NEXT, THE STRUGGLE FOR SAIGON

"It is beyond my imagination," a South Vietnamese general lamented last week. "It could all have been foreseen long ago. I repeatedly warned about the infiltration of North Vietnamese troops. Now there is no way for the present situation to be salvaged. It is finished."

What little territory remained under South Viet Nam's control shrank steadily through the week as Communist forces drew the ring around Saigon even tighter. Along the coast, North Vietnamese forces overwhelmed the towns of Phan Rang and Phan Thiet, bringing to 19 the number of provincial capitals they have captured. In the Mekong Delta they stepped up their sporadic attacks in an effort to cut Saigon off from its primary source of rice and vegetables. At Xuan Loc, a provincial capital only 40 miles east of Saigon, a valiant defense by outnumbered and outgunned government forces finally appeared to be crumbling at week's end. Only 15 miles north of Saigon, Communist artillerymen launched first assaults on the huge South Vietnamese airbase at Bien Hoa. Using 130-mm. artillery with a range of 15 miles, they momentarily disrupted ARVN'S fighter-bomber traffic.

Tearing Toward Berlin. Inevitably the next act will be the Battle of Saigon. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sappers are already probing the outskirts of the uneasy city; mortars and rockets may soon follow. To many observers, the outcome of the battle is no longer in any doubt. According to a secret report to the U.S. Senate last week, the military situation in South Viet Nam is now "irreversible." The capital may fall as early as May 1, said, the report, and nothing short of "decisive military action" by the U.S. could affect that prognosis.

The extraordinarily rapid change in the fortunes of war in South Viet Nam has caught the world--not to mention the participants--unawares. Scarcely a month ago the ARVN was one of the largest and best-equipped armies in the world; today it is shattered. Three-quarters of the country and at least 40% of its 19 million people are under Communist rule.

Also changed is the mode of warfare. No longer is it a contest of small units using land mines and rifle squads. Today regiments and full divisions supported by armor and artillery are pitted against one another in all-out conventional warfare. It is the Communists who are on the offensive. "The North Vietnamese divisions today," remarked a European diplomat in Saigon, "remind me of good World War II armies tearing toward Berlin."

The prolonged fighting at Xuan Loc was interpreted, in the beginning, as a test of the ARVN's remaining will to fight. "I vow to hold Xuan Loc," declared the 18th Division commander, Brigadier General Le Minh Dao. "I don't care how many divisions the other side sends against me, I will knock them down."

By early last week, when he visited the embattled city, TIME Photographer Dirck Halstead found little left to fight over. "Virtually every building was in ruins," Halstead reported later. "Blackened bodies of North Vietnamese soldiers littered the streets, where heavy house-to-house fighting had obviously taken place not long before. Except for the troops, the town was empty of its 38,000 people." The ARVN fought hard and well at Xuan Loc. But by the time Halstead and other journalists got back to their helicopter they found it surrounded and overrun, not only by frightened civilians but by soldiers who were understandably trying to bug out.

In the approaching Battle of Saigon, the odds against the ARVN are growing. The three divisions defending the Mekong Delta are comparatively well trained and disciplined. As for the rest, says a veteran military observer in Saigon, "ARVN has probably the worst morale of any army since the collapse of the French in World War II. In three weeks they have been put through general retreats, separated from their own units and officers, walked and fought their way down half the country, survived mass panic and mutinies, and now they are being asked to fight again to save their capital city from total defeat."

Static Positions. In numbers alone, the relative strength of the two sides has changed drastically since the signing of the Paris accords in January 1973. At that time the North Vietnamese had 148,000 combat troops in South Viet Nam; today they have an estimated 237,000. Two years ago ARVN had 250,000 combat troops; today, in the wake of the great retreat, it has only 104,000. Out of 150,000 troops formerly based in Military Regions I and II, no more than 60,000 are left; the rest were killed, wounded, or simply ran away. As a result, the ARVN has only seven remaining divisions, while the North Vietnamese have as many as 21.

What is more, much of the South Vietnamese force is committed to static defense positions--bridges, key highways, airfields--limiting its mobility and ruling out probing operations. "We are tied down everywhere," complained a South Vietnamese general last week. "The Communists' tactics are to draw us out everywhere they can and then hit us where we are weakest."

In the view of some Saigon observers, many of ARVN's current problems stem directly from the Paris accords and the withdrawal of U.S. forces two years ago. The Americans had helped South Viet Nam create an army that the Vietnamese could not maintain without considerable advisory assistance and steady, sizable infusions of equipment. When U.S. support was removed, it was not long before many ARVN soldiers simply forgot what they had learned under American tutelage. "Our G.I.s were always telling us not to bunch up, not to bunch up," laughed a South Vietnamese soldier near Xuan Loc last week. "That's all I remember--'don't bunch up.'" Moreover, the Paris accords gave the North Vietnamese an important tactical advantage by not acknowledging their presence in the South, thereby tacitly allowing them to stay--in force.

Serious Problems. ARVN is also suffering from practices that are endemic to South Viet Nam--the deferments available to the rich, the influential and the educated, and the practice of awarding high-ranking military posts as political plums. But ARVN's most serious problem during the current crisis may be its top leadership--and specifically its commander in chief, President Nguyen Van Thieu. Despite the debacle of the withdrawal, Thieu still indulges in the mandarin weakness of running his army like a puppetmaster, capriciously moving units from one defense line to another but rarely visiting the fighting fronts himself.

Thieu's political leadership has created an even more severe problem for the country. After the disastrous setbacks of the past month, there have been widespread calls for his resignation. Last week Thieu responded by naming yet another new government, this one a "fighting government of unity." Despite that description the new Cabinet included no members of the broadening opposition; the Premier, Nguyen Ba Can, is a bland labor unionist who can be counted on to do the President's bidding. General Duong Van ("Big") Minh demanded that Thieu resign before Saigon "becomes another Phnom-Penh," but the call was not likely to be heeded.

While the debate over evacuation continued in Washington, the U.S. proceeded with its plan to reduce the remaining American population in South Viet Nam to about 1,000 by the end of this week. One problem was what officials called "the woodwork factor": as many as 1,400 Americans whose existence caught the U.S. embassy by surprise have surfaced in Saigon, seeking a way out.

Under U.S. pressure, the Saigon government suddenly relaxed the rules for evacuating the Vietnamese dependents of American citizens. One American affected by the ruling was Karl Camp, who had already spent $1,500 in bribes in an effort to get his Vietnamese wife and her six children out of the country. Another was former Serviceman Kenneth Cowan, who had left his wife and three children in Saigon when his tour of duty in Viet Nam ended two years ago. Now a helicopter repairman in Redondo Beach, Calif, Cowan took a month's leave from his job, sold his car, diving equipment and drums and flew back to Saigon to rescue his family. "My wife was worried about what the Communists might do to mixed kids," he said. "I just had to get them out."

According to intelligence estimates, ten North Vietnamese divisions were gathering in the region of Saigon, awaiting a signal to attack. Communist shelling of the city and of nearby Tan Son Nhut airbase could begin at any time. U.S. Army Chief of Staff Frederick Weyand returned from South Viet Nam to Washington two weeks ago convinced that "the North Vietnamese seek a total military conquest of South Viet Nam." With so many options available to them, they might decide instead to pursue a strategy of slow strangulation, gradually cutting Saigon off from the coast, from the Delta and finally from the air. The view of U.S. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger is that the Communists will "encircle Saigon so that it falls of its own weight."

No Other Place. How will the South Vietnamese react if, on the contrary, there is a full-scale attack? Will they flee, as tens of thousands did from Danang a few weeks ago? U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin believes not. "At Danang," he told TIME Correspondent William Stewart, "there was much fear of the unknown, and there was still some place else to go. Now there is no other place. This is it."

In the end, a siege of Saigon may be averted by the formation of a coalition government. Three weeks ago, the French tried to act as intermediaries in arranging just such a solution through establishment of a national council of reconciliation that pointedly excluded Nguyen Van Thieu. There was one insurmountable difficulty. "Thieu didn't want a way out," said a European diplomat in Saigon. "And he still doesn't."

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