Vietnamaization: Is It Working?

The path of Vietnamization has been successful.

SO declared Richard Nixon as he revealed on television the details of his secret peace proposals to Hanoi. The swift, scornful reaction to the plan from North Viet Nam made it doubly clear that Vietnamization must work if the U.S. is to succeed in making what the President called the "long voyage home." Radio Hanoi last week dismissed Vietnamization as a "bankrupt program." It is not that by any means, but few would deny that its reliability as a key factor in U.S. withdrawal strategy remains to be proved.

As TIME'S Saigon Bureau Chief Stanley Cloud reported: "If Nixon meant that Vietnamization has been successful on the battlefield, his assessment was premature. During the past two years--the years of Vietnamization--the war inside South Viet Nam has been primarily a war of nerves, featuring mainly sapper attacks and small-scale skirmishes. But not even the occasional battles between main-force units in Cambodia and Laos have been conclusive in any real sense." The first test of Saigon's forces on their home ground is likely to come in the Communist offensive that is widely expected to begin during the current dry season. As combat activity slowly picked up last week, troops uncovered caches of pre-positioned Communist supplies in central South Viet Nam, and surveillance was intensified at the highway checkpoints around Saigon.

Though Vietnamization has not been tested in battle, the process is largely complete, reports Cloud, who has just finished an extensive tour of South Viet Nam's four military regions: "From the DMZ in the north to the U Minh forest in the south, the sunburned or black faces of American G.I.s have been replaced by the delicately carved, pale yellow faces of Vietnamese, who are obliged to carry on the fight. Now, in all but a few corners of the country, the South Vietnamese, trained and supplied by the U.S. and supported by American airpower, are on the line alone."

In size, South Viet Nam's 1,100,000-man military machine is second in Asia only to China's. Saigon's air force is supposed to receive its full complement of 1,200 aircraft before the end of 1973. That goal may not be reached on schedule, but the South Vietnamese already account for 90% of the air activity within their own borders. They also account for nearly 100% of the casualties, both ground and air. During the past few months, ARVN soldiers have been dying at the staggering rate--in view of the low level of fighting--of 200 to 300 a week.

Cowboy Gangs. The new role of ARVN in the war has wrought many changes in South Vietnamese life. On the shabby tin huts outside the base at Cu Chi, which was turned over to the South Vietnamese in 1970, the signs in English that used to hawk steambaths and massage parlors have been only partially covered over by messages in Vietnamese tuned to ARVN needs and tastes: cheap gifts, laundry services and sinh-to, the Vietnamese variation of Orange Julius.

Even ARVN commanders concede that draft dodging and desertion have grown to epidemic proportions. Unable to find legitimate jobs, many young runaways drift into the roving life of the Honda-riding toughs known as "cowboys." The result has been a resurgence of the kind of gang crime last seen in the ragged days of the Diem regime. In Hue last month, one exasperated army commander assembled his troops and police near a banner proclaiming that "vagrants, thieves and burglars are the nemesis of society." His crackdown orders included an instruction that every cowboy arrested be given a haircut.

Incredibly Brave. To a sometimes absurd degree, the Vietnamization of the war has meant the Americanization of the Vietnamese, who have developed a taste for the U.S. Army manner as well as for U.S. materiel. From battalion level on up, every ARVN headquarters has a full battery of plastic-covered briefing charts ready to be whipped out for visiting VIPs.

The U.S. command in Saigon is forever fending off ARVN demands for more complex gear. One U.S. general tells of having to lecture some Vietnamese generals at a recent Saigon dinner. "I told them that in 1968, General Vo Nguyen Giap [the Communist Defense Minister] had a regiment right here in Saigon. He had no helicopters, no F-4s, no MIGs, no B-52s. 'Now,' I said, 'he's Vietnamese too. So how do you suppose General Giap solved his logistics problems?' They said they really didn't know, so I told them that the most important thing in war is not equipment. The most important thing in war is men and what they think and what their convictions are."

ARVN soldiers do not usually possess much conviction, but their morale has climbed steadily in recent months, despite the low pay ($24.16 a month, including combat allowances) and the high desertion rate. That situation could be changed quickly by a few sharp setbacks in combat, or if the suspicion spreads that the U.S. is about to sell the regime out. But for the moment, says Colonel Ross Franklin, an experienced U.S. adviser, "these guys are just incredibly stoic and brave. They go out and fight in water up to their waists for weeks at a time. And they're professional, too, if they have good leaders. If they don't, they can just fall apart."

Too often, that is the case. When the South Vietnamese have done well against main-force units, American air support has been crucial. When they have floundered, the problem has been that perennial ARVN soft spot, poor leadership. U.S. military men give high marks to a number of top officers, among them General Ngo Quang Truong, commander of IV Corps, and Major General Nguyen Vinh Nghi, whose 21st Division cleared the treacherous U Minh forest in the Mekong Delta in a tough but little-noted operation last year. Even so, most U.S. advisers below the rank of major speak of their Vietnamese counterparts with condescension if not outright contempt.

U.S. experts give Saigon's 587,000 regular troops a fair shot at dealing effectively with North Vietnamese main-force units--if they have ample air support. But no one knows what to expect from the untried irregulars who man the vital outposts along the roads and outside the villages. These Regional and Popular Forces boast 513,000 wellarmed, full-time troops, but they are unseasoned and would be no match for the tough Viet Cong or North Vietnamese professionals. As for the unpaid part-timers of the 500,000-man Popular Self-Defense Force, they are assumed to be so infiltrated by the V.C. that many Regional and Popular Force outposts will not allow P.S.D.F. troops in after dark.

There are other uncertainties. The Viet Cong infrastructure, for instance, might not be nearly so weak as is generally assumed. A sudden withdrawal or reduction of U.S. airpower would increase doubts about ARVN's abilities, even if the flow of American supplies and economic support continued. But for the moment, U.S. military men in Saigon and Washington remain reasonably sure that the newly Vietnamized war machine can accomplish its mission: to give the Saigon regime a "reasonable chance" of survival when American troops go home.

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