subcommand posts, all linked by radio network. They have also been busy improving their transportation network, building and surfacing roads in a dozen places, including one within 30 miles of Saigon. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong have been feverishly refitting and resupplying; Soviet shipments to Hanoi are running about 300% higher this year than last.

When and if the Communists do elect to come out fighting again, they will find the allies far better prepared for Round 2 than they were for Round 1. From the A Shau valley in the north to the environs of Saigon, allied units are aggressively trying to break up Communist formations before they can be fully assembled for offensive use. The South Vietnamese army has invaded the A Shau valley, an almost untouchable redoubt of Communist troops since they overran a U.S. Special Forces base there in 1966. Other allied units are positioned for "mobile defense" to come to the aid of any city or cities that the enemy tries to hit again.

Fewer Losses. Meanwhile, the biggest warfare was being carried out in North Viet Nam. Though the heavily populated areas above the 20th parallel are enjoying a bombing respite, North Viet Nam's "panhandle" just to the south is absorbing an unparalleled pounding. Taking advantage of the lifting monsoon, U.S. Airmen last week carried out the heaviest raids of the year. They flew a total of 731 missions that struck trucks, radar sites, gun emplacements, rail links, bridges and sampans along the width and breadth of the panhandle, which extends north from the DMZ 150 miles to the road-and-rail network located at the coastal city of Vinh.

The panhandle is being attacked daily by some 400 Air Force and Marine fighter-bombers that fly from Danang and four Thai bases, plus 240 Navy warplanes that come from three carriers that regularly patrol off the North Vietnamese coast. For the pilots, the nature of the air war has changed drastically. Though many pilots are flying more missions than they did over the deep North, they face fewer hazards than in the skies above Hanoi and Haiphong. So far, the North Vietnamese have not moved their mobile antiaircraft and SAMs south, apparently fearing to leave their cities exposed should the bombing resume. While the deep North is covered 100% by overlapping antiaircraft fire, only 50% of the panhandle is similarly inhospitable. Naturally, American pilots are happy that losses are fewer over the panhandle.

More on Less. The targets are also somewhat different. Since there are few so sensitive that they require prior White House or Pentagon approval, the bombing over the panhandle is left almost entirely to local commanders. Instead of placing their bombs on airfields, ports or industrial complexes, American flyers are now looking mainly for small bridges, sampans on inter-land canals and truck convoys heading south. Knowing that U.S. flyers are forbidden to bomb villages, the Communist drivers park their camouflaged trucks in villages during the day. Almost invariably, the cameras of the U.S. reconnaissance planes find them and send radar-directed bombers to hit the trucks when they venture forth from the village onto the highway after dark.

So far, by concentrating more on less, U.S. air commanders feel that they are interdicting a higher amount of the southward flow of traffic than the 20% or so that they were destroying in pre-restriction days. Despite their present preoccupation with the panhandle, the U.S. aerial strategists are prepared for a quick switch. If peace feelers fail and President Johnson orders the resumption of a wider air war, they could have American bombers back in the air over Hanoi and Haiphong within four hours.

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