A Very Uncertain Truce

ACROSS the bleeding lands of Indochina last week, the only certainty was uncertainty. The cease-fire agreement signed three months ago in Paris was increasingly ignored: American bombers were blasting targets in Laos and Cambodia, North Vietnamese troops and weapons continued to flood into South Viet Nam, Cambodia's position darkened ominously.

As the overall situation worsened, the U.S. stepped up its efforts to shore up the anti-Communist position:

> Economic talks with North Viet Nam in Paris were broken off and American officials warned Hanoi that its disregard for the cease-fire jeopardized the possibility of any postwar aid.

> Minesweeping in North Vietnamese waters was suspended.

> In Washington, a State Department spokesman told North Viet Nam that if it "damped down the war in Cambodia," there would be a "prompt and quite positive response on our part."

> There were hints that B-52s--which last week hit Laotian targets for the first time since late February --mightsoon be in action over South Viet Nam once again. For the U.S., that would be an exceedingly risky tactic; in addition to troops and materiel, the Communists have moved SAM-2 missiles down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into territory they control.

Bowing to U.S. demands that he broaden the base of his government, Cambodia's ailing, half-paralyzed Lon Nol last week called for the resignation of his Cabinet. He then moved to invite three former allies--onetime Deputy Premier Sisowath Sirik Matak, ex-Interior Minister In Tam and ex-Head of State Cheng Heng--to join a superior council, consisting of eleven high-ranking representatives of the nation's political parties, that would act as an advisory body. In fact, most foreign observers thought that Lon Nol's moves were little more than a cosmetic change and doubted that the various political factions would go along. As one Western diplomat in Phnom-Penh put it: "Lon Nol left things too late. Last year, perhaps, his old colleagues would have cooperated with him. Now, no one trusts his younger brother Lon Non, no one believes there will be any sharing of power." At week's end, however, there were rumors in Saigon and Phnom-Penh that Lon Non, who had remained a behind-the-scenes power even after his resignation as Minister of the Interior three weeks ago, was planning a trip to the U.S. With Lon Non out of the way, a real governmental reform just might be possible.

Overripe Fruit. The political maneuvering took place in the midst of a crumbling military situation. The Communist forces continued their methodical cutting of the five major highways leading to Phnom-Penh; almost as soon as government troops open one road, another is closed. Diplomats, however, ruled out a Communist attempt to overrun the capital. "They don't want to capture it," one observer said. "They want to create such economic chaos that there will be riots--and then the Lon Nol government will fall like an overripe fruit." In the city itself last week, prices continued to rise. The arrival of a few fuel convoys had almost no effect on the chronic shortage of kerosene, gasoline and diesel oil.

The resumption of U.S. bombing in Laos was described by Defense Secretary Elliot Richardson as a response to "a flagrant violation" of the Laotian cease-fire by the Communists. Washington officials said that the B-52s went into action after a North Vietnamese regiment led an attack on the Tha Vieng area in the Plain of Jars. U.S. embassy sources in Saigon, however, dismissed the attack as a minor action--"perhaps a squabble over rice." After two days the raids halted, which suggested that the B-52s were used more to dramatize U.S. dismay over the deteriorating situation in Indochina and less for specifically tactical purposes.

Across the border in South Viet Nam, government troops continued to battle North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces in actions scattered across the country. Canadian and Indonesian truce officials, thwarted by both sides as well as by their Hungarian and Polish colleagues, were hinting at quitting the ineffective International Commission of Control and Supervision--a move that would all but destroy the unit. For Cambodia, Laos and South Viet Nam, peace seemed no nearer at hand than it did a year ago.

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