Vietnamization: A Policy Under the Gun
The offensive began in the sky--with a shattering barrage of at least 12,000 rounds of rocket, mortar and artillery fire across the Demilitarized Zone, which divides North and South Viet Nam. Said Specialist Fourth Class Michael Hill, a U.S. adviser with ARVN units in the area: "It was like nothing we ever expected and nothing we ever saw." Then came the ground attack. Some 25,000 North Vietnamese troops, with Russian-built tanks and artillery, swept down through Quang Tri province, sending 50,000 refugees fleeing south and U.S. advisers scurrying to their helicopters. As his stunned military forces struggled to regroup, President Nguyen Van Thieu appeared on TV to deliver a grim ten-minute speech. "This is the final battle to decide the survival of the people," he said.
There may have been a touch of apocalyptic hyperbole in Thieu's words. Nonetheless, there was no doubt that the North Vietnamese had launched their largest offensive in South Viet Nam since Tet 1968. Hanoi clearly was seeking a decisive military victory that would both display the impotence of Thieu's regime and embarrass Richard Nixon politically. For Washington, and indeed for Saigon, it was the first real test of Vietnamization, a policy that the Administration had pursued--at a cost of 12,000 U.S. lives and three more years in a divisive and unpopular war--in order to buy time until the South Vietnamese could defend their own soil. To the Administration, however, the Communist attack was an opportunity as well as an uncertain challenge. The White House is convinced, as one official put it last week, that "if the Vietnamese fight well, this will hasten the end of the war considerably." In short, Washington felt--perhaps too optimistically--the fighting could mean an end to the stalemate, both on the battleground and at the Paris talks.
New Front. The early drama focused on the north, where the Communist onslaught swirled around some names familiar to many American G.I.s: Camp Carroll, Camp Fuller, Camp Ann, Alpha Two, Alpha Four. It also added something startlingly new to the war: heavy Soviet weapons, including tanks (ranging from light PT-76s to heavy T-54s of World War II vintage), artillery (up to modern 130-mm. guns with a 19-mile range) and even SA-2 missiles. By week's end, as the northern fighting settled down to a wary probing of defenses around Quang Tri city and Hue, the offensive boiled up in other areas.
In the Central Highlands, known to the generals as Military Region II, North Vietnamese troops were maneuvering around Kontum, thought to be a prime Communist target. On the coast, sappers struck the big U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay, killing 3 Americans and wounding 15. Far to the south in the Mekong Delta (Military Region IV), there was a rash of shelling, and attacks hit airfields outside two provincial capitals. For the moment, however, the Communists had really opened only one new "front"; that was in Military Region III, the mid-country region that encompasses Saigon. That area was rapidly becoming the main worry of the U.S. and South Vietnamese commanders. At Loc Ninh, a rural district capital 75 miles north of Saigon near the Cambodian border, North Vietnamese troops routed the South Vietnamese defenders, organized "people's committees," and set up antiaircraft positions. Other enemy troops were moving, in regimental strength, to areas west, north and south of Saigon, which was braced for its first rocket attacks in two years.
Despite the speed with which it spread, the fighting was still indeterminate. There had been no big set battles, certainly none with crack ARVN outfits like the 1st Division. "The ARVN hasn't stopped the [North Vietnamese] drive," said a U.S. officer in Saigon last week, "but the initial surge has ended. So far, continued this thing has had peaks and valleys. But the peaks haven't been too high, and the valleys haven't been too low." The big peaks, evidently, were still to come.
Back in 1969, when Vietnamization was put into effect, the Nixon Administration had realized that the policy would eventually be put to a violent test. The time, it reckoned, would come after the U.S. had ceased to have a significant ground combat capability in Viet Nam, and before the November 1972 elections. More recently, U.S. intelligence had forecast that the Communist assault would come some time between February and April or May, when the monsoon rains begin the annual conversion of much of Indochina into a sea of mud.
Like the Rhine. For their part, the North Vietnamese were obviously poised for an unprecedented effort. In the words of a White House official, they had "a lot of chips in the pot." In the past, the North Vietnamese commander, General Vo Nguyen Giap, had always kept at least half of his 480,000-man army within North Viet Nam. Now 14 of his 15 divisions (or about 350,000 men) were deployed all across Indochina's battlefields; elements of ten divisions--including many units that had been operating in-country or on the borders for months or years--were committed to the adventure in South Viet Nam. Some 35,000 North Vietnamese troops were present in the provinces south of the DMZ in Military Region I; there were perhaps 25,000 in the Central Highlands, 16,000 in the hard-pressed provinces around Saigon, 6,000 in the Delta. Counting Viet Cong soldiers, the total Communist troop strength in South Viet Nam is well over 100,000 men--the highest total since the months before the convulsive Tet 1968 attacks. Against them stand 492,000 South Vietnamese regulars and about 513,000 militia troops. The U.S. forces remaining in South Viet Nam are not directly involved.
Despite the intelligence forecasts, the location and timing of the attack caught the military men in Saigon and Washington off guard. When the first North Vietnamese troops appeared below the DMZ, Pentagon experts assumed that it was a feint. The main offensive, they believed, would come in the vulnerable Central Highlands. Not until the eve of Easter Sunday, four days after the beginning of the massive artillery barrage, was it clear that a major assault was under way.
By then, some 10,000 North Vietnamese regulars were driving straight through the DMZ into Quang Tri province to join another 20,000 troops already in the area. By Monday, said one awed CINCPAC officer, "it looked like the Rhine River campaign" of World War II. One column drove south along the beaches of the Tonkin Gulf, despite a heavy barrage laid down by U.S. destroyers offshore. Taking advantage of heavy rains and low clouds, which limited air strikes, other units rolled down French-built Highway 1 aboard Soviet-built tanks and trucks towing antiaircraft or artillery pieces.
General Creighton Abrams, U.S. commander in South Vietnam, who had been spending the holiday in Bangkok with his family, rushed back to Saigon. So did U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, who had been in Katmandu with his wife Carol Laise, the U.S. Ambassador to Nepal.
In Washington, Nixon met with his military advisers: Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State William Rogers, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and his recently named deputy Kenneth Rush. Meanwhile Henry Kissinger convened what would turn out to be the first of almost daily sessions of the WSAG (Washington Special Action Group), which consists of ranking officials of the State and Defense departments and the CIA, who form a sort of foreign policy crisis management team.
Administration spokesmen insisted that the President was "keeping his options open." In fact, the options were limited. Nixon ruled out any pause in troop withdrawals; he will announce the next phase sometime before May 1, when the U.S. troop level in Viet Nam dips below 69,000. The President also directed that the 6,000 U.S. combat troops currently stationed in Viet Nam should not be shifted from their defensive positions around U.S. installations at Danang and in the Saigon area to aid ARVN's fight against the North Vietnamese. To emphasize that it was "their war," it was decided that reporters' inquiries about the South Vietnamese situation would be bucked to the State Department. The President demonstrated his confidence that the situation was under control by leaving for Key Biscayne in midweek.
An Umbrella. The one option that was available was air power, and Nixon made the most of it (see page 39). For the first time since 1968, four aircraft carriers were on station in the Tonkin Gulf; a fifth, the Midway, was on its way. Also sent to the area were a squadron of F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers and about 20 B-52s, which joined the 80 already operating from bases in Thailand and Guam. Later, two squadrons of F-4 Phantoms flew to Danang from bases in Okinawa, Japan and Korea. The additions meant a jump in U.S. air strength in Indochina within a week from 450 to 700 planes.
Meanwhile Nixon, in effect, ordered a resumption of the unconditional bombing of the North. The invasion across the DMZ, he charged, had shattered the so-called "understanding" under which Lyndon Johnson had ordered the bombing halt in 1968. (The North has never admitted acceding to it.) For a "limited duration," which seemed to mean until the end of the offensive, U.S. pilots would be allowed to attack any military targets; before, they could only stage "protection reaction" strikes on antiaircraft sites. The new franchise did not extend to "punitive raids" on targets such as Hanoi and Haiphong. The main objective seemed to be the missile sites massed in a narrow belt above and below the DMZ, where they could extend an air-defense "umbrella" over the invasion force in Quang Tri.
The step-up in the air war would inevitably renew the ugly worldwide image of the U.S. once again clobbering the North from the skies. To counter possible reaction at home and abroad, the White House ordered up a kind of pre-emptive public relations strike that emphasized Communist villainy. Administration officials pressed the view that South Viet Nam had been the victim of a flagrant "invasion" from the North; they also emphasized the enemy's ample Soviet hardware.
At a tough-talking Washington press conference, Laird branded Moscow as a "major contributor" to the war, and blasted the North Vietnamese for "marauding throughout Southeast Asia." Before the U.S. would return to the Paris negotiations, "the enemy would have to draw back across the DMZ." Privately, Administration officials were pleased that neither the Soviets nor the Chinese had reacted sharply to the bombing and the rhetoric; Moscow, like Washington, seemed unwilling to let the fighting get in the way of May's Nixon-Brezhnev summit.
The Proof. The White House saw another possible plus in Hanoi's switch from guerrilla tactics to conventional warfare. By coming out in the open with their heavy armor and artillery, the Communists have made themselves vulnerable to fearsome losses from air attacks. Said one senior U.S. military adviser: "They are going to be hurt badly." Conceivably--but that prophecy points to a crucial element in the war: the continued dependency of the South Vietnamese troops upon massive U.S. air support. Without it, ARVN might well have had to surrender even more territory than it did last week, which would have further reduced its credibility with the civilian populace that has counted upon it for defense.
But can ARVN lose? U.S. military experts are reasonably confident that unless overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, ARVN can handle North Vietnamese regulars. Nixon's criteria for success should not be beyond ARVN'S reach. The President told a press conference last month that he was confident that "the South Vietnamese lines may bend, [but] not break. If this proves to be the case, it will be the final proof that Vietnamization has succeeded."
Last week, though, ARVN did not quite live up to Defense Secretary Laird's measure of success: winning 75% of its battles. In the very first hours of the offensive, in fact, ARVN suffered only defeat. The big loser was the 3rd Division, whose troops abandoned 14 firebases below the DMZ in five days. The 3rd was a newly formed unit, raised largely by conscription, of local men, including a good many draft dodgers and delinquents. Considering the ferocity of the initial North Vietnamese barrage, retreat made sense. But it was not sensibly executed. Some units quit the field so quickly that they failed to spike their guns. Many 3rd Division soldiers joined the 50,000 refugees who fled south for sanctuary in Quang Tri and Hue.
At Camp Carroll, a former U.S. Marine outpost ten miles south of the DMZ, 3rd Division troopers mutinied. After three days of brutal shelling, their commander ordered a gradual retreat; they wanted to surrender. Luckily for the U.S. adviser, Lieut. Colonel William Camper, a passing helicopter heard his radio call: "They're running up a white flag! I'm leaving!" Camper was picked up, along with a couple of the soldiers who wanted to retreat too. But the unlucky base commander was reportedly tied up by the remaining mutineers and turned over to the NVA.
Single Shot. Inept as the 3rd Division appeared to be, it was a model of discipline by comparison with some of the Regional and Popular Force irregulars in the area, who were little better than gun-happy mobs. South of Quang Tri city, one such mob fired away with giddy abandon for two hours at Communists holding a bridge on Highway 1. When the Communists finally broke and ran, reported TIME Correspondent Rudolph Rauch, "the South Vietnamese ran off after them, hooting in jubilation--until the Communists turned to fire a few sobering rounds at their pursuers. The troops stopped, then fled back to the bridge, where they all crowded together and indulged in a flurry of mutual self-congratulations. There was a wounded prisoner lying on the ground, his face covered with dust and blood oozing from his mouth. Although a medic was present, the prisoner was given no attention. A private raised his M16. 'Don't!' warned a Vietnamese-speaking journalist. Too many Americans.' The soldier put his gun down and the journalist moved off. A few minutes later there was a single shot; the prisoner had a hole between his eyes."
But when ARVN was good, it was very, very good. At Dong Ha, a town of rude wooden shacks and prosperous brick houses ten miles south of the DMZ on the banks of the Cua Viet River, one vital North Vietnamese objective was spiked by the tanks of the tough 20th Armored Squadron. As the Communist spearhead rolled south on Highway 1, the 34-ton M-48s of the 20th sped north. They met--and stopped--the Communist armor a scant 300 yards north of the Cua Viet bridge. The tankers and two companies of South Vietnamese marines held the bridge long enough for it to be blown up by an American adviser. "Those outfits are heroes," said one American who observed the battle. "There hasn't been anyone in the Viet Nam War who fought better."
Hue, the ancient Vietnamese imperial capital, is presumed to be a prime target of the Communist invasion. So far, the North Vietnamese have been unable to slip past Bastogne and Birmingham, the ARVN 1st Division bases that guard the approaches to the city. Last week, Hue had a besieged look, nonetheless. No effort had been made to repair the walls and shrines that had been reduced to ruins four years earlier--the traditional period of mourning in Viet Nam--in the Tet offensive of 1968. At the university, faded signs on walls urged: SMASH THE ATTEMPT TO VIET-NAMIZE THE WAR. The students were out in the streets, canvassing for contributions to relieve the plight of 50,000 refugees who swarmed into the city from the north.
Few Clues. "They came by bus, by put-putting Rototillers, aboard army trucks borrowed for an afternoon from ARVN," wrote TIME's Rauch. "Those who had time to pack chose peculiar things to salvage: one family had a refrigerator in a wheelbarrow, nothing else. A lieutenant carried an enormous Sanyo sound system, still in its carton and minus the speakers, strapped to the back of his motorbike. Nearly everyone seems to have a pig. Pigs are strapped onto Honda seats, pigs are tied onto front bumpers, pigs hang in wire cages from tail gates and are slung from poles that peasants and their wives heft onto their shoulders. On the highway, a Jeep carrying six prosperous refugees had tried to pass a slower vehicle, strayed off the tarmac and hit a mine buried in the unpaved shoulder. The explosion blew the Jeep and its passengers clear across the road and into a field. No one even bothered to look at the bodies; like pedestrians avoiding a dog mess, the refugees just skirted the hole dug by the blast and continued on toward safety."
What were the North Vietnamese really up to? There were few clues from the Communists; Mme. Nguyen Thi Binh, the chief Viet Cong negotiator in Paris, spoke conventionally of overthrowing "the repressive regime of Saigon" and establishing a goverment of "national concord" All that intelligence officers know for sure is that Hanoi has planned a five-phase offensive for 1972.
The first two phases, described in captured documents as terror in the countryside and attacks on militia outposts, began after the Tet holidays last February. Evidently, last week's offensive began Phase 3: an effort to pin down South Vietnamese forces where they are weakest, inflict casualties, and discredit Vietnamization. The final phases are at tacks on major cities (quite possible) and a general uprising leading to the fall of the Thieu regime (farfetched).
In opening a multifront offensive, as they seemed to be doing last week, the Communists could whiplash the ARVN command by reducing the pressure in one region, only to step it up suddenly in another. The idea would be to force reserve units to move and thus to weaken vital areas. Saigon last week was all but stripped of its reserves; even the presidential palace guard was sent north to the action.
At week's end, Ambassador Bunker and General Abrams were said to have told Washington that they believe the enemy drive will last for several months, until either victory is achieved or defeat is inevitable. Still most U.S. intelligence sources seem to think that the offensive, however intense, will be of limited duration. Within a month or so, monsoon rains will make movement and resupply difficult in most of the country. But in Military Region 1, where logistical support via the DMZ and Laos is relatively easy, the Communists could make trouble for a much longer time. President Thieu believes that the Communists may try to seize South Viet Nam's two northern provinces and use them as bargaining chips to force a negotiated settlement of the war.
Shock Waves. If Hue falls, the NVA might conceivably set up a "provisional government" of the long dormant National Liberation Front and the Viet Cong in the old capital. Washington believes that Hanoi will settle for a few "spectaculars"--perhaps the temporary occupation of a city or two--to embarrass Nixon and Thieu and perhaps force the U.S. to begin talking seriously about the Communist seven-point peace plan, which includes dumping the Thieu regime.
But what if ARVN and its air support hold fast and thwart the spectaculars? What if the Communists move back to their border sanctuaries without having inflicted a massive defeat? If that happens--and Washington is beginning to think optimistically of the prospect--North Viet Nam would have lost more than it did in Tet 1968. That furious onslaught created psychological shock waves in the U.S. and led to the beginning of American disengagement. From a military viewpoint, the post-TV counterattack by U.S. and ARVN troops was a considerable success: it virtually shattered the Viet Cong infrastructure and pushed main-force NVA units beyond South Viet Nam's borders.
If ARVN comes out of the current offensive in good shape, Hanoi might be willing--or so Washington believes--to negotiate a settlement along the lines of Richard Nixon's eight-point peace proposal. With its provisions for an Indochina-wide cease-fire and return of all troops to their national boundaries, Nixon's eight points add up to something close to unacceptable surrender for Hanoi. Most likely, the Washington speculation goes, a way would be found to allow the North Vietnamese to save face, and thus not feel obliged to return to the battlefield later on.
That is a highly wishful scenario, and it would be extraordinary if the North should follow it. Washington traditionally has inclined toward optimism in its thinking about the war. In Saigon, however, the prevalent opinion is that the current offensive is not the decisive thrust, but is aimed mainly at punishing ARVN and pushing it back from the border sanctuaries that the Communists have carved out over the past two years in Laos and Cambodia. With the reconstruction of the sanctuary network completed, and with the war-weary regimes in Phnom-Penh and Vientiane all but on the ropes, the North Vietnamese are turning their attention to South Viet Nam again. The immediate goal is not to topple Thieu in 1972, but to begin to rebuild the weakened Viet Cong and otherwise prepare to act on the day when the Americans and their airpower are really gone.
Only then would Hanoi enter what it might consider, after 26 years of struggle, a "decisive" battle for Saigon. For as Ambassador Bunker frequently reminds dinner guests, the North Vietnamese have never given up hope of achieving a military victory.
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