Correspondents' Correspondence

...At this moment there is no real certainty about anything in Vietnam-just a widespread feeling that some day, if not this year then next, something will happen to resolve the situation one way or the other...

...Even if American aid keeps coming, though, it is doubtful that the countryside will remain "secure" for more than another year or so...

...As one scientist explains: "Although the submariner and the astronaut are both dependent on fixed reserves of oxygen, the crew of a submerged vessel can do little to help themselves when mechanical troubles arise...

...Many of the divers employed in the undersea oil explorations are operating mini-subs like the Pisces III...

...Thus a stable peace is still possible, but it should be recalled that after every similar lull in the past...

...One of the latest has two defectors quoting "Resolution 12" of the Central Office of Vietnam i.e., the headquarters of the Vietcong's Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG)- As saying: "We have to fight quickly, neatly, forcefully to grasp control of land and population and to set up local authorities...

...Information Service persists in mimeographing and distributing to correspondents here...

...But the nature of deep oceano-graphic work is far more dangerous than space exploration...

...does not continue to provide massive infusions of economic as well as military aid, say Vietnamese officials, the urban economy might "collapse" that is, the value of the piaster could depreciate uncontrollably while the government went more or less bankrupt...

...Although the villagers might never actually come to like President Nguyen Van Thieu any more than they cared for Diem, according to this reasoning, they will still defend their traditional values against the encroachments of the Vietcong...

...Meanwhile, the PRG and the North Vietnamese could capture more territory in borderline areas and perhaps take a district center or remote provincial capital...

...Their interiors remind one more of a space capsule than a submarine...

...For the government's position would be strengthened if it could encourage at least some desire among rural Vietnamese-the pivotal element as always to return to the old, tranquil ways of docile support for the entrenched regime...

...Intelligence sources are certain the North Vietnamese and Vietcong have fully as much arms and ammunition-including 600 tanks-As they did before the 1972 offensive...

...Once a submarine of any kind is stuck on the bottom, the recovery operation immediately becomes a race against the clock in terms of the rate at which the oxygen is being depleted...

...A Royal Navy specialist, for example, told the Select Committee on Science and Technology that under Lloyds' insurance regulations, a submersible either must be able to make itself positively buoyant in water or its personnel capsule must be detachable...

...Vietnam Between Wars Saigon-there was a time between the first and second Indo-Chinese wars when South Vietnam seemed a pleasant, relaxed kind of place, and the power of the center was almost balanced by that of the village...

...We may fight while making propaganda, or propagandize first [and] fight afterwards...

...Not if you believe all the "captured documents" that the U.S...

...the Depths London-the race to tap Britain's offshore oil and natural gas resources has led to a dramatic increase in submarine accidents that many specialists believe could be prevented by a greater concern for safety...

...Up to 20 such vessels are expected to be employed soon in the North Sea project...

...If the U.S...

...there has been heavier fighting than before.-donald Kirk Danger in...

...Could the conflict just dribble on for years without any clear outcome...

...It is an image the center, under much shrewder leadership than Diem's, would like to give flesh to in this new between-wars era...

...This year alone four deep-sea divers have already died, bringing the toll to at least 10 fatalities since 1970...

...Observers are ambivalent about the chances of an engagement equal to that of April 1972, when enemy troops and tanks rolled down from the Demilitarized Zone and across the border from Cambodia...

...Should the forthcoming regulations require changes in their design, the pace of Britain's effort to tap its offshore oil deposits could be slowed to a crawl.?Thomas Land...

...The Pisces series of submersibles resembles a large fish (one-fifth the size of the smallest whale) and can dive to depths of several thousand feet...

...what remains uncertain is the extent to which Moscow and Peking are willing to provide additional materiel...

...With manipulators and other detachable equipment mounted on their hulls, they can perform a wide variety of underwater operations...

...He described the Pisces design, which excludes both of these capabilities, as "unsafe...

...It is a delicate and emotionally charged issue, for the nation has staked its economic recovery on rapid development of the North Sea oil and the industrial firms involved are technologically overextended (see "Europe Under New Management," opposite...

...Should replacement supplies be limited, we may expect incessant skirmishes but no definitive thrusts, the kind of low-level action that doesn't make banner headlines yet still costs more than 50,000 lives a year...

...To add to the problem, this kind of deep-sea diving is so new that no adequate safety codes have yet been formulated anywhere in the world...

...of much greater significance has been the loss of an average of $400 million spent here annually from 1966-72 by American troops and contractors...

...And the energy crisis is not the major cause of Vietnam's current economic duress...

...In space, a man can climb out of his vehicle with a spanner in hand to carry out repairs...

...The resolution admits that in the cities the PRG has "completely" lost its "infrastructure" though there is reason to question whether the Communists really used such a word or whether it was a rather loose American translation...

...Educate people so that they become aware of and take part by themselves in the revolution...

...The hiatus between the second and third Indochinese wars, however, is unlikely to last nearly as long as the eight or nine years that separated the first and second...

...The next sentence indicates the underlying strategy for winning the war without losing large amounts of materiel or arousing adverse sensitivities in the U.S...

...It is necessary," the document continues, to set up a new "infrastructure" among urban residents, to "organize them, motivate and educate them to struggle for livelihood measures, for salaries, against dismissal, [and to] deepen antagonisms due to heavy taxes or social evils...

...The Pisces series of mini-subs has come under particular criticism...

...President Ngo Dinh Diem ruined this delicate relationship in the final years before his assassination, but nonetheless the image remains...

...aid, could unquestionably produce a shift in the urban mood...

...The PRG plan is by no means illusory...

...by attempting a major offensive: "We will have to attack point by point, grasping partial victories and advancing toward final victory...

...You can even sense it on Vietnamese national television these days from government-sponsored programs that show simple peasants planting and tilling their fields, flirting while holding baskets of rice, and singing songs of the countryside...

...In fact, foreign exchange reserves have already fallen below $100 million and may sink as low as $50 million by the end of 1974...

...According to one MP, the regulations "amount to a divers' charter-rules to safeguard the men's lives at a time when opening up the North Sea energy field means that they must go deeper and deeper in ever more difficult conditions...

...The problems besetting Thieu today appear infinitely more serious than those that confronted Diem in 1955, a year after the signing of the Geneva agreement...

...Saigon may seem wonderfully easy-going now that the GIs have all departed, but the real reason the streets are less crowded is the high price of fuel...

...At depths below about 300 feet, the crew of a submersible is confined and unable to do anything...

...In the vast regions of the countryside "controlled" by South Vietnamese forces, too, peasants could begin flouting the haphazard, corrupt authority of province and district chiefs if they show signs of weakening...

...Britain's Department of Energy has drafted and submitted to Parliament proposals prescribing minimum standards for equipment, mandatory operational procedures, medical examinations for divers, and record-keeping requirements for the time they spend under water...

...The Vietcong have been launching periodic attacks from the Central Highlands to the Iron Triangle-A well-trampled battleground 25 miles north of the capital And threatening a "punitive" offensive in retaliation against South Vietnamese "land-grabbing operations...

...It is sound logic, particularly since Vietnamese for the first time in recent history are leaving the overcrowded cities in search of farmland and opportunity in the countryside...

...Additional economic problems, compounded by a sharp decline in U.S...

...Following last September's widely publicized raising of Pisces III, a mini-sub that was trapped for 76 hours on the ocean floor 1,375 feet below the surface-the deepest rescue operation ever successfully completed-A storm has been raging over the question of regulating these undersea activities...

...The vessels were first deployed during World War II to sneak into enemy harbors and destroy ships...

...While they are still in their infancy, the most sophisticated models can perform essentially the same tasks as a frogman, and with greater power and versatility...