How Goes the War? A Colloquy in Saigon

DEFENSE Secretary Melvin Laird visited South Viet Nam last week for a first-hand look at the effectiveness of the Nixon Administration's policies. Laird went into the field togged out in fatigues and a baseball cap, and announced on departure that "Vietnamization is working." It is "on schedule in some places and ahead of schedule in others," he reported. "We face formidable but manageable problems ahead."

Back in Washington, the 76-member Democratic Policy Council recommended that the U.S. announce a firm timetable for withdrawing all troops within 18 months, a course that the Administration has rejected. The argument for a public timetable is that it would increase pressure on Saigon to take over the fighting, and on Hanoi to accept a political settlement instead of facing protracted combat with a beefed-up South Vietnamese army. Nixon, by contrast, contends that any such announcement would tie his hands and undercut his bargaining position with the enemy.

While Secretary Laird was in Viet Nam, TIME'S Saigon correspondents --Bureau Chief Marsh Clark, Robert Anson and Burton Pines--sat down to compare their own informed assessments of the present state of the war. Among their comments:

Vietnamization

CLARK. If there is enough time, then ARVN [Army of the Republic of Viet Nam] may very well shape up. They've now got some fairly decent units. They know how to work artillery and fly planes and run boats. They're acquiring some logistics sense, which comes hard. But I think we're going to have some real headaches with ARVN and probably some fairly disheartening setbacks. It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of patience, maybe more than the American public has to give. But so far, so good.

PINES: If we give ARVN enough time, it probably can solve its problems--lack of confidence, getting enough experienced NCOs and junior officers and sufficient equipment. Whatever indications we have are encouraging. Still, we can't be sure unless there is a more definitive test. It might come in the Mekong Delta.

ANSON: The crunch will come when ARVN gets whacked by the North Vietnamese. I mean really whacked. What happens when they start losing a company here and a company there, or maybe a battalion? Will the whole force crack? That's a question we can't answer. We can only hope. But I have my doubts. I think the most hopeful sign is the progress of the RFs and PFs [Regional Forces and Popular Forces, responsible for defending their home districts]. The very fact that you don't hear them called "Ruff-Puffs" so much any more is encouraging.

The Ground War

CLARK: This time two years ago, we were fighting in the streets of Saigon, Hue and almost every other major town in the country. Now the fighting is taking place almost completely in the thinly populated provinces bordering the sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. This seems to me the biggest accomplishment of the past two years--moving the enemy away from the population centers, where he can really hurt you. I think our side is ahead in this game, and the other side had better do something pretty drastic or they'll be too far behind to catch up.

PINES: The initiative is definitely now in allied hands. The Communists today find it increasingly costly and difficult to mass their forces. When they do, they suffer enormous losses.

Enemy Intentions

PINES: If the Communists could unleash another offensive of the magnitude of Tet 1968, they would. They cannot. They realize that to continue their current level of fighting would involve unbearable casualties and perhaps fatally tax the resources of North Viet Nam. .ANSON: It is wrong to look for anything resembling a return to classic guerrilla warfare. The North and the Viet Cong have always recognized that the U.S. presents a far more formidable opponent than the French and that defeating it would be a long, complicated struggle. We seem to be returning to roughly the same situation that existed from 1960 to 1965, before the massive commitment of American combat troops --a sort of special warfare, as the Communists would call it, with the South Vietnamese doing most of the fighting and with the Americans providing big doses of advice and assistance. The Communists will be preparing for what they believe will be a final, decisive offensive on the political front. They will be training cadres and propagandizing the population during 1970. We will see fewer large-scale ground attacks and more terrorism, indirect attacks by fire and sapper probes. It is quite possible that the Communists may offer the U.S. a ceasefire, and equally possible that the U.S. will accept.

The Future U.S. Role

PINES: By 1972 we should still have close to 200,000 Americans in Viet Nam, but they'll be suffering very few casualties. There will be Air Force strategic and tactical support, engineers, medics. There will be advisers to ARVN regiments and divisions, to their air force, navy and logisticians, as well as the whole spectrum of pacification and rural-development programs. Finally, we will need at least two divisions as a fire brigade. These will probably be the last troops to go. They might remain for several decades as a tripwire deterrent, like the U.S. Seventh Army on the Elbe River and the U.S. Eighth Army on the 38th parallel in Korea. ANSON: The redeployment of combat troops to the U.S. will continue, per haps over the next 12 to 18 months. I think there is virtually no possibility of the U.S. introducing new troops into the battle zone, no matter how dark the military picture becomes for ARVN.

Pacification

PINES: Fortunately, pacification no longer seeks to "win the hearts and minds of the people." Instead it aims at the stomach, at wellbeing, and it has made impressive gains.

CLARK.-Pacification really means establishing a situation in which the people can live normal lives--develop commerce, elect village officials, travel around without being worried about getting shot. Nobody who has traveled this country can seriously argue that things have not improved. Roads are open, produce is getting to market. That does not make the people loyal to President Thieu, though. I think most of them wish all politicians would go away. ANSON: I personally feel that while pacification may be stronger today than at any time within recent memory, it is still extremely vulnerable to a determined thrust. We shouldn't be surprised if we wake up some morning to find that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese have returned to areas where we thought they could never come back.

The Thieu Government

CLARK: I've been disappointed by the failure to clean up very obvious corruption, although there has probably been some improvement on the province-chief level. The average province chief today is a military appointee of Thieu who can't operate openly like a Chinese warlord, exacting tribute from his followers. As for broadening the political base of Thieu's government, although it is a very Western concept, I think eventually he will do it. Should it come about at the price of constant bickering and plotting? Thieu has asked some of those Vietnamese who call for broadening the political base to take part in his government, but they all want to be Prime Minister. Often these men speak for themselves and nobody else. They do not represent big mass parties. PINES: Power does not lie with the political parties. Political parties in South Viet Nam are a Saigon phenomenon of lawyers, former generals and cafe intellectuals with little or no roots in the countryside. If Thieu cannot win the stomachs and broaden his base in the countryside, then no combination of political blocs in Saigon can save him or his regime. If he gains in the countryside, no combination of blocs could do much to remove him. When the U.S. urges Thieu to broaden the political spectrum of his party, we are approaching the Vietnamese scene with a very ethnocentric, Anglo-American eye. It's a political-science-seminar solution that just will not work.

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