End of the Holiday

In Southeast Asia, the Year of the Snake ended and the Year of the Horse began. For the U.S. and its allies, last week marked a more ominous turning point. After a Christmas truce that was not a truce, after a four-day New Year cease-fire in which the firing did not cease, after a suspension of U.S. bombing raids over North Viet Nam that brought no whisper of response to President Johnson's intensive, month-long peace campaign, it was all too clear that the holiday and its fleeting hopes for peace were over.

The Viet Cong, who initiated the latest truce, shattered it almost immediately. Communist guerrillas fired on a U.S. Marine platoon near Danang, killing two sergeants. A fierce battle between Reds and South Korean troops near Tuy Hoa resulted in 53 Communist dead. In a pre-dawn raid by terrorists, a 25-lb. bomb exploded outside a U.S. billet near Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Airport, killing a U.S. soldier and a

Vietnamese civilian. When the ceasefire ended, the Communists had ushered in Tet, the lunar New Year, with at least 80 attacks, atrocities or acts of violence.

Ready for Action. In the weeks before Tet, a curious quiescence had enveloped the battlefield. U.S. troops had not encountered the Viet Cong in force since mid-December. Officials in Saigon launched a pre-Tet propaganda-for-peace campaign that included airdrops of millions of leaflets and safe-conduct passes for Viet Cong defectors, and endless broadcasts of heart-rending ballads ("Oh, what dreams are you making, dreaming of the success of the vicious Communists?"). But Hanoi seemed as deeply committed as ever to its stubborn, bloody gamble for South Viet Nam.

The infiltration of Red troops from North Viet Nam has increased markedly; some 6,000 men have slipped across the border in the past month. Military intelligence in Saigon reported two 10,000-man Communist divisions --one of crack North Vietnamese regulars, the other a veteran Viet Cong outfit--massed in central Viet Nam, readying twin assaults in the highlands and near the sea. Allied units were also poised for a major offensive. They were reinforced last week by 7,000 more American troops, swelling the total U.S. force in Viet Nam to 191,000. The fighting to come may well be the most savage of the war.

Beyond Invective. The end of the President's peace offensive was signaled by the return to Washington of Roving Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, who had traveled 30,000 miles, visited twelve countries. Harriman was the farthest flying of all the emissaries Johnson sent out. With him when he returned was Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who had flown to India for Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri's funeral and then visited Saigon for talks with South Vietnamese and U.S. leaders. Neither official could disguise his disillusion.

After conferring with the President, Rusk observed: "There's been an overwhelmingly favorable response to these efforts--except from those who could, in fact, sit down and make peace. The question posed to the other side--'Are you interested in peace?'--is the same question that has been posed for months, indeed for years, by all available means. We've been waiting for some word from Hanoi that goes beyond bitter invective." He pointed out that the U.S. bombing lull in North Viet Nam, which passed its 31st day last week, has "provided every opportunity for authorities in Hanoi to make some serious response."

Johnson himself acknowledged implicitly that his peace overtures had come to naught for now. "I think every schoolboy knows," said the President at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Mo., "that peace is not unilateral--it takes more than one to sign an agreement. What is holding back peace is the mistaken view on the part of the aggressors that we are going to give up our principles, that we may yield to pressure, or abandon our allies, or finally get tired and get out."

No Debate. While Johnson's peace advances brought no response from Hanoi, their impact was clearly felt on Capitol Hill. Before it convened, the second session of the 89th Congress was touted as "the Viet Nam session" because it was expected to spend much of its time in debate on the aims and conduct of the war. But the peace offensive left little to debate. Washington's hawks could scarcely argue against the idea of seeking peace; the doves had to admit that Johnson had done his utmost to start negotiations.

Even the Republicans, who only a few weeks earlier had urged intensified bombing in the North along with a naval quarantine of North Viet Nam, had little to argue about. Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and House Minority Leader Jerry Ford went on television in what was billed as a rebuttal to Johnson's State of the Union message, but their comments on the war amounted to an endorsement of John son's policy. "Let the peace efforts continue," pealed Dirksen. "Let the military effort continue. It demonstrates our determination to keep our word."

Ford was more aggressive, insisting that despite the cost of the war, no tax increase was necessary. Instead, he urged, money could be raised "by liberating the war on poverty from waste, controversy and the bad odor of political bossism." But even Ford, who drew repeated applause from his G.O.P. audience for his anti-Johnson thrusts, did not criticize the U.S. role in Viet Nam.

Tall Order. All the same, the Administration did not lack critics. One of the more oblique was U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, who suavely implied that Washington might make a major concession to Hanoi by guaranteeing the Viet Cong representation in the postwar government of South Viet Nam. "If the parties were to make concrete proposals on this issue," said Thant, "I think a refusal to negotiate would be difficult to justify." That was a pretty tall order, considering that the U.S. has refused to negotiate directly with the Viet Cong on the grounds that the war is being directed and supplied by Hanoi. In any event, the U.S. insists that South Viet Nam must ultimately be guaranteed a stable government of its own choosing, which would hardly be the case if the Communists were helped to power in Saigon.

A less predictable argument was advanced by retired Army General (and ex-Ambassador to France) James M. Gavin. In a letter to Harper's Magazine, Gavin volunteered his "military-technical" judgment that the U.S. should stop bombing North Viet Nam and limit its military commitment on the ground to holding several "enclaves on the coast." This strategy struck Pentagon officials as militarily unsound, because it would allow the Communists to build their forces virtually unhampered, and as politically naive, because the U.S. presence in South Viet Nam would thus resemble a colonialist role.

Retorted Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair man Earle G. Wheeler: "If you stop bombing North Viet Nam, in effect you throw one of your blue chips for negotiation over your shoulder."

"All That Is Necessary." For the present, at least, Johnson seemed convinced that the U.S. had no choice but to intensify the fight in Viet Nam. Last week the President asked Congress for an extra $12.7 billion to underwrite the conflict, with the assurance: "Our pursuit of peace will be constant. We will continue to press on every door. But until there is a response--and until the aggression ends--we must do all that is necessary to support our allies and our own fighting forces in Viet Nam."

Johnson dispatched Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to Capitol Hill to explain the Pentagon's plans for spending the money. Some $3.2 billion would go to buy 2,000 more helicopters, 900 airplanes and nearly 5,000 missiles of the antiaircraft and air-to-ground variety; another $1.6 billion would help support an additional 113,000 military men and 94,000 more Defense Department civilians to back them up.

If anyone still underestimated either the depth of U.S. determination or the physical dimensions of the war it was fighting in Viet Nam, McNamara's brisk recital of statistics brought both into focus. The Defense Secretary told Congressmen that U.S. forces in the war zone have been firing $210 million worth of ammunition a month. "We are preparing," said he, "to support a much higher rate."

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