The World: Hanoi's Rainy-Season Surge

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Litmus Test. Once launched, however, the offensive is not certain of success. The Communist position has its weaknesses. Hanoi's Laotian and Cambodian holdings are very sparsely populated. In South Viet Nam the Communists hold nothing but such desolate regions as portions of the U Minh Forest and the A Shau Valley. The heavily populated and strategically important Mekong Delta and the eleven provinces around Saigon face no substantial military danger. While ARVN troops have performed disappointingly in some recent battles in Cambodia and Laos, the litmus test of the Vietnamization program is how they will defend themselves inside South Viet Nam.

There the record is more impressive —so much so that a senior State Department official who recently returned from Viet Nam is convinced that the reduction of U.S. forces to a bare minimum would not involve prohibitive risks. He even maintains that Saigon is ready to accept, without panicking, an announcement of a specific withdrawal date for American forces.