Viet Nam: One More Step

PRESIDENT NIXON had planned to go on national television with his long-awaited address to the nation announcing the next stage of troop withdrawals from Viet Nam. Instead, without formal notice, he commandeered a regularly scheduled 4 p.m. White House press briefing late last week to present the next step. On the existing schedule, U.S. troop strength will be down to 184,000 by the end of this month; Nixon subtracted another 45,000. Of that total, 25,000 will come out next month in a bring the boys home for Christmas gesture. Another 20,000 will be withdrawn in January. The day of U.S. ground offensives is over, the President declared. "American troops are now in a defensive position."

The announcement carried a minor Nixonian surprise of the sort that perhaps explained why he avoided the fanfare and panoply of a prime-time presentation. While most speculation had it that the President would up the rate from the present monthly average of 14,300, which he did, he was also expected to project withdrawals well into the spring or early summer. To be sure, if Nixon extends the new, higher withdrawal rate past the end of January, U.S. force levels will be down to less than 50,000 by June. But he stopped short of announcing that, and it was a shrewd move. There remains only one more season for possible enemy attack between now and the 1972 elections, so that by not committing himself to a large, long-range figure now, he gives himself greater flexibility in meeting that military threat if it should arise. Also, as he sees it, he retains a better diplomatic bargaining position. Nixon may be bluffing, but he is trying to persuade Hanoi that he will not proceed further with U.S. troop withdrawals if the North Vietnamese show clear signs of preparing a major offensive.

Three Factors. The winter season is always the time of heaviest infiltration from the North. If a big attack is to come by Tet in February, or even later, it must be preceded by an enemy buildup over the next two months. The President noted that the infiltration rate is lower than usual at the moment. He added: "We want to see, however, what the situation is in December and January, because that will determine what the activity will be in April, May, June and July on the battlefield."

Nixon promised a further announcement before Feb. 1. That would be based, he said, on three factors that have been his touchstones all along: the infiltration rate, the progress of Vietnamization and the course of negotiations in Paris. "We have not given up on the negotiating front," he insisted.

Whatever Hanoi does, Nixon is not likely to interrupt the withdrawals more than temporarily. For one thing, the cooled American temper on the war would probably flare up again should the pullout stop--and it would surely rise sharply if Nixon were to send new U.S. forces into battle. For another, the Administration may well be correct in thinking that as the U.S. presence dwindles, public opinion round the world will bear down progressively on Hanoi to repatriate the American P.O.W.s. Certainly the Administration intends to build up all the pressure it can.

Tart Replies. Withdrawing ground troops is the carrot; air attacks are the stick. "Air power, of course, will continue to be used," the President said. "We will continue to use it in support of the South Vietnamese until there is a negotiated settlement or, looking farther down the road, until the South Vietnamese have developed the capability to handle the situation themselves." As U.S. ground forces are cut back, he added, air strikes against enemy infiltration routes are essential to protect both South Vietnamese forces and the remaining Americans. Should infiltration increase, he warned, "we will have to not only continue our air strikes; we will have to step them up."

The President had tart answers for tart questions about other facets of the war. Would he favor amnesty for any of the young men who have left the U.S. in order not to fight in a war they think immoral? No. Since he has asked for $341 million in military aid to Cambodia, what assurance could he give that the U.S. is not sliding into another Viet Nam? "We didn't slide into Viet Nam." The Nixon Doctrine provides that the U.S. will aid its military allies but not send in U.S. troops; "Cambodia is the Nixon Doctrine in its purest form."

Kind of Caesura. The North Vietnamese, said Nixon, are weaker militarily now than at any time since the war began. That is probably true, for enemy troops in South Viet Nam are operating in units of no more than platoon strength. Military action is near a standstill. One bored briefer at U.S. military headquarters in Viet Nam complains that the daily press release has been reduced practically to a single sentence: "Yesterday, U.S. aircraft flew B-52 missions in the Republic of Viet Nam during the 24-hour period ending at noon today." The lull may mean that the war is effectively over, or it may be a kind of caesura in the apparently endless alternation of dry-season offensives and rainy-season resupply. In Saigon now, a vital concern is whether the South Vietnamese economy can be made less dependent on U.S. aid; early this week, President Nguyen Van Thieu is expected to announce economic reforms aimed at that goal.

Lyndon Johnson once said: "We are not about to send American boys to do what Asian boys ought to be doing to protect themselves." He did not take his own advice, of course. Nixon in effect is saying that American boys can now stop doing what Asian boys should be doing. That should be enough to keep the war quiescent as a domestic issue, at least for now. But the President fell far short of satisfying all his critics. While the U.S. is withdrawing, the war goes on with U.S. help.

Sacrificing Vietnamese. Last week Cornell University's Center for International Studies released a report showing that the bomb tonnage dropped on Indochina during President Nixon's first three years in office was greater than the total for the last three years of the Johnson Administration. On the other hand, U.S. losses are down dramatically compared with the Johnson years; for the past five weeks U.S. combat deaths have been fewer than ten a week. The harsh calculation--that it is better to sacrifice Vietnamese lives than American ones--seems to satisfy the U.S. public, so that for the time being continuing the bombing costs the President little politically. Eventually, stronger emotional opposition to the air war may build. Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa, a Democratic dove, complained that the President's policies show "no indication of any termination to this war."

Nor did the President please those who have been demanding that he set a fixed date for a full U.S. evacuation from Viet Nam. He insisted that he means to maintain a residual force as a bargaining tool as long as there is no negotiated settlement of the war and as long as the North Vietnamese hold Americans prisoner. That is a rational position, but it may become difficult to maintain against the pressures of an election year in a nation that is deeply weary of the war.

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