A Time of Uncertainty

One morning last week the citizens of Tay Ninh awoke to find Communist soldiers roaming the streets of their provincial capital, 55 miles northwest of Saigon. Three regiments of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops had maneuvered around Tay Ninh in the shad ow of Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin mountain. Some Communist units hit outlying defense posts. Others slipped into the city before dawn under cover of a rocket and mortar barrage and dug into foxholes.

In the early morning sunlight, Viet Cong agitators harangued crowds routed out onto street corners at gunpoint. They had free run for only a few hours. Two battalions of South Vietnamese troops were hastily airlifted from Saigon. Street by street, they drove the enemy out of town and back into the surrounding paddies.

Baffling Questions. It was the second time that the enemy had briefly made it into Tay Ninh in less than a month. What quite baffled General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. commander m Viet Nam, and nine other top U.S. and Vietnamese officers who visited Tay Ninh after the attack, was why the Communists came and why they gave up so readily. They had apparently planned to hold the city for at least three days. They had forces enough to do so but changed their minds.

Tay Ninh was only the latest in a series of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese moves that have been puzzling to the Allies. The Communists continue a buildup of forces around Due Lap, a district capital of little strategic importance that was the scene last month of the summer's heaviest fighting. Though they have already lost more than 800 men in their unsuccessful attacks on Due Lap, they keep plugging away.

The most baffling question of all about the ground war is raised by the Communists' much-heralded "third offensive" against Saigon. Anticipated as a follow-up on the February Tet offensive and the second-round attack against the capital in May, it has been thought imminent since mid-August. Yet there is still no clear sign that it is coming; in fact, the pressure is off Saigon and the other major cities. Saigon has not been shelled in three weeks.

The most hopeful estimate of the recent lack of pattern in Communist strategy is that Hanoi's aims are being consistently thwarted. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese took heavy casualties at Tet and during the May offensive. Allied forces claim to have killed more than 13,000 Communist troops within the past month, almost four times the enemy casualty rate during the early-summer lull in fighting. One seasoned Marine general believes that the Communists no longer intend a third attack on Saigon for just this reason. "They don't have the capability," he argues. "They have lost too many men."

The U.S. military machine in South Viet Nam is technically more efficient than ever before. Improved gathering of physical intelligence by sensor devices, long-range reconnaissance patrols, helicopter cavalry squadrons and snooper aircraft may well have headed off the Communists' plans for late August attacks. New emphasis on night patrolling and staking out ambushes has broken the Viet Cong's mastery of the night in parts of South Viet Nam.

Spoiling Tactics. General Abrams has abandoned the tactics of his predecessor, General William Westmoreland, who made wide use of brigade and even division-size sweeps that sometimes left rear areas exposed. Instead, Abrams has developed a more flexible, diversified approach that employs smaller roving units. They can watch over more territory and thus spot and spoil enemy buildups in the making. Another hopeful sign: the South Vietnamese army has steadily improved throughout the summer, and its combat units are now fully equipped with U.S. M16s.

Mindful of the overblown optimism of earlier days in the war, General Abrams is not yet willing to say that he has the enemy on the run. He recently told Washington that he thinks the third-wave offensive began late in August and then petered out. The Communists could renew it at any moment, he said, or they could simply stretch out their timetable. They might even abandon the attack altogether. If they do, Abrams thinks that Hanoi might rapidly ask for a cease-fire and begin negotiating in earnest at the Paris talks. But he emphasizes that that is only one of the several courses open to Hanoi.

Abrams' caution is understandable, since there are signs that the enemy may have actually improved his position. Infiltration of North Vietnamese regulars into South Viet Nam continues at a record rate--so much so that Viet Cong and North Vietnamese units are considered back up to full strength after their recent losses. In some areas, replacements are of higher quality than ever before; they have evidently come from training units long held back in the safety of the North. The Communist supply lines and communications network have been improved enormously by feverish labor on the roads and trails through Laos, Cambodia and the underpopulated border provinces of South Viet Nam. Viet Cong terrorists recently murdered 476 civilians in two weeks, more than in any other fortnight this year.

Propaganda Ploy. While the North Vietnamese have long since abandoned round-the-clock shelling of the isolated U.S. Marine outpost at Con Thien just south of the DMZ, northernmost I Corps remains the area where allied officers consider the enemy threat to be greatest. Last week lead elements of the North Vietnamese 320th Division were back in I Corps after a June retreat north across the DMZ, keeping up the pressure in clashes with U.S. soldiers and Marines across the breadth of Quang Tri province. The Americans, joined by South Vietnamese infantrymen, chased North Viet Nam regulars two miles into the DMZ, killing 158.

Danang was infiltrated briefly three weeks ago, but the real enemy interest seems to be elsewhere. Farther south in I Corps, the U.S. Americal and the South Vietnamese 2nd Divisions pushed west of Quang Ngai city last week to try to forestall an anticipated attack on that provincial capital. The entire North Vietnamese 3rd Division is believed to have moved north from II Corps into Quang Ngai, a historic Communist stronghold where the Viet Cong might attempt to set up a provisional government if they could win control of the city even temporarily. If that move succeeded, its propaganda value would be considerable. It would certainly make far more sense than assaults on such places as Due Lap and Tay Ninh.

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