THE PROSPECTS FOR DISENGAGEMENT

BEHIND President Richard Nixon's decision to begin troop withdrawals, there is a concept for disengaging the U.S. from the war. It is more than a vision, but less than a blueprint. It is flexible, ready to be modified with the shift of events. What Nixon does next depends largely on the Communist response to his announcement last week at Midway. While there are perils m the choice he made, it may prove to be a significant step toward ending the longest war in American history

Nixon's advisers had proposed that he announce withdrawal of as many as 70,000 troops, but with characteristic caution Nixon chose a minimum opening figure of 25,000 (see box, page 18). The number may nonetheless reach 70,000 by the end of this year. Nixon was careful to speak at Midway of their "replacement" by South Vietnamese forces. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird added to the lexicon by christening the plan "Project Vietnamization." By whatever name, Nixon's move was a guarded gamble for peace in South Viet Nam.

By cutting back however slightly the number of Americans fighting in Viet Nam, Nixon sought to mollify the domestic impatience with the war; that dissatisfaction had helped him win election last November. There were countervailing risks. Although some of the troops will be pulled back no farther than Okinawa, Nixon would surely evoke deafening protest in the U.S. in the highly unlikely event that serious military reversals made it necessary to send some of the troops back. The greater danger, however, is that the enemy will simply ignore Nixon's initiative--on the assumption that continued popular op position to the war will eventually force Nixon to concede the Communists a victory at the bargaining table that they have not won on the battlefield.

Nixon therefore devised an intricate strategy directed at Hanoi and the National Liberation Front. By meeting with South Viet Nam's President Nguyen Van Thieu and spelling out the common ground between Washington and Saigon, he tried to underline the solidarity of the two governments in the face of Communist efforts to divide and conquer. In giving more combat responsibility to the South Vietnamese, Nixon advertised U.S. confidence--such as it is--in the combat readiness of Saigon's forces. He aims to convince the Communists that they must negotiate with Thieu and not hold out in the expectation of dealing with a more malleable successor. If Nixon can dull dissent at home while maintaining pressure in the field, the Communists may become more amenable to concluding a settlement in Pans or at least to scaling down the level of fighting.

Running Alongside

The Nixon approach carries other concomitant difficulties. The effectiveness of many South Vietnamese combat units remains in doubt, and no one knows for sure whether they will be able to maintain the present military balance as U.S. troops are withdrawn. One South Vietnamese official recently told Secretary of State William Rogers: "It's like a man learning to ride a bicycle. We think we can do it, but you never know until the man running alongside takes his hand away." Thanks to better training, better equipment and massive support from U.S. air and artillery, the South Vietnamese are improving. But they are still no match for the North Vietnamese, especially in leadership and fighting zeal.

As a consequence, Nixon feels, US troops can be withdrawn from Viet Nam unilaterally only to the extent that the pull-out does not appreciably reduce the allies' ability to fight the war If forces are removed faster than the South Vietnamese can effectively replace them, then Hanoi and the N L.F need only wait until the allied military position is so weak that Washington and Saigon must accept Communist terms. Diplomatically, everything depends upon convincing Hanoi and the N.L.F. that the US. cutback reflects confidence rather than a slow collapse of will.

No Sign of Progress

If the North Vietnamese reciprocate the troop withdrawals, the U.S. can remove its forces at a faster rate without upsetting the military and thus the bargaining equation. When he returned to Washington last week, the President addressed a challenge to Hanoi "We have opened wide the door to peace, and now we invite the leaders of North Viet Nam to walk with us through that door either by withdrawing their forces from South Viet Nam as we have withdrawn ours, or by negotiating in Pans, or through both avenues. We believe this is the time for them to act."

The immediate response was hardly encouraging. North Vietnamese troops launched three sharp ground attacks and for the first time in three months there was fighting in the demilitarized zone. The superficial signs in Paris were, if anything, worse. After the 21st formal meeting in the year-old negotiations, U.S. Spokesman Harold Kaplan admitted: "There is no evidence that Midway has contributed to the progress of the conference,"

North Vietnamese rhetoric often varies from real intentions, of course, but in an interview with TIME-LIFE, Le Due Tho, a Politburo member and special adviser to Chief Negotiator Xuan Thuy, squelched--at least for the record --the idea that North Viet Nam might match the US. move. "Since U.S. troop strength in South Viet Nam amounts to over half a million," said Tho, "the withdrawal of such a very small number as 25,000 means nothing." Tho offered a gentle reproof to Henry Cabot Lodge, head of the U.S. negotiators. Said Tho: "Talking to me, Mr, Lodge said that it took him five years to understand the Vietnamese. But I don't think he has fully understood. It takes time."

Old Wine, New Bottle

The N.L.F. also took the occasion last week to announce that it had set up a "provisional revolutionary government" at a clandestine meeting that took place as Nixon and Thieu were conferring on Midway. At its head is Huyn Tan Phat, 56, an architect and Viet Minh veteran who is general secretary of the N.L.F. central committee; the defense minister is Lieut. General Tran Van Tra, a North Vietnamese who is the Communist army commander in South Viet Nam; the foreign minister is Madame Nguyen Thi Bmh, already a familiar figure at the Paris negotiations. Madame Binh celebrated her new eminence by proclaiming the goal of "complete victory" over Saigon and Washington.

The N.L.F. simply declared itself to be a legitimate government, betting on the fact that in such cases, historically, legitimacy belongs to the ultimate victor. State Department Spokesman Robert McCloskey dismissed the new govern ment as "the same old wine in a new bottle," but experts in Washington and Saigon agreed that the change was not without point. The N.L.F. is plainly trying to upgrade its status from revolutionary cabal to one of parity in the world's eyes with the existing Saigon government. Instant diplomatic recognition came from 15 countries--including North Viet Nam, Cuba, North Korea, Algeria and the U.S.S.R.

This maneuver may strengthen the N.L.F.'s bid for a role in a coalition government in South Viet Nam before elections are held--one of the ten N.L.F, points announced May 8. Creation of the provisional government may also embarrass Thieu. He has reluctantly offered to talk with the N L.F , but he might renege if it meant dealing with a self-proclaimed regime that purports to be more legitimate than his own. Thieu denounced the N.L.F, move as "a fabrication concocted by a group of people who take cover in jungles without daring to disclose their location." It is, he said, "a propaganda trick" that has changed nothing.

In Saigon, the announced reduction panicked some businessmen and depressed real estate prices. The government raised taxes--the price of beer, for example, will go up 55%--to finance anticipated increases in the cost of the war. But some influential Vietnamese feel that Nixon's action will help Thieu. "It shows that the U.S. commitment here is not unlimited," says Tran Ngoc Chau, secretary of the lower house of the National Assembly, and therefore it should encourage greater political unity in South Viet Nam. While Thieu faces new opposition from a neutralist group of intellectuals formed two weeks ago, he nonetheless demonstrated refreshing flexibility on several sticky points when he returned from Midway.

The question of what kind of regime is to rule in Saigon remained crucial. In their communique, Nixon and Thieu rejected the imposition of "any particular form of government, such as coalition, without regard to the will of the people of South Viet Nam." This could mean that if a coalition were to come about as the result of free elections, the U.S. would not oppose it or try to keep Thieu in power. Thieu now concedes that elections could be held before they are scheduled under the constitution (1971) and that the N.L.F. could take part. The more immediate problem is how the elections are to be brought about. The Communists demand Thieu's departure from power, or at least a coalition, even before elections are held. They imply that if elections took place with Thieu in command, he would have an enormous advantage at the polls, regardless of any kind of international supervision that might be devised. The U.S., in turn, argues that forcing Thieu into a coalition now, let alone forcing him out of office, would hopelessly prejudge the polling and damage his chances of proving himself in a fair electoral contest.

A Mixed Response

In the U.S., many expressed reservations about Nixon's move. John Stennis, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a charter hawk, doubted that "South Vietnamese forces will be able to rapidly assume this burden of fighting and be effective." Senator George McGovern spoke for many critics of the war: "I don't see that as anything more than token action." Yet there was also a sense of relief. In Manhattan, Hubert Humphrey declared the prospects for political settlement to be "brighter now than they have been for a long time." John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky, one of the Senate's most respected doves, found the announcement "a step forward and a very hopeful sign." He added that the U.S. should continue with step-by-step withdrawal of all its troops. "We have done enough," he said.

Some Democrats, among them National Committee Chairman Fred Harris, complained that Nixon could continue buying time with the U.S. public almost indefinitely by a series of small withdrawals--which is a possibility implicit in Nixon's approach. Averell Harnman, chief negotiator at Paris in the Johnson Administration, had a more trenchant criticism. "This is a replacement, not a withdrawal," said he. "The first order of business is the reduction of violence. We still have orders for all-out pressure on the enemy. How can we expect the enemy to end their fighting if we don't? We should be taking a more defensive position and at the same time demand that the other side respond. I believe they will."

A Necessary Reversal

Whether or not the other side responds, the U.S. will probably decide in August to bring out a second batch of servicemen before the end of 1969. After that, predictions become murkier, since the rate of removal will depend on the level of fighting, the progress of Saigon's army and developments at the Paris talks. Whatever happens, there will almost certainly be U.S. troops in Viet Nam for at least a few years to come. Before Midway, the talk in Saigon was of reducing American forces by about 50,000 every six months; even at that accelerated rate, it would be more than five years before the last U.S. soldier embarked for home. One well-informed U.S. official in Saigon believes that there will be 200,000 American troops left in South Viet Nam by mid-1971.

What progress will have been made by that time toward reaching a political settlement is another matter entirely. While some at the White House insist that Hanoi is already emitting signals that it wants to talk seriously about President Nixon's political proposals of last month, the suspicion grows among the U.S. delegation in Pans that the Communists may not be interested at all in negotiating a settlement now. According to this theory, they will simply wait it out until U.S. public opinion forces Nixon to accept peace on their terms. If the Communists accepted free elections, the U.S. estimates, they would win from 15% to 30% of the vote. But if they can hold out for a bargained coalition, the Communists might well be able to claim a larger share in the government.

Unless the Communists remain altogether intransigent, however, President Nixon will be able to continue on the course he has set toward disengaging U.S. forces and replacing them with South Vietnamese. In the hope of obtaining peace, he has called a halt to the strategy that began in 1965 when Lyndon Johnson ordered massive increases in the U.S. troop commitment to Viet Nam. Though Johnson himself began to brake the process last year, reversing such momentum completely is difficult--all the more so because so many American lives have been invested in it. But it has become clear that such a reversal is now necessary if Nixon is to retrieve the situation in Viet Nam. Ultimately, the South Vietnamese will have to bear the major part of their own military and political burdens.

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