The Ups & the Downs

"If the enemy advances, retreat; if he halts, harass; if he retreats, attack." Thus Mao Tse-tung advised Communist revolutionaries, and in South Viet Nam last week the Red Viet Cong scrupulously followed Mao's injunctions--with both success and failure.

Transported by more than 50 U.S. helicopters, the most ever used on a combat mission in Viet Nam, some 2,000 government troops launched a full-scale attack on Zone D, a 4,500-sq.-mi. Red strong hold north of Saigon that functions as a combination Pentagon and troop assignment center for Communist forces all over South Viet Nam. The government's mission: to clean out the 5,000 Viet Cong troops in the Zone, disrupt the Red communications and intelligence network, and cut Communist supply lines to the rest of the country. But the Viet Cong was nowhere to be seen.

The Viet Cong troops had not simply evaporated. Obeying Mao's first maxim, hundreds took shelter in the elaborate maze of tunnels that the Reds have dug in many parts of Zone D. Then, in line with Mao's second rule for terrorists, the Viet Cong promptly attacked the government's defensive outposts on the periphery of Zone D. Guns blazing, battalion-sized Red units simultaneously mauled three villages, inflicting severe casualties before disappearing into the surrounding rubber plantations at dawn's light.

Farther to the north--the government outpost of Phuoc Chau--the Reds bit off more than they could handle. It was 3 a.m. when the Viet Cong opened up with a mortar barrage on the badly outnumbered garrison, which was there mainly to protect peasants in a nearby valley who had been paying forced tribute to the Reds. Supported by machine guns, the Communists stormed the barbed-wire perimeter, but were thrown back by the determined fire of the government forces.

Government artillery from a nearby post lobbed shells into the attackers. Finally, after three hours, the Reds broke and ran.

Their losses : 124 dead, including two Viet Cong battalion commanders.

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