The War: The Prospect Ahead

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Truth — the whole truth — is an inevitable casualty of any war, if only because it is often drowned in the din of combat or smothered by the demands of security. This is particularly so in a war as complex as that in Viet Nam, which has ignored most of the time-honored tenets of military experience. Last week the U.S. was exposed to a spate of assertions, contradictions and speculations about the Vietnamese war that illustrated both the strength of a democratic society and the frustration of searching for clear answers to elusive problems. From it all, one sobering message emerged: although the war in Viet Nam is going well in many respects, some of the most decisive battles —and hardest decisions—still lie ahead.

No Timetable. The week's seesawing began with a report from Saigon citing Army and Marine Corps studies in the Pentagon concluding that North Viet Nam could endure its present rate of losses in the South for another eight years. Even if the present U.S. manpower commitment of 291,000 troops in South Viet Nam were raised to as much as 750,000, according to these projections, the Communists would still be able to replace enough men through infiltration and recruiting within South Viet Nam to continue the fight for several years.

From Lyndon Johnson on down, official Washington replied to these chilling estimates by denying any knowledge of the studies; the President even told his press conference that Defense Secretary McNamara did not agree with the conclusions of the non-studies. The Administration has wisely made no public timetable predictions about the end of the war, but many Americans have certainly felt that it could hardly last beyond a year or two more.

Yet the men who are running the war have, for the most part, a consistently harder view than Washington of its length and future costliness. They do not take too seriously the Administration's belief that North Vietnamese rationality will sooner or later open Hanoi's eyes to the impossibility of victory. They see a long, grubby, slogging war ahead of them, and their professional responsibilities compel them to assess realistically both the enemy's strength and their own needs. Few of them think that the job can be done with much less than double the present American force, and some indeed feel that the American buildup must reach 750,000 —though the Pentagon says that it does not envision such a commitment.