THIEU'S RISKY RETREAT

"Pleiku fini. Kontum fini. Ban Me Thuot fini. Hue fini. Everything fini."

--Immigration official at Tan Son Nhut airport

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the endless war in South Viet Nam took a dramatic new turn last week. Abandoning a 20-year government policy of fighting for every inch of South Vietnamese territory, President Nguyen Van Thieu surrendered fully one-fourth of his country --seven provinces with an estimated population of more than 1.7 million people--to the attacking Communists. Dusty district roads and coastal highways were choked with countless thousands of frightened civilians clutching their possessions and fleeing their homes in the largest exodus since Viet Nam was divided in 1954. Meanwhile, reinforced North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces mobilized what appeared to be their most devastating offensive since the Easter attacks of 1972.

Thieu's decision to give up the apparently indefensible provinces caught almost everyone, including U.S. intelligence officials, by surprise. So too did the quickness and effectiveness of Communist military moves. Two weeks ago, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger was still insisting that there would be no major Communist offensive until 1976, when it would neatly coincide with the U.S. presidential elections. Perhaps because Ambassador Graham Martin was on home leave in North Carolina recovering from dental surgery--and probably also to show independence of Washington out of pique for not getting more military aid--Thieu did not consult with U.S. officials in either Saigon or Washington in advance of his momentous and daring decision to abandon the provinces. But then again, many of his own military commanders got their first hints of it by reading the Vietnamese newspapers.

Kontum, Pleiku and Darlac provinces in the Central Highlands--a rolling area of rain forest and coffee and tea plantations on the border of Laos and Cambodia--were the first to go (see map). Later, Quang Tri province in northernmost Military Region I was given up. Although not officially abandoned by Saigon, Thua Thien, containing the ancient imperial capital of Hue, was by week's end clearly in imminent danger of falling into North Vietnamese hands. In the South, only 50 miles north of Saigon and next to already fallen Phuoc Long, Binh Long province was relinquished. In addition, several other provinces were seriously threatened by Communist forces; at week's end one of them, Quang Due on the southern edge of the Central Highlands, fell.

Thieu's decision to give up the provinces was a gritty gamble that he could improve his country's defensive posture by what he clearly hoped would be a last retreat. Yet to many Americans who fought in Viet Nam, the surrender brought anguished remembrances (see box page 38).

The surrender of the provinces was unutterable tragedy for the true victims of the war, the South Vietnamese people. Helped by retreating ARVN soldiers, upwards of half a million refugees trekked by military convoy, on motorcycle, buffalo cart, bicycle or foot toward areas still held by the government. Some 200,000 people fled Quang Tri and Hue for Danang (see box page 34). Hundreds of thousands from the Central Highlands streamed eastward toward the coast. In Military Region II, just south of fallen Darlac, the resort town of Dalat was rapidly being emptied, even though there seemed to be no imminent danger of Communist attack. Air Viet Nam was flying five flights a day to Saigon, up from the usual one, and tickets on the black market were going for as much as $300 (normal price: $9.50).

Most of the refugees and even a large majority of the withdrawing troops were not bothered by Communist forces. In Quang Tri province, Communist tanks even lit the way at night for both soldiers and civilians. The evacuation of some areas went so smoothly that there were rumors of a deal between the Communists and the Saigon government. Thieu, it was said, had given up the territory in exchange for the safety of the population--a story emphatically denied by Saigon. In any case, there were some reports of Communist efforts to harass the flow of refugees. One 1,200-truck convoy of defeated troops and fleeing civilians crawling southeast from Pleiku toward the coast was attacked by rebel Montagnard groups. Total casualties: 200.

The refugees fled for a variety of reasons. Some may have feared that government bombing attacks would follow Communist absorption of their lands; indeed, in the months just after the Paris Peace Agreement, Saigon subjected Viet Cong-held areas to frequent air raids. Others, especially merchants or landowners, may have feared that the Communists would confiscate their property or worse, arrest them as "exploiters of the people." Residents of Hue in particular have not forgotten the mass executions that took place when the Communists controlled the city during the 1968 Tet offensive. Most of the refugees simply seemed to be afraid of the Communists--and in some areas of the Central Highlands, of Montagnard rebels.

In Saigon, the nightly curfew was advanced by two hours to 10 p.m.; even the most brazen street boys, prostitutes and soup vendors were prudently getting off the streets an hour before deadline. The capital was in no immediate danger. Yet as scare stories of Communist advances reached the city, many people began talking of leaving the country altogether. "Where do we go now?" asked Nguyen Thi Luong, an office worker who fled Hanoi in 1954. "Twenty years ago we came south. Now we're at the bottom and can't go any farther."

Apart from the stray attacks on the refugees, there was little fighting in the regions evacuated by Saigon last week.

Thieu's decision to retreat stemmed from his revised estimates of the North Vietnamese buildup in the country. The Pentagon believes that there are now 16 North Vietnamese divisions in South Viet Nam. Apparently the President also decided that ARVN'S strategic position in the northern and Highlands provinces had eroded beyond repair after the successful Communist attack on Ban Me Thuot two weeks ago. For three days the South Vietnamese forces tried hard to repel a cleverly executed Communist tank and infantry assault on the city, which sits astride Route 14, the main inland north-south road. South Vietnamese air force F-5s and A-37s bombed and strafed Communist positions around the city, while ARVN forces were hurriedly ferried to the outskirts of Ban Me Thuot for what looked initially like a full-scale counterattack.

It never came about. The North Vietnamese assault on Ban Me Thuot had caught ARVN defense forces stretched out thinly along a line from Kontum through Pleiku all the way south to Ban Me Thuot along Route 14. In a desperation move, President Thieu ordered the last two regiments of Pleiku's 23rd Division to the defense of Ban Me Thuot. But the North Vietnamese 320th Reserve Division, which was never actually committed to the fighting, set up an impregnable half circle on the western side of the city, forcing the ARVN regiments to take up positions for a counterattack twelve miles east of the city. In three days of fighting, the Communist troops, mostly elements of the 25th Autonomous Regiment, virtually destroyed the 1,200-man ARVN force; its remnants ended up as stragglers in the endless refugee stream pouring down Route 7 toward the sea.

The decimation of the 23rd Division robbed Pleiku of its defenses. At the same time, the Saigon government realized that it was badly outgunned in Kontum as well. There are now four North Vietnamese divisions in the Central Highlands. Thieu met secretly in the coastal city of Nha Trang on March 14 with Lieut. General Pham Van Phu, commander of Military Region II. The President decided to take the most drastic of steps--strategic retreat. The four ranger groups defending Kontum were shifted southeast to the coastal province of Phu Yen, to be followed a few days later by the 1,200-truck refugee convoy from Pleiku.

General Phu also began moving the Military Region II headquarters from Pleiku farther south to Nha Trang. In Kontum, 68 aircraft, grounded because of a lack of spare parts, were destroyed to keep them from falling into enemy hands. As the ARVN forces moved southward, the South Vietnamese air force flew in and bombed every bridge after the ground troops crossed it. It was a last retreat. No one is planning to go back for a long time.

During the evacuation of the Central Highlands, Thieu made another crucial decision in his historic rearrangement of the Vietnamese political map. He flew to Danang for consultations with ARVN'S best field commander, Lieut. General Ngo Quang Truong, and decided to carry out plans that apparently had been drawn up months ago: to pull back the main line of defense from Quang Tri and probably Thua Thien provinces down to the coastal city of Danang. General Truong had already lost the backbone of his defense the week before when Thieu ordered 4,000 men of South Viet Nam's crack airborne division back to their original base headquarters near Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport. Thieu felt it necessary to beef up the defense of the capital, just in case the Communists decided to concentrate their forces on Saigon itself. The transfer of the troops sent a shock wave through the streets of Hue. Without a government order to do so, the mayor advised his people "to leave as quickly as possible."

Saigon's strategy was clear: to cut off the exposed limbs of the Central Highlands and the northernmost provinces in order to save the body of South Viet Nam. From now on, as one Pentagon analyst put it, "a truncated map of South Viet Nam" will have to be drawn. It will include most of Military Regions III and IV--the eleven provinces around Saigon and the 15 provinces of the Mekong Delta region farther south--along with various pockets of control dotting the coast as far north as the expected new line of defense at Danang.

The new map roughly resembles one proposed by retired Army Lieut. General James Gavin, who in 1966 pro posed that American forces draw back to such easily defended enclaves along the South Vietnamese coast as Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, Qui Nhon and Danang itself. These populous cities have economic and military value; they also contain vital facilities such as harbors and airstrips that offer the best opportunity for successful defense. Although most American military experts rejected the enclave strategy when Gavin first proposed it, many of them are now giving Thieu high marks for his strategy of retreat.

Gavin himself, now chairman of Arthur D. Little Corp., a Cambridge think tank, argues that Thieu's plan of retreat actually bears little resemblance to his own original enclave theory, which was designed as a first tactical step toward extricating U.S. forces from Viet Nam. Gavin is pessimistic about the chances for success of the South Vietnamese strategy. "The difficulties of trying to keep control are so obviously beyond Thieu," he told TIME last week, "and the penetration of Saigon by the North is so great that what I get is a very gloomy picture of Saigon's ability to save itself."

Still, the arguments for abandoning the provinces make some military sense. All the surrendered provinces were heavily infested with Communist forces. In the Central Highlands, only the provincial capitals remained firmly in government hands; the surrounding areas had long since fallen into Communist hands. Thus the retreat should allow Saigon to mass its units better in concentrated areas. As it was, ARVN forces were strung out across the country, firing away at dubious targets from thin lines--with few reinforcements available to mount consistent offensives.

Moreover, the sparsely settled Highland provinces are the homeland of an estimated 500,000 Montagnard tribesmen, who, as despised fourth-class citizens in South Viet Nam, were ripe for exploitation by the Communists. During the years of American involvement in the fighting, the Montagnards were carefully cultivated by the U.S. Green Berets and played a key role in securing the area for Saigon. After the American withdrawal, however, ARVN troops, displaying the traditional Vietnamese contempt for the tribesmen, lost Montagnard support.

Large parts of Quang Tri and Thua Thien also had long since been outside Saigon's control. In addition, the narrow strip of territory between the mountains and the sea that was controlled by Saigon was difficult and costly to defend. Five divisions (50,000 men) were wastefully deployed to protect an area at the farthest end of the supply line; it was a region, moreover, that produced almost nothing but dried fish and required the importation of almost everything, including rice. "Why should Thieu keep territory if he can't defend it?" asked a

Pentagon Indochina expert. "It will do him absolutely no good to keep the entire country in order to lose it."

Saigon's new defense strategy is plausible on paper, but it remains to be seen whether or not it will work where it counts--on the battlefield. Most analysts expect that Saigon will set up a northern defense line at Danang, while drawing as many units as possible south for the defense of Saigon and the rich southern provinces. There were ominous signs that the Communists would try to prevent that from happening. As ARVN soldiers and South Vietnamese civilians trekked south from Quang Tri on Route 1, Communist units, according to some reports, were following just a few hundred yards behind. Aerial photographs showed that the North Vietnamese have assembled an awesome number of Russian-made tanks in Quang Tri. It was "just like crickets swarming over a field," said one observer. "It's unbelievable."

Several formidable options were open to the Communists elsewhere in the country. For one, the four North Vietnamese divisions entrenched in the Central Highlands could move eastward toward the coastal provinces south of Danang. Another was a major attack closer to Saigon, probably in Tay Ninh province. Ever since the Communists seized Phuoc Long province two months ago, they have been putting pressure on Tay Ninh City, shelling it from the nearby Nui Ba Den (Black Virgin Mountain) and trying to cut Route 22, which connects with Route 1 to Saigon. The Communists have recently moved their 3rd and 9th divisions into position around the area, preparing for what many analysts think will be the next major battle of the war. A final possibility was a concerted assault on Saigon itself. The Communists last week overran Due Hue, a key base camp 30 miles west of the city and ambushed a truck convoy a bare 15 miles away. Some analysts feared that continued Communist success in the area could lead later this spring to an all-out offensive to take the city.

Despite these grim possibilities, there were those last week who held to an optimistic interpretation of Thieu's great retreat. Many analysts, especially in the Pentagon, felt that Saigon had realistically given up provinces it was bound to lose anyway, shortened its supply lines, consolidated its forces and prepared a more defensible perimeter. Beyond that, it could be argued that the Communists would have to divert considerable effort and energy to consolidate their hold on the surrendered provinces.

The pessimistic view was that Thieu, by giving up so much territory without a fight, has created a serious morale problem for his army and his people. He has abandoned thousands of South Vietnamese to the Communists and created a horrendous refugee problem that dwarfs anything yet seen in the war.

"The best Thieu can hope for," concluded one State Department official, "is a stalemate." Would more U.S. aid have helped? Ford Administration officials last week emphatically answered yes, and tried to blame Saigon's reverses on congressional failure to appropriate the extra $300 million requested by the President. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger argued that if the U.S. had been "less niggardly" toward South Viet Nam, Thieu would not have to give up the provinces. To support that point, White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen displayed an article from the Hanoi journal Hoc Tap that seemed to tie the current Communist offensive to a decline in the capability of Saigon's forces.

It is only logical to conclude that a reduction in U.S. aid to the South would encourage Hanoi in its war against Saigon. Still it is hard to argue convincingly that $300 million more would have made the crucial difference. Even in the days when the U.S. was spending $2 billion a month in South Viet Nam, the Communists were capable of mounting costly countrywide offensives. With at least 16 full divisions, totaling 325,000 men, installed in the South, the North Vietnamese could hardly be stopped with a comparatively small amount of aid.

Besides, a lack of materiel is only part of Saigon's military problem. Even in the days when it had virtually unlimited ordnance, transport and firepower, ARVN was never as effective on the battlefield as were the Communist armies. Even today, though it no longer enjoys an overwhelming superiority in firepower, ARVN still outnumbers the Communists by some 3 to 1. Incompetent leadership, corruption, profiteering by officers and low pay for enlisted men often sapped the strength of Saigon's forces. True, because of the American involvement, Saigon has a far better fighting force than it had earlier in the war. But as the current desertion rate of 24,000 men a month indicates, ARVN still lacks the discipline and determination of its enemy.

More U.S. aid cannot stop the fighting. Only a negotiated settlement between Saigon and the Communists--or the currently implausible scenario of an unconditional surrender by one side or the other--can do that. Hanoi still yearns for a political victory in the South --meaning, in the words of one State Department official, "the imposition of a coalition government which the North Vietnamese would dominate."

But since the Communists refuse to deal with Thieu, no political arrangement seems possible so long as he remains in power. Conversely, Thieu has made it clear that he will not tolerate a political role for the Communists. Thus the political standoff seems unresolvable. What is left is the war, and in that the Communists as of last week seemed to have the upper hand.

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