Background For War: REPORT ON INDO-CHINA

Indo-China is one of the five critical places on earth that are most vulnerable to Communist attack (the other four: Formosa, Germany, Yugoslavia, Iran). If Indo-China falls, all of southeast Asia is likely to go. The U.S. position in the Philippines would be outflanked. The weak governments of Burma, Siam and Indonesia could probably not long resist Communist pressure, and the Red tide would sweep to the borders of India. Indo-China may hold the difference between limited success and total disaster of U.S. policy and U.S. hopes in Asia.

Can Indo-China be held against Communism? In search of an answer, TIME'S Paris Bureau Chief Andre Laguerre spent six weeks in the troubled, war-torn country. His report:

IN Hanoi it was the hour of the siesta. A Chinese soup vendor beat a hollow stick on a block of wood, click-clack-click, to proclaim his wares. Beyond the lake, in the pagoda of the Seven Crows, a wizened old man in a black robe bent in prayer before a dim effigy of the great Buddha. On the deserted curb five tattered Vietnamese newsboys were playing "to'," an Eastern version of craps.

My luncheon guest—the leader of a group of Indo-Chinese Nationalist intellectuals who are still undecided about supporting French-sponsored Emperor Bao Dai—smiled down at the kids in the street. "Like most peoples of Asia," he said, "we are chronic gamblers. Except," he added thoughtfully, "in politics, where we like a sure thing."

To many of IndoChina's 23 millions, the struggle with Communism is a gigantic dice game, and before they place their bets, the Indo-Chinese want to know who is going to win. My guest's remark contained the soundest piece of advice which could be given the West out here today: the best way to win this particular battle is to demonstrate that you have no intention of losing it.

The Three Battles. In this country there are really three battles in one. The first is against the forces of Communist Ho Chi Minh. The second battle is now being prepared—an invasion abetted or led by Red China. The third battle, urgent and complex, is political, and it has to be won if the West is to establish relations with Indo-China on a sounder moral and material basis than the past lack of an Asian policy has allowed.

The biggest reason why the first battle may be won, and why the second will either not take place or will be efficiently fought by the West, is the French expeditionary corps.

There are some severe things to be said of past and present French attitudes in Indo-China. But now it is the French army that is keeping Indo-China out of Communist hands. In Indo-China, France has committed one-quarter of her navy and more than half of her flying personnel. Her army of 150,000 in Indo-China includes her finest professional officers and troops, who would be of incalculable value in Korea, who are desperately needed in France for the defense of Europe.

How Good Are the French? These 150,000 men are tough and efficient soldiers. Their morale, considering the punishing climate and the terrain of jungle, mountain, swamp or flooded rice field, in a campaign against an enemy who consistently flees pitched battle, is surprisingly high.