Communists on the Attack

Not much has been said lately about a coalition government for Saigon, a possibility Washington rejects on the grounds that such a regime would quickly be taken over by the Communists. Last week, however, the Viet Cong endorsed a possible coalition candidate. He is General Duong Van ("Big") Minh, 53, a popular leader of the 1963 coup against the Diem regime who is an old rival of President Nguyen Van Thieu. Speaking at a press conference in Paris, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Binh, the chief negotiator for the National Liberation Front, said that "we would be ready to begin conversations" with a "peace" cabinet headed by Minh.

Why would the N.L.F. endorse "Big" Minh, a staunch anti-Communist who has disavowed any ambition to head a coalition regime? It is hardly a secret that the amiable general is no strongman. The Communists are confident that any Minn-led government would soon fall apart, leaving the N.L.F. to pick up the pieces. Lately, Minh has been sniping at Thieu's policies and presenting himself as a neutralist alternative. Last week Minh proposed that the country's allegiance to the Thieu government be tested in a referendum or by "some other formula." Thieu has ignored him.

On the military front Saigon faced a more immediate challenge. The recent battlefield "lull" was shattered by Communist attacks all over the country. The renewed fighting apparently marked the start of the Communists' so-called "winter-spring campaign." They intend to stage sporadic coordinated attacks throughout the country until American public opinion forces a U.S. withdrawal. Though the campaign's start was scheduled long before last week's antiwar Moratorium demonstrations in the U.S., there was nevertheless an effort to get the fighting in step with the peace marchers. An enemy document captured southeast of Saigon recently urged intense action on Nov. 14 and 15 "in support of the upcoming struggle of the American people for peace."

The most vicious fighting of the week --and perhaps of the year--occurred just south of the Demilitarized Zone around Con Thien where troopers of the U.S. 5th Mechanized Infantry Division held off North Vietnamese regulars in three days of firefights. Although the American troops were outnumbered 3 to 1 at times, superior firepower forced the enemy to retreat, leaving 178 bodies behind.

Elsewhere, the fighting was pretty much "Vietnamized." In northern Quang Nam province, South Vietnamese regional force troops captured 58 of the enemy and killed another 130, including a battalion commander and a Communist district chief. Meanwhile, in the Mekong Delta, ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) troops and Marines struck back at North Vietnamese forces that had bested them in previous skirmishes.

A major test of ARVN stamina may take place in the Central Highlands, where some 7,000 North Vietnamese regulars have been pressing the ARVN's 23rd Division. In one engagement near Bu Prang, 110 miles north of Saigon, North Vietnamese troops charged an ARVN battalion, creating such confusion that two South Vietnamese A-37 jets, called in to provide air support, accidentally bombed ARVN troops.

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