The War: Rumblings on the Periphery

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The war in Viet Nam has already spread in a certain fashion, to at least three other Southeast Asian nations. The Communists have been freely using both Laos and Cambodia as supply depots and sanctuaries for their troops, and in Thailand they have been support ng an insurgency in the Northeast aimed both at harassing the Thais and distracting the U.S., which uses six Thai airbases to launch raids against North Viet Nam.

Recently, allied military pressure has forced the bulk of North Vietnamese troops in the South toward or across neighboring borders. So far, they have retreated there with relative impunity. Last week ominous rumblings from all three of South Viet Nam's neighbors indicated not only that the Communist presence has become a serious problem, but that the war is approaching a new phase in which it may well spill over South Viet Nam's borders.

> In Cambodia, where the Communists have set up several camps (TIME, Dec. 1 ) to which they retreat after bloody battles in the South, the situation has become pressing. U.S. military men have advised hot pursuit of the enemy into Cambodia, but the Johnson Administration has so far declined to go along. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu insisted last week that, if allied troops were hit by enemy fire from Cambodia, hot pursuit was not only justified but "indeed a military necessity." The U.S. has launched a new diplomatic initiative to convince Prince Norodom Sihanouk and other "interested" nations, including Russia, of the North Vietnamese presence in Cambodia. It is privately circulating documents that pinpoint the evidence and calling for a strengthening of the International Control Commission.

Prince Sihanouk began the week by warning that he would call on volunteers from China, Russia and other Communist nations if U.S. or South Vietnamese forces entered Cambodia. But, in a surprising turnabout, he later told a reporter for the Washington Post that his army would not necessarily attempt to stop U.S. troops from entering Cambodia in hot pursuit. Provided, he added, that 1) Viet Cong or North Vietnamese troops had entered Cambodia illegally, a move that he now concedes they have made in the past, while continuing to insist they are not there now; 2) the U.S. launches no serious raids, bombings or actions in populated frontier areas but confines itself to "uninhabited outlying regions difficult to control;" and 3) the South Vietnamese be kept out of any hot pursuit into Cambodia. For good measure, Sihanouk offered to receive a representative from President Johnson, the first time he has done so since he broke diplomatic relations with the U.S. in 1965.

> In Laos, there has been a buildup of the North Vietnamese forces that guard and repair the vital Ho Chi Minh Trail over which supplies are funneled to the South. The U.S. State Department last week expressed "some serious concern" over this buildup, but the government of Prince Souvanna Phouma has much more reason for concern. It reported that North Vietnamese forces had launched a "general offensive" against several government villages: Ban Nam Bac, north of the royal capital of Luang-prabang, and Lao Ngam and Phalane.