Hanoi's Rainy-Season Surge

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Hiqh-Level Dismay. At the same time, the Communists have renewed their pressure on Cambodia. Three crack NVA regiments last week tangled with elite Cambodian troops for control of the Vihear Suor marshes on the east bank of the Mekong, which are the key to the eastern defenses of Phnom-Penh. In the Cambodian capital, a mere dozen miles away, residents could hear the fighting. While the Communists appear to have no interest in toppling Phnom-Penh, they want.control of the marshes to increase their flexibility in responding to potential ARVN attacks.

The North Vietnamese have already gained control of Snuol at the far southern terminus of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In the course of five days of fighting, they mauled an ARVN task force of 4,000 holding the town, forcing it into a disorderly retreat. Saigon insists that it had long planned to leave Snuol once the rains began, yet there is plenty of evidence that ARVN departed with embarrassing haste. It left behind no fewer than 72 vehicles—including tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks —and eleven artillery pieces. The U.S. Air Force had to bomb the abandoned but still functioning weapons lest they fall into enemy hands.

By official reports the battle cost ARVN about 800 dead, wounded and missing; the Communists claim that the figure is almost twice as high. Saigon reports that with U.S. air support, its troops inflicted 4,500 casualties on the enemy. Yet as a result of the performance in Snuol, there was enough high-level dismay in Saigon that the task force commander, Brigadier General Nguyen Van Hieu, was relieved of his command.

Most threatening, perhaps, is the increasing level of enemy activity in the northern part, of South Viet Nam, the one part of the country where the rainy season has just ended. Taking advantage of the partial vacuum created by the departure of the U.S. Marines, the North Vietnamese are creeping back into Quang Tri province, just below the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). Their repair of long unused road and river infiltration routes directly through the DMZ bodes ill for northern I Corps, always a vulnerable area and the scene of the war's bloodiest battles. Already Vietnamese have begun fleeing from the countryside into Danang, fearful that rural security will vanish when the American troops do.

No Panic. Ever since the Nixon Administration announced its Vietnamization and withdrawal program two years ago, the nightmare of U.S. commanders has been that the enemy would wait until American troops are reduced to a level of combat ineffectiveness and then launch a major offensive against the exposed ARVN forces. The unusual activity of the Communists, together with fresh evidence that they are currently recruiting extra manpower in North Viet Nam, hints at such a plan. They might even decide to come straight down through the DMZ. When? Politically, the ideal time could be somewhere between October, when Saigon holds its presidential election, and April, when the campaigning intensifies for the 1972 U.S. balloting.