War of Nerves

THESE DAYS OF TET HAPPINESS ARE BROUGHT TO YOU COURTESY OF YOUR GOVERNMENT'S SOLDIERS IN THE FIELD read a banner strung across Saigon's Cong Ly Boulevard last week. All over the city, red flags--intended to summon good luck, not Communism --fluttered from balconies. Saigon's citizens celebrated with dragon parades, or gathered at pagodas to pray for financial success, domestic tranquillity and a peaceful new year. In the Chinese section of Cholon, which was badly bloodied during the Communist Tet attacks four years ago, the banners bravely promised that WHAT

YOU WISH IS WHAT YOU GET.

Saigon's citizens got an eerily quiet three-day Tet holiday last week, rather than the long-awaited Communist attacks. At week's end, a North Vietnamese force overran a government outpost in the Mekong Delta, killing 27 defenders. Still, the only big Tet offensive last week was an American one: hundreds of air strikes were flown against Communist targets, including long-range artillery emplacements just above the Demilitarized Zone. South Vietnamese intelligence officers believe that an early February Communist flare-up had been planned but was put aside so that Communist negotiators in Paris could make a show of seriously considering President Nixon's eight-point peace proposal.

Major Push. No one could be sure, of course, that the Communist offensive had not been merely postponed--or scheduled instead for this week, to coincide with Nixon's visit to Peking. Nothing had altered the signs pointing to a major push--though almost certainly on a less grandiose scale than in 1968. Four North Vietnamese army divisions have been dispatched from the North to reinforce troops already in the war zone. Elements of the seasoned 5th, 7th and 9th divisions are believed to have slipped across the Cambodian border into the dense jungles northwest of Saigon; U.S. intelligence sources believe that the Communist troops are prepared to launch attacks on two hours' notice. At a checkpoint outside the capital last week, a load of Communist AK-47 assault rifles was discovered in a civilian truck.

There were other equally ominous, if less certain signs. Persistent reports in Saigon told of dogs being poisoned in nearby villages--an indication that Communist troops were due to pass through them at night. Some villagers had also been told by the Communists to store up a 15-day supply of food. Captured enemy documents told of a "nationwide spring campaign" to be launched early this week, and one defector volunteered the campaign's slogan: "One day's effort will make up for 20 years of fighting." A contradictory document ordered Viet Cong cadres "not to start anything until June or July."

John Paul Vann, the self-assured U.S. pacification chief of Military Region II, last week flatly predicted a step-up in Communist guerrilla activity followed by a major push--though no attempt at the countrywide "general uprising" that the Communists tried in 1968. His reasoning: at that time, 75% of the Viet Cong infrastructure was located inside population centers. Now the figure, according to Vann, is only 20%.

American Edge. Other experts expected any Communist attack to come in stages--first, a campaign of assassination and terror against South Vietnamese officials, primarily in rural areas, followed by strikes on government outposts and population centers, then attempts to pin down government troops and discover South Vietnamese weaknesses. Only if those stages proved successful would the Communists call for a popular uprising.

Obviously, the Communist troops were in place for a purpose, and with the coming of spring, there seemed little doubt that a new and more virulent period of war was just ahead. For the moment, the Americans seemed to have gained an edge on the propaganda front--by predicting an offensive on a scale that the Communists probably could not deliver. But at the same time, with American and South Vietnamese troops already edgy after more than a week on alert, the Communists seemed to be slightly ahead in the war of nerves.

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