Coming On Over

As the fighting gathers intensity in Viet Nam, so do the doubts among many Viet Cong about the wisdom of dying for Communism. Last week Saigon announced that a record 5,557 Viet Cong defected to the Allied side during the month of March, nearly double February's previous record monthly high of 2,917 surrendered enemies. That brought the totals for the government's Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) program for the first quarter of the year to 10,746, already more than half of last year's full count of 20,242 and nearly equal to the 11,124 who defected in all of 1965. The running start puts Saigon's Chieu Hoi goal of 45,000 defectors in 1967 well within reach, even though no Viet Cong units as a group have so far crossed over--and only a scant 200 of Hanoi's North Vietnamese regulars have come in.

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