The Curious Passivity

Departing Hanoi last week, Soviet Envoy Aleksandr Shelepin proclaimed that the Soviets, as a result of his week of talks with Ho & Co., will "support and assist the Vietnamese with all their might in consolidating the defense potential of North Viet Nam." Carefully left unsaid was whether the Kremlin troubleshooter had promised Hanoi significantly more arms for the war or urged an arm's-length look at the possibility of a negotiated peace. Or both.

Whatever the case, U.S. officials have been struck by the curious passivity of North Vietnamese troops in recent weeks. Not since before the Christmas "truce" have the Communists clashed heavily with U.S. and allied units. It has not been for lack of opportunity.

Last week, from southern Saigon to eastern Danang to the Cambodian bor der in the west, the allies were out in unprecedented numbers, aggressively hunting for an enemy to fight.

Western Pinups. In Operation Crimp, some 8,000 U.S. and Australian fighting men lanced into dusty Ho Bo Woods scarcely 30 miles to the north of Saigon in the crescent of rice lands, rubber plantations and jungle scrub that the Viet Cong have controlled for years.

The men of the army's "Big Red One" division punched in atop armored personnel carriers escorted by M48 tanks, while the 173rd Airborne and the Roy al Australian Battalion swept in aboard 200 helicopters. Except for snipers in spider holes and an occasional machine-gun nest, there was nobody home. But home was something else again--an astonishing network of tunnels equipped with all the conveniences, from freshwater wells to a hospital, a post office and a briefing room complete with blackboard and chairs.

One tunnel had three levels, each connected with another by concrete trap doors, linked to the forest floor above by intricate air vents and concrete cover plates. On one plate, its architect had proudly scratched "1962" in the setting concrete. Choppers worked overtime ferrying in explosives as the allies systematically explored--and then destroyed--the labyrinth. Among its contents: four truckloads of enemy maps, documents and training pamphlets, a typewriter, tons of rice, stacks of still cosmolined .50-cal. machine guns rigged with antiaircraft sights, and even Western pinup pictures. So extensive was the haul that Saigon suspected it might have captured the Viet Cong headquarters of the whole capital region. Moreover, some of the tunnels stretched away toward the Cambodian border, conceivably could subway whole regiments toward Saigon.

The U.S. has long suspected that a branch of the Communist "underground railroad"--the Ho Chi Minh trail--cut through Cambodia. But proof was hard to obtain: so wild and enemy-infested is the Viet Nam side of the Cambodian border that no allied troops had ventured to the border since the French left in 1954.

No Sanctuary. That was remedied last week in a massive assault called Operation Matador. Swooping down onto the Vietnamese side of the Ton Le San River, which forms the border with Cambodia, went four sizable units of the 1st Air Cavalry Division. Planes and rocket-firing helicopters first softened the riverbank landing zones with shells and napalm, and "the First Team" rode in on their choppers. In some places the brush was too thick and high for a proper landing, so the troops leaped 15 ft. to the snake-infested ground, producing several sprained ankles, one broken leg--and two very bullet-riddled 12-ft. pythons. In other spots, the troopers shinned down 60-ft. aluminum ladders swaying from Chinook copters overhead, and one special reconnaissance team slid down a rope in seven seconds from a chopper hovering a full 150 ft. above the jungle carpet.

The 1st Air Cav's mission was to determine if the Communists were indeed using Cambodia as both funnel and sanctuary for troops infiltrating from the north. If so, the First Team hoped to provoke an attack, giving the U.S. a chance to act on last month's warning that pursuit across the Cambodian border would henceforth follow a continuing attack from the other side.

Doubt about the enemy's use of Cambodia was quickly dispelled. Beside one clearly defined crossing point on the riverbank stood a camp with 400 lean-to structures, 200 foxholes and a small hospital -- fit for a regiment and freshly evacuated. Tethered on the opposite Cambodian bank of the shallow river, only 55 ft. wide at that point, were ill-concealed sampans loaded with ammunition boxes. At one point, a G.I. patrol even caught sight of twelve uniformed North Vietnamese soldiers hastily paddling across the river into Cambodia. 1st Air Cav Lieut. Colonel Kenneth Mertel took his helicopter down the middle of the narrow stream, hoping to draw fire, which presumably would have justified a U.S. response. None came. But now that the U.S. had penetrated right to the threshold of what had long been the enemy's privileged domain, chances were it would come soon enough.

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