THE PUZZLE OF THE LULL

FOR the sixth week, the battlefields of South Viet Nam continued to be un-accustomedly quiet. There was, declared General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. commander in Viet Nam, "decreased activity" on the enemy's part. "But what it means I don't know," he added. Other experts, in Washington and in Saigon, share the general's puzzlement. Was this finally the long-awaited Communist signal for military de-escalation of the conflict and thus a hopeful step toward peace? Or was it, as in the past, simply a period of Communist rebuilding and refitting in preparation for yet another offensive?

U.S. officers in Viet Nam are reluctant to use the term "lull" for the lack of contact with the Communists, but they readily admit that all their military indicators are down. Since June 29, weekly American fatalities have held below 200. During the last reporting period, July 20 to 26, 110 Americans died, the lowest toll so far this year. Communist attacks in III Corps, the vital area around Saigon, have dropped from a daily average of 30 in May to 25 in June and 15 in July. The other three corps areas report a similar trend. Nightly shellings of allied bases have diminished. Allied reconnaissance patrols find little or nothing. A running fight last week west of Saigon, in which 116 Communist soldiers were killed, was the sharpest battle in a month.

Another Push. Statistics have dipped before--only to soar again when the Communists started new offensives. During the period between October 1968 and February 1969, U.S. casualties were relatively low and there was talk then, as today, of a lull. At the time, U.S. commanders warned that the Communists were preparing for another push. Indeed, the lull ended abruptly--and bloodily--with the Communist post-Tet offensive. This time, however, more seems to be involved. "This lull is not merely one of statistics, but more of gut feeling," reports TIME Correspondent Burton Pines from Saigon. "Some of the highest American military commanders, after citing caveats drawn from previous lulls, will admit that something is now different."

For the first time in years, the American command is not predicting the date of the next expected offensive. The reason is that the usual sources of intelligence--captured documents, prisoners and deserters--reveal virtually nothing. The most that can be gleaned is that local Communist commanders have heard of vague plans for a new drive some time in the fall.

So far, Hanoi and the Communist negotiators at the Paris peace talks have offered no hint that the lull has any political significance. Given the Communist reticence, U.S. experts in Washington and Saigon advance three theories to explain the lull:

> It is a Hanoi signal of genuine deescalation, following a period of rethinking of strategy by Ho Chi Minh and his men. The allies generally assume that orders from Hanoi take around four weeks to filter down to Communist troops in the South. If President Nixon's eight-point Viet Nam proposal of May 14, which included a plan for mutual troop withdrawals, caused a reevaluation by the North Vietnamese, then orders implementing any changes would have reached Communist units by mid-June--just about the time the lull began. The theory is bolstered by the fact that a push, expected by American intelligence for June 19 or 20, was hurriedly called off by the Communist command in the South. Another drive, thought to have been scheduled for about July 21, was similarly canceled on short notice. > Hanoi has opted for temporary disengagement in the belief that a lull in the fighting will spur quicker U.S. withdrawal from South Viet Nam. Once large numbers of U.S. troops have pulled out, the Communists could resume guerrilla warfare with relatively bright hopes of success. Hanoi's chief ideologue, Truong Chinh, has been advocating that plan for a long time. -- It is Hanoi's intention to lure the allies into reducing patrols and easing general pressure, thus facilitating an unhindered Communist buildup that would culminate in another large offensive such as the 1968 Tet attack that irreparably disillusioned the American public about the war. U.S. commanders still concede the Communists the capability of launching a drive that could easily boost U.S. battle deaths to more than 300 a week. It is precisely for this reason that field commanders have resisted suggestions to lessen pressure on the Communists. Such tactics, they have always argued, would ultimately increase allied casualties.

Protective Reaction. As a result, U.S. battlefield tactics have undergone little more than semantic changes. Washington no longer uses the hawkish words "maximum pressure" to describe the allied pursuit of the Communists. The new term is "protective reaction," which has a less aggressive ring to it. In fact, the U.S. still continues to seek the enemy--but the enemy is less evident. "In principle, we are doing precisely what we have been doing all along," explains one high-ranking U.S. officer. "Lull? What lull?" asks a G.I. at a fire base near Saigon. "We still patrol every day." Although large-unit allied sweeps have been cut down and are used only when there is solid intelligence of a large enemy concentration, reconnaissance patrols have not been reduced.

There is, however, a growing U.S. preoccupation with the "Vietnamization" of the war. American commanders are spending twice as much time on pacification and training of Vietnamese troops as they did only a month ago. Increasingly, the Vietnamese handle a larger share of patrol duty. That fact is not only reflected in lower U.S. casualties but also in relatively unchanged ARVN losses over the past month: during the last reporting period, they lost 290 men killed, almost three times the number of American dead.

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