World: THE PUZZLE OF THE LULL

(2 of 2)

> It is a Hanoi signal of genuine deescalation, following a period of rethinking of strategy by Ho Chi Minh and his men. The allies generally assume that orders from Hanoi take around four weeks to filter down to Communist troops in the South. If President Nixon's eight-point Viet Nam proposal of May 14, which included a plan for mutual troop withdrawals, caused a reevaluation by the North Vietnamese, then orders implementing any changes would have reached Communist units by mid-June—just about the time the lull began. The theory is bolstered by the fact that a push, expected by American intelligence for June 19 or 20, was hurriedly called off by the Communist command in the South. Another drive, thought to have been scheduled for about July 21, was similarly canceled on short notice. > Hanoi has opted for temporary disengagement in the belief that a lull in the fighting will spur quicker U.S. withdrawal from South Viet Nam. Once large numbers of U.S. troops have pulled out, the Communists could resume guerrilla warfare with relatively bright hopes of success. Hanoi's chief ideologue, Truong Chinh, has been advocating that plan for a long time. — It is Hanoi's intention to lure the allies into reducing patrols and easing general pressure, thus facilitating an unhindered Communist buildup that would culminate in another large offensive such as the 1968 Tet attack that irreparably disillusioned the American public about the war. U.S. commanders still concede the Communists the capability of launching a drive that could easily boost U.S. battle deaths to more than 300 a week. It is precisely for this reason that field commanders have resisted suggestions to lessen pressure on the Communists. Such tactics, they have always argued, would ultimately increase allied casualties.

Protective Reaction. As a result, U.S. battlefield tactics have undergone little more than semantic changes. Washington no longer uses the hawkish words "maximum pressure" to describe the allied pursuit of the Communists. The new term is "protective reaction," which has a less aggressive ring to it. In fact, the U.S. still continues to seek the enemy—but the enemy is less evident. "In principle, we are doing precisely what we have been doing all along," explains one high-ranking U.S. officer. "Lull? What lull?" asks a G.I. at a fire base near Saigon. "We still patrol every day." Although large-unit allied sweeps have been cut down and are used only when there is solid intelligence of a large enemy concentration, reconnaissance patrols have not been reduced.

There is, however, a growing U.S. preoccupation with the "Vietnamization" of the war. American commanders are spending twice as much time on pacification and training of Vietnamese troops as they did only a month ago. Increasingly, the Vietnamese handle a larger share of patrol duty. That fact is not only reflected in lower U.S. casualties but also in relatively unchanged ARVN losses over the past month: during the last reporting period, they lost 290 men killed, almost three times the number of American dead.