A Trail Becomes a Turnpike

FOR more than a month, U.S. intelligence agencies have been persistently reporting that the North Vietnamese were sending masses of troops and weapons down the Ho Chi Minh Trail toward South Viet Nam. U.S. officials estimated that since Jan. 1, the Communists had moved some 40,000 men plus 300 tanks, 150 heavy artillery pieces, 160 antiaircraft guns and 300 trucks down the trail. The only important change from pre-cease-fire days, in fact, seemed to be that the North Vietnamese were driving southward in broad daylight, since they were no longer fearful of U.S. air strikes. The trail, says one American analyst, "looks like the New Jersey Turnpike during rush hour."

U.S. officials are not at all sure what the movement means. It could merely be Hanoi's response--illegal but understandable--to the large shipments of U.S. supplies to South Viet Nam during November and December. But it could also indicate that the North Vietnamese are plotting a major offensive for later this year, after the U.S. withdrawal is complete. The situation, remarked a high U.S. official last week, "could be very dangerous."

At first, Washington remained silent, wanting to get the peace agreement signed and the release of war prisoners under way. But last week the State Department publicly expressed "concern," and President Nixon himself followed up by demanding that Hanoi accept the limitations imposed by the Paris Accord. "Based on my actions of the past four years," he declared, "the North Vietnamese should not lightly disregard such expressions of concern." He seemed to be implying that, if the infiltration continues, he would renew the U.S. bombing of Communist supply lines.

The U.S. was not the only nation irate about cease-fire violations. Canada, the chief Western member on the four-nation International Commission of Control and Supervision, has been so hampered by Communist obstruction that Ottawa is considering a walkout. Canada's External Affairs Secretary Mitchell Sharp flew to Indochina last week for a three-day tour of Saigon, Vientiane and Hanoi. His purpose: to size up the problems of Canada's 290-man mission to the ICCS. The U.S. is extremely anxious for Canada to remain, for, as one American diplomat put it, "there is no question that the Canadians have provided the brains and the muscle of the operation."

On the other hand, the Canadians recognize the difficulty--if not the impossibility--of the organization's task. Earlier this month, for example, Poland and Hungary refused to investigate a U.S. complaint that Hanoi had installed SA-2 antiaircraft missiles at Khe Sanh, on the grounds that an ICCS team would have no way of knowing whether missiles had been installed before or after the ceasefire.

No matter what Sharp reports to his government, the Canadians will find it difficult simply to depart. In the end, the Canadians may be forced to remain in Viet Nam simply because their withdrawal would probably destroy the peace-keeping machinery so painstakingly devised by Washington, Hanoi and Saigon.

Cocktails with the V.C.

Whatever else Sharp's trip may accomplish, it inspired one of the most remarkable cocktail parties ever held in Saigon. Staged by Canada's effervescent chief ICCS delegate, Michel Gauvin, it attracted 200 guests representing an unprecedented assortment of former enemies. On hand was TIME'S Saigon Bureau Chief Gavin Scott to take a few surreptitious notes:

There was courtly old U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, 78, looming over the implausible scene and nursing a martini with great dignity. Next to him, in a separate circle, stood General Tran Van Tra, chief Viet Cong delegate to the Joint Military Commission and the architect of the Tet offensive that reached to the very hallways of Bunker's embattled embassy in 1968.

In one corner was Saigon's Foreign Minister Tran Van Lam; in another stood Major General Le Quang Hoa, Hanoi's top man at the JMC, chatting amiably with Lieut. General Gilbert Woodward, his crusty American counterpart. "After the first 60 days of the cease-fire are over," Hoa told Woodward, "you must come to visit Hanoi." Woodward guffawed, then glowered at an eavesdropping journalist.

Ever since they arrived in Saigon six weeks ago for JMC sessions at Tan Son Nhut airbase, the Viet Cong have yearned for a chance to talk publicly and make propaganda, but the Saigon government has carefully kept them close to their quarters. On his first night out on the town, General Tra proved to be in an expansive mood.

Top Secret. The American G.I., said Tra, had been a worthy foe. "His equipment was better than anything we had. And there is no doubt that he was a good fighter and courageous. But an army has to have an ideal to fight for. It can't defeat an army that has a cause."

Was it true that the Viet Cong had received advance word on B-52 strikes, as some have claimed? Tra laughed. "We lived in the jungle and we knew the country and the leaves and the grass," he said. But what about the B-52s above? "We also knew our sky," he boasted. "We even knew the schedule of their flights. We had the support of the local people, and they told us the things we needed to know."

In looking back on the war, Tra was inclined to view the Tet offensive in 1968 and the Easter offensive in 1972 as the turning points. "The aim of Tet was to get the Americans to de-escalate," he said. "The aim of the 1972 offensive was to force the Americans to sign a peace agreement. These were both victories." And what of An Loc, the South Vietnamese town that held out for three months against the assaults of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops? Tra glowered. "There are some things that it is best not to talk about," he said. Was it true that he himself had visited Saigon on a reconnaissance mission before the Tet offensive? Tra smiled. "That," he said, "is top secret."

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