To the North?

"He is getting to be a puppet that pulls its own strings." So runs the latest joke in Saigon. South Viet Nam's Premier Nguyen Khanh, not exactly an American puppet, certainly is the Vietnamese leader in whom the U.S. has shown its greatest confidence, and in whom it has placed its highest hopes. Last week, Khanh moved well ahead of official U.S. policy by saying, in effect, that the war against the Reds cannot be won so long as it is restricted to the south, that the only solution is to move against North Viet Nam.

At a rally marking the "Day of National Shame," the tenth anniversary of the Geneva accords partitioning Viet Nam, Khanh told 60,000 of his country men: "This is not only an urgent appeal of a million refugees from the north, nourishing the dream of liberating their native land. This is not only the ardent wish of thousands of families in the south with relatives who went to the north. This is also the fervent wish of the religious sects, and of the students . . . The push northward [is] an appropriate means of fulfilling our national history." Then the little general led the throng in loud shouts of "Bac lien!" ("To the north!")

ToughTalk. Lower-echelon officials took up the cry. A government declaration urged that the war be pressed "until total victory liberates our whole national territory." Toughest talk of all came from Khanh's air force commander, mustachioed Commodore Nguyen Cao Ky, who packs a bone-handled six-shooter in a Texas-style holster. At a news conference, Ky embarrassed his U.S. advisers by openly confirming that for three years South Vietnamese sabotage teams have been slipping into the north on the ground and by air. "I myself dropped special-forces units into North Viet Nam," boasted Ky. Actually, his disclosures added little to what was already known. The raids were begun under Diem, with U.S. approval, and apparently are continuing sporadically but with scant success.

Ky also argued that his air force should be allowed to "attack the north and even Communist China," claimed that 30 of his pilots are getting jet training, although the Vietnamese air force does not yet have any jet aircraft. Said Ky: "We are ready. We could go this afternoon. I cannot assure that all North Viet Nam would be destroyed, but Hanoi would certainly be destroyed."

One flustered American adviser at the press conference hastily suggested that perhaps Ky did not have a complete command of English. But Ky's words were clear enough, as were Khanh's.

Brass to Brass. Surprised and uneasy, new U.S. Ambassador General Maxwell D. Taylor paid a brass-to-brass call on Khanh, firmly reminded him that he was out of line with American policy. Khanh, in effect, replied that he was enunciating South Vietnamese policy, not U.S. policy--a specious argument, since no South Vietnamese thrust northward could possibly succeed without massive U.S.involvement.

It was, of course, the U.S. itself that some months ago started making threatening noises about moving north. But when U.S. military men in South Viet Nam consider this possibility, they usually think of limited air strikes against carefully chosen targets. U.S. officers are still convinced that there simply are no easy, dramatic formulas for victory in Viet Nam. The primary effort must be to win in the south, they feel, and Khanh must drastically improve his army's fighting ability before proposing a contest with Ho Chi Minh's formidable northern battalions.

That point was well illustrated last week when the Viet Cong guerrillas struck punishingly across the Mekong Delta. For the umpteenth time, an army battalion hurrying to relieve an outpost under attack--this time 120 miles south of Saigon--walked into an ambush in broad daylight.

Open Flanks. From a U.S. Army pilot who was flying a spotter plane over the scene came a chilling account of Viet Cong proficiency. According to Sergeant Ben Munsey of Manchester, N.H., the guerrillas were so well hidden that he flew 30 feet over their heads without seeing them. "Suddenly the foliage seemed to get up and run, revealing Viet Cong in black pajamas with camouflaged helmets running across soggy paddies," said Munsey. In five minutes the Viet Cong dashed nearly 1,100 yards, cut off the road. The army troops dispersed into a swamp, but as they did, another guerrilla column turned up at their rear. The government toll: 26 dead, 60 wounded, 136 missing, including a U.S. Army sergeant.

Privately, U.S. advisers bitterly complained that the Vietnamese often just won't post sufficient flank guards to avert ambush. In the Mekong River village of Caibe, the Reds attacked a military dependents' compound, and 16 women and 24 children were killed in the crossfire--one of the worst tolls of civilians thus far in the war.

Against this kind of enemy, argue the Americans in Saigon, an even greater military effort must be made in the south, including a more effective draft: thousands of able-bodied civilians are still lounging about Saigon. But Khanh can reply that, no matter what he tries to do in the south, the war can hardly be won so long as the north not only infiltrates men and materiel into his country, but provides ideological and strategic guidance to the guerrillas.

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