The War: Border Troubles

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On the eve of a trip to Washington to report to President Johnson on the war's progress, General William C. Westmoreland said last week that he "is more encouraged than at any time since I arrived here" nearly four years ago. Communist recruiting in the South is down from some 7,000 new soldiers a month in 1966 to around 3,500 today—and still declining. As a result, Hanoi is being forced to send more North Vietnamese to fill out the ranks of Southern-based units; it now has more than 100,000 men fighting in South Viet Nam, constituting 50% to 60% of the Communists' forces in the field. Supplying them has become steadily more difficult and dangerous, particularly since the Allies have so tightened their control over rice-growing regions that in some areas Communist troops are now, says Westmoreland, "literally on the verge of starvation."