Falling Back

Almost visibly, the U.S. was falling back in Southeast Asia. Emerging from top level meetings, U.S. officials talked not of Laos, but of South Viet Nam and Thailand. Obviously, the concern now was to bolster these countries, who will be acutely exposed when Laos is abandoned to a Communist-dominated neutrality.

Recently the U.S. shipped Thailand 20 F-86 Sabre jets, the hottest planes in Southeast Asia. Last week, after prolonged debate in the National Security Council, President Kennedy decided to about double U.S. military aid for South Viet Nam, to some $80 million a year. Kennedy has already sent General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Roving Ambassador Averell Harriman to Southeast Asia to reassure Thailand's Marshal Sarit Thanarat and South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. This week he will dispatch Lyndon Johnson to Saigon to see "what further steps could most usefully be taken" to bolster South Viet Nam against the Communist tide.

Will to Fight. The two countries present vastly different problems. In South Viet Nam, a pro-Communist Laos will mean an increasing flow of guerrillas and supplies transiting Laos over the old Ho Chi Minh trail from Communist North Viet Nam. Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned in a press conference last week that the guerrilla force in South Viet Nam has grown in seven years from 3,000 to 12,000 men, even as a North Vietnamese spokesman proclaimed that "the people's revolutionary struggle [in the South] has entered a new stage."

But unlike the Laotians, the Vietnamese fight the Communists and fight them well in an unending war that takes 500 lives a month. Recently they have beaten them in seven pitched battles. But the guerrillas flit away into the jungles--or across the border into Laos. President Diem, who was elected to a new five-year term last month, practices dictatorial ways that have held the country together while alienating many Vietnamese. He wants to build up his army from 150,000 to 180,000 men, thinks he will have the guerrillas beaten by 1963. The U.S., more pessimistic, sees nothing to do but hold on tight, while urging social reforms.

Against Softness. Strong and relatively prosperous, Thailand is in no immediate danger. In the event of trouble. Strongman Sarit can call on a 90,000-man army, well-trained and equipped by the U.S. But the Thais, who wanted to send troops to Laos (and actually did beef up the Laotian army with a few volunteers), are angry at what they consider U.S. softness. Officials in Bangkok hinted that Sarit might take the precaution of trading in his pro-Western stand for a more neutralist line.

The U.S. Security Council soberly discussed what could be done to defend the two countries, just what troops and what weapons would be needed in case the U.S. had to move into the area to defend it against Communist attack. A serious proposition was that South Viet Nam and Thai land might be invited to ask for U.S. help on the ground that they are threatened by outside forces, allowing the U.S. to send in troops to beef up the national armies. The problem of sending U.S. forces into South Viet Nam "is a matter still under consideration," admitted President Kennedy last week.

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