Rolling Backward Again

The war in Viet Nam admits to many analogies, but perhaps the most apt is that of Sisyphus, the mythical Corinthian king who was condemned forever to roll uphill a huge stone that constantly rolled back. So it is with the South Vietnamese.

Five months after they managed--with U.S. airpower--to stall the Communists' Easter offensive, they have not yet mounted a successful counteroffensive or recaptured Quang Tri city or any other significant part of the northern province that fell in April and May. They have not reopened Highway 13 between Saigon and An Loc, and the task was finally abandoned altogether last week as the two divisions assigned to it were regrouped in an effort to head off Communist units that are believed to be moving toward Saigon. The North Vietnamese are still staging ambushes on the road between Kontum and Pleiku in the Central Highlands, and there is sharp fighting in Binh Dinh province on the central coast. Worse still, the South Vietnamese suffered a major defeat three weeks ago south of Danang in the Que Son Valley, losing between 1,000 and 2,000 men.

Most knowledgeable observers in Saigon do not believe that Hanoi's current tactics are tied significantly to the U.S. presidential elections. "The U.S. assumption that the North Vietnamese leaders are worrying primarily about whether to deal with Nixon or wait for the outcome of the election seems chauvinistic from here," reports TIME's Saigon Bureau Chief Stanley Cloud. "It misses the point that the North Vietnamese military position in the South is vastly better than it was a year ago and is virtually unchallenged in Laos and Cambodia."

The North Vietnamese have not captured Hue or any other major city except Quang Tri, which they have successfully defended for two months with a constant artillery barrage against some of Saigon's best troops. Instead, they have been fanning out over the countryside and expanding their area of operation. The North Vietnamese have been relying primarily on the use of small units, though their soldiers are frequently supported by tanks and long-range 130-mm. guns. In many sections of the Mekong Delta, as a result of steadily mounting pressure from the small units of Communist troops, security for civilians loyal to the government has all but vanished. In consequence, B-52s have been pounding the Delta, long the showcase of the government's pacification program.

The bombers come mostly from Utapao Air Base in Thailand, which last week opened its gates for a conducted tour by newsmen for the first time since it was built in the mid-1960s. Correspondent Cloud, who accompanied the tour, reported that "there is no hint of war here. The 8,000 airmen work an eight-hour day and then are free to loll at poolside or watch a movie. For the most part, they appear uniformly clean-cut and middleclass. 'It seemed a good place to learn my job and advance my career,' said Captain Claude Hamilton, 28, of Waco, Texas." Asked about the dangers to civilians in the use of B-52s to bomb the heavily populated Mekong Delta (see box, next page), the crewmen insisted that if mistakes are made, it is the responsibility of faulty intelligence, not of the planes and the equipment aboard them.

U.S. officials in Saigon believe that the Communists are preparing for a series of attacks on "targets of high visibility," perhaps including sapper assaults on the capital. At least one ambush has taken place on Highway 13 south of Lai Khe only 35 miles from the capital. Highway 4, along which most of Saigon's farm supplies are shipped in from the Delta, has been repeatedly cut in the past six weeks.

The Communists' relative strength in South Viet Nam demonstrates that North Viet Nam's warmaking capability remains intact despite the most intensive U.S. bombing of the war and the mining of Haiphong and six other harbors. The North Vietnamese are suffering from shortages and disruptions, but they have given top priority to three vital elements of war: armaments, ammunition and fuel supplies. By Washington estimates, they are importing more than 25% of these needs by makeshift means. A third plastic pipeline, for example, has reportedly been completed to the Chinese border. As one U.S. intelligence official notes, "It's awfully hard to put a plastic pipeline out of action--it can be repaired in a couple of hours. The entire country has been mobilized, elderly men and women too, and they carry the stuff on their backs where there are no trucks or where trucks cannot pass."

The North Vietnamese received a boost early last week--though perhaps only a psychological one. A 270-ton Chinese minesweeper appeared in Haiphong harbor, after having apparently made its way through shallow intracoastal waterways at high tide. U.S. officials doubted that the vessel represented the first step in a Chinese effort to open up the harbor. More likely it was only a symbolic mission for the benefit of the North Vietnamese--aimed at showing up the Soviets, who have a fleet of more than 300 minesweepers but have not tried to cross the American minefield.

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