SAIGON Correspondent Rudolph Rauch had finished a letter home complaining about the lack of news. Bureau Chief Stanley Cloud, on vacation, had just arrived in Singapore en route to Bali. That was three weeks ago. Suddenly North Vietnamese troops poured south, U.S. bombers began flying north, and there was an indefinite moratorium on letter writing and vacations. Cloud, Rauch and Correspondent David DeVoss were spending long, hazardous days filing for two cover stories within three weeks. The report in this issue's Nation section includes articles on the Nixon Administration's policy making and the domestic and diplomatic implications of it, as well as the ground, sea and air combat.

While Cloud in Saigon followed the military situation throughout Viet Nam, Rauch headed upcountry to I Corps, where the fighting had begun. "It has been a jumble of airfields and highways," Rauch reports, "on which you wait while a gentle rain of JP4 or diesel fuel sifts endlessly down, and you are told there are no flights anywhere or the road is closed." Once he had to hitch a ride on a Vietnamese air force plane evacuating wounded marines from Phu Bai. Despite these difficulties,Rauch managed three trips into Hue and a visit to Danang to interview U.S. pilots returning from their combat missions.

DeVoss, a Saigon correspondent for just three months, received a baptism by 122-mm. rocket fire when he was caught in a barrage outside ARVN headquarters in Chon Thanh. He covered the air war the hard way--as a passenger aboard an A-37 on a 90-minute dive-bombing mission over An Xuyen province. "It was Cinerama and Coney Island wrapped into one as we hurtled toward the earth at 300 m.p.h., then, glued to the seat, soared skyward," says DeVoss. The Air Force had thoughtfully lent him a pistol, knife, rope, radio, parachute and other survival items. "The high point of the day was being able to give the two airsick bags back to the supply sergeant, unused."

Tokyo Bureau Chief Herman Nickel, meanwhile, went to Guam to interview B-52 crews who have been raiding North Viet Nam. Vietnamization may have relieved American infantrymen of the heaviest fighting, but the war is now as grueling and dangerous as ever for flyers, sailors--and newsmen.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.