Friday, Dec. 24, 1965

Dreaming of a Red Christmas

The Viet Cong have promised to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their "National Liberation Front" this week with a major act of terrorism against Americans in downtown Saigon. Since in the past the Viet Cong have very often proved as bad as their word, Saigon last week wore a look of siege amidst the festoonery of Christmas. Police guards were doubled around the main hotels and military installations, and white wooden barriers blocked off many streets--including the one on which General William C. Westmoreland's house is situated.

Christmas trees were checked for explosives before they were allowed into U.S. billets, and at the American commissary, guards used mirrors mounted on long poles to look underneath vehicles driven by Vietnamese. In the Caravelle Hotel, Vietnamese guests of Americans heading for the top-floor restaurant had to submit to searches in the lobby, and were required to leave their ID cards behind with the concierge. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed by Westmoreland on all U.S. military personnel in Saigon.

For all the precautions, terrorism was on the increase. Three times last week Vietnamese youths tossed grenades into trucks loaded with G.I.s, wounding a total of 18. And for the first time, uniformed Viet Cong were appearing openly in groups on the outskirts of Saigon--well within the seven-mile defense belt long claimed by the police to be impenetrable by the enemy. In one street battle last week, a police patrol traded fire with a Viet Cong squad for 20 minutes before the guerrillas melted into side streets. At the suburban police station of Tan Quy Dong, 30 Viet Cong assaulted the chief and three recruits on duty, who escaped, wounded, only by jumping out of windows into the nearby river. The attackers then made off with the station's small armory.

Saigon thinks the enemy may well try to pair its new terrorist campaign with an offensive in the field. Most likely spot: the Kontum-Pleiku region in the western highlands, where the Ho Chi Minh trail feeds men and supplies from Laos into South Viet Nam. The Communists have been notably quiet there since the bloody battles in the la Drang valley last month. Intelligence experts say they detect signs that the North Vietnamese regulars are busily regrouping, perhaps preparing for an unprecedented division-sized assault.

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