Inoffensive Tet

Two years ago, during the Communists' Tet offensive of 1968, Viet Cong regulars overran the tiny hamlet of Huu Thanh in the Mekong Delta and destroyed nearly every building. Last week, as South Viet Nam celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Dog, government flags flew from every home and the town was almost completely rebuilt. In Hue, nearly wrecked by savage street fighting two years ago, crowds flocked to the reconstructed market, buying New Year gifts for their families from the 2,000-odd vendors. Pretty Saigon girls in ao dais posed for their boy friends' cameras before the city's monuments. All over war-wracked South Viet Nam there were similar festive scenes. Only the traditional firecrackers were missing; they were banned because they sound too much like gunfire. Temporarily, at least, it seemed possible to forget about the war.

For virtually everyone but the military, that is. All leaves were canceled. Outside Saigon, South Vietnamese armor stood guard. In Hue, flak-jacketed ARVN Rangers carrying M-16s mingled with the holiday crowds. Memories of the 1968 holocaust were very much on the military's mind, but there was optimism as well. In the delta's lush Ba Xuyen province, a district chief discounted chances of a VC attack: "We've driven them out and I think they know better than to return." Earlier in the week, the enemy had mounted a minioffensive: 70 cities and bases were shelled or mortared one night, 44 the next. But as Tet neared, the activity died --so much so that on the first day of the holiday, a Vietnamese army spokesman had nothing more to say at the daily briefing than, "Happy Tet."

"My guess is that the Communists would have liked to create a flurry," a high-ranking U.S. general said, "but they just weren't up to it." President Nguyen Van Thieu told TIME that the foe may now be in a transition period, de-escalating from all-out warfare to protracted guerrilla fighting. But Thieu does expect a sizable attack just before the elections next fall.

Thieu's assessment of a lower level of fighting is based not only on documents emerging from North Viet Nam but also on a general reduction in enemy infiltration and overall activity. His estimate was confirmed in a Hanoi speech last week by Le Duan, First Secretary of North Viet Nam's ruling Lao Dong (Workers) Party. Warning his countrymen that they might have to fight for "many years more," Le Duan urged them to concentrate increasingly on economic development. The speech was a clear reflection of North Viet Nam's very real internal difficulties.

There was no indication, however, that concessions would soon be forthcoming at the Paris peace talks as a result. In fact, North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris went out of their way to point out that no high-level secret talks are now being held; possibly irritated that Henry Cabot Lodge was not replaced by a man of comparable stature after his resignation in November, Hanoi's representatives said that they have had no private contacts at all with the U.S. delegation since Philip C. Habib became its acting chief.

Late in the week, as the 24-hour Tet cease-fire ended, there were reports of increased battlefield action, mostly in the Mekong Delta and in the north, near the Demilitarized Zone. The fighting was on a small scale, but no one in South Viet Nam was forgetting that shortly after the cease-fire expired last year, the enemy launched an offensive that lasted for 36 days.

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