The Long Haul in Vietnam

...The country has become a touchstone of U.S...

...Above all, the Vietnam-Malaya analogy ignores the fact that the Communists were not defeated militarily in Malaya...

...The U.S...

...Moreover, there is no guarantee of success...

...The United States, tapping British experience in Malaya, is making plans to resettle perhaps half the rural population of South Vietnam...

...By publicly committing itself to the defense of South Vietnam, the United States has staked its prestige on the outcome of the war...

...For the moment, Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, a man as patriotic as he is stubborn, is going along with an operation which is bound to affect his own position...

...So far that one's not been solved, but I'm sure you'll keep at it until it is...

...They can be expected to base their own political decisions upon the tenacity and the success we display in Vietnam...

...When the protracted and heart-breaking task of winning the confidence of the Vietnamese peasantry begins in earnest, there are likely to be major conflicts between Vietnamese and Americans...

...The United States may be required to stand by while other anti-Communist South Vietnamese make political changes at the very top...

...advisory units now work with every battalion in the regular Vietnamese Army...

...In Vietnam the attack is primarily military, and the conditions for success are infinitely more favorable...

...The big problem at the moment," he went on, "is how helicopters can move troops into paddy fields that become swamps in the rainy season...

...The Vietnamese argue, with much justification, that for all its usefulness the example of Malaya can also be highly misleading...

...Similarly, American officers are stationed aboard every major Naval unit, with every squadron of the Air Force, and with every Ranger assault company...

...will and capability for all Asians...

...Some prehminary conflicts are already in the open...

...Thus Vietnam is a testing ground not only of the Communists' strength, but also of the American will to fight a protracted, inglorious and, probably, inconclusive war...

...As I have said before in these pages, Laos, not Vietnam, is the key to Southeast Asia...

...This is intentional on the part of the U.S., for the machinery of the Vietnamese government is, at present, almost inoperative...

...Isolated in the southeastern corner of Southeast Asia, Vietnam is off the highroad of conquest from China which runs through Laos, Cambodia and Thailand...

...He cannot fail to recognize that new organizations and new channels of command will vitiate the power he now exercises absolutely, albeit capriciously...

...With about 6,000 U.S...

...Despite all these adverse factors, the new U.S...

...What he meant was that American soldiers and civilians are operating at the lowest levels in an effort to bring order to the administrative, economic and political chaos which now characterizes the military and civilian life of South Vietnam...

...embassy and the Vietnamese government are working out plans which will enable American civilians to work at the lower levels of the Vietnamese administration...

...U.S...

...But how long Diem and the jealous, anti-American Ngo Dinh Nhu, his brother and chief adviser, will permit the United States to bypass them in their own country is a question no one can answer...

...The military effort, however, is merely the beginning...

...Of course, the key question still remains: Can the military situation ever be stabilized completely as long as the supply routes through Laos enable the Communists to bring in men and arms enough to start the entire process anew whenever they choose...

...PROTRACTED, INGLORIOUS AND, PROBABLY, INCONCLUSIVE WAR' The Long Haul in Vietnam By Robert S. Elegant Saigon The effort to defeat the Communists in South Vietnam has committed the United States to an operation unique not only in its own experience but in world history...

...You Americans are willing to improvise here as the French never did, more so than even the British did in Malaya," a Western military attaché said to me...

...During the past four months, the United States has begun to respond to the challenge in Vietnam with a series of measures which seek to exploit its own talent for technical improvisation, mass production and organization...

...The U.S...

...In Vietnam, guerrillas of the same race live among a complex of villages which offer a constant supply of these essentials, while the jungle cover is just thick enough to offer convenient sanctuary...

...In Malaya, the Communists invaders —almost entirely Chinese among a mixed population of Chinese, Malays and Indians—were isolated in the jungles...

...They were effectively cut off from the settled areas which alone could provide essential food, intelligence and recruits...

...The economic aid mission of the U.S...

...Merely providing security will go a long way toward solving that problem...

...effort in Vietnam does offer a glimmer of hope...

...Air supply, helicopter-borne assaults, cheap radios for every village and rapid groundto-air communications to bring in close support fighter-bombers are just the beginning...

...The answer, I am afraid, is no...

...But the Vietnamese are talking of resettling only 1,000 villages, and transforming 16,000 existing villages into strategic hamlets in situ...

...Indeed, since Vietnam is vital psychologically rather than strategically, the nature and extent of the American commitment in this struggle against approximately 25,000 Viet Cong guerrillas provide a fascinating exercise for military and political theorists...

...Robert S. Elegant, Newsweek's bureau chief in Southeast Asia, frequently contributes to these pages...

...At the same time, the United States is applying modern technology to the fight against guerrillas in a manner never before attempted...

...The main thing is that you don't give up...

...is still losing today, though, as one American official put it, "the rate of deterioration is not quite as fast as it was six months ago...

...But the Communists, seizing the opportunities offered by internal discontent and convenient supply lines, have chosen to concentrate their efforts upon the conquest of this country...

...Aside from the vast quantities of arms, barbed wire, radios and concrete required to accomplish such a transformation, the large number of widely dispersed "strategic hamlets" would probably defeat their own purpose in that they would be almost impossible to defend...

...The struggle will take a long time —a minimum of two to three years before the tide even begins to turn, perhaps five to 10 before the prospect of clear-cut victory begins to emerge...

...Some American officers are running the training camps of the Vietnamese forces, while others are intimately involved in guiding psychological warfare, resettlement, civil self-defense and education among the civilian populace...

...When they realized that they could not rapidly seize power by armed insurgency alone, they chose rather to reduce their military effort in favor of renewed subversion in 1951...

...Yet he seems to agree that, at least while the military peril is so acute here, this crash program to defeat the Viet Cong must take precedence over political considerations...

...military men now in the country and a minimum of 8,000 expected by the end of the year, Washington is already in a position where, as one European diplomat phrased it, "Americans are doing everything but collecting the garbage...

...Their advisory duties bring them into daily combat with the Viet Cong...

...But it is unlikely that the inefficient and corruption-ridden Diem regime can finally do the job unless it changes radically...

...Agency for International Development is planning to disperse its overblown headquarters in Saigon into regional units, with most of the technicians and experts operating in the field...

...The situation, however, is perhaps more complicated than the Americans appear to realize...

...We hope to get around the utter obstructionism of the ministries in Saigon," one American official declared...

...Once the military situation has been brought into equilibrium, though, Vietnam will face the problem of winning the people away from the Communists...

...The operation involves consolidating about 8,500 of the country's 17,000 villages into a smaller number of "strategic hamlets" which can be effectively defended...

...Although no one says so directly, the dispersal of American officers and civilians will inevitably alter the present balance of political power in Vietnam...

...Political issues are bound to arise once the large "attack formations" of the Viet Cong have been broken...