World: Shielding the Capital

• Share

Ever since the first Communist rocket crashed into an unsuspecting Saigon four months ago, allied officers have bemoaned the difficulty of defending the sprawling capital against the missiles, which can be launched from as far as seven miles away. Last week General Creighton Abrams, who has just taken over from William Westmoreland as U.S. commander in South Viet Nam, vowed, perhaps somewhat too confidently, that the rocket attacks would be suppressed. "We have to stop them," said Abrams, "and we have the means to stop them."

Faith in Counterfire. Convinced that Saigon is now the major Communist target and spurred by the yet unfulfilled threat by the Viet Cong that they would rain 100 rockets a day on the city for a period of 100 days, the allies shifted thousands of men from the countryside and pulled together the largest blocking force ever deployed in and around Saigon. It consisted of some 100,000 troops, drawn about evenly from South Vietnamese and U.S. units. To defend the capital against ground at tacks such as the Tet offensive and last month's assaults, the South Vietnamese moved into the city small-unit forces from the Delta, men specially trained to take on small pockets of enemy infiltrators.

The Vietnamese advocate the construction of a mini-Maginot line of electronic detectors, minefields and bunkered defense posts to circle Saigon at a distance of six miles from downtown. The Americans have so far demurred, arguing that the static line, as now envisioned, would not stop infiltration via normal traffic routes and, more important, would not cover the rocket belt. Instead, U.S. commanders have put their faith in counterfire by air and artillery, guided by sophisticated radar that can get a fix on an enemy rocket position within 20 to 30 seconds of a launch. By calling in retaliatory fire on the sites within two minutes, they hope to catch the rocketeers before they can flee. This method does not eliminate sporadic rocketing—as the Communists proved by hitting Saigon on at least two occasions last week—but it aims at preventing such huge, destructive barrages as the one that smashed into the heart of the city on June 11. There has been no concentrated attack since then.

The U.S. is also using pinpoint B-52 strikes on the edges of the capital to disrupt Communist movement and to destroy deadly firing positions and caches. The allies called in such raids after the South Vietnamese captured one of the war's highest-ranking prisoners, Nguyen Chi Sinh, the deputy commander of one of the Saigon military area's Communist subdivisions. Sinh fingered launching sites, caches and gunners' daytime hideouts. When allied troops swept the areas he had circled, they uncovered more than 50 rockets and warheads.

The tightening of the defensive net around the capital is timely enough: allied intelligence has noted a series of major rebuilding efforts among the four Viet Cong and North Vietnamese divisions surrounding Saigon. Another big ground assault, coupled with a rocket barrage, is expected some time early in July.