CAN VIETNAMIZATION WORK?

I HAVE to remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that we get only one guess at this, that we cannot go back to the drawing board if we make a mistake." The speaker, at a White House briefing last week, was a top-level Administration aide. The subject was "Vietnamization," the effort to place ever-increasing responsibility for fighting the war in the hands of the Vietnamese.

With President Nixon's announcement that another 35,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn from South Viet Nam, bringing the total to roughly 60,000 (see NATION), Vietnamization becomes a matter of paramount importance. The very survival of the South as a separate entity may be at stake. Also at stake is the entire American strategy for withdrawal. The hopeful Pentagon scenario calls for gradual replacement of U.S. forces by South Vietnamese, until only U.S. air, artillery and logistic support need remain. If the South Vietnamese should prove incapable of fulfilling this assigned role, the U.S. would then have to decide whether to stop the withdrawals or to abandon Saigon's army and regime to almost certain defeat.

U.S. Support. To a great many observers, Vietnamization looks like an illusion, or worse. How, they asked, can the South Vietnamese after two decades of war successfully take on the military task that half a million American troops could not quite handle? U.S. officials reply that the Vietnamese, after all, are fighting in their own country, would still be backed up by American support troops, and may be psychologically braced by the feeling that they must finally stand on their own feet. The argument is far from convincing, but the U.S. has no choice at the moment but to give Vietnamization a fair try.

In terms of sheer size, South Viet Nam's military establishment is impressive. Counting Army, Air Force, Navy, and various paramilitary forces, it totals 1,022,000 under arms. Another 1,500,000 belong to local self-defense forces, armed with a number of outdated but still reasonably effective weapons. Regular soldiers have seen their equipment steadily improve in quality. The U.S. was slow to supply the best weapons to South Viet Nam's forces. But now all 185 maneuver battalions of the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) are equipped with U.S.-supplied M-16 assault rifles, a considerable improvement over the obsolete Mls and carbines of the war's early days. The average South Vietnamese soldier, however, still has access to far fewer mortars, artillery, Jeeps, trucks, armored vehicles, helicopters and planes than does the G.I.

Still more important is ARVN morale. For many South Vietnamese soldiers, military duty may begin at the age of 18 and end at 40--if they survive that long. Unmarried infantrymen earn a bare dollar a day. Until recently, the military postal system was so poor that soldiers could never count on their letters and remittances reaching home. Caught in a war that promised to be endless, led by officers who often owed their jobs to bribery or political clout, yearning to return to their families and their hamlets, South Viet Nam's soldiers fought either poorly or not at all.

ARVN morale probably reached its nadir in 1965, when the army was losing the equivalent of a battalion a week to the onrushing Communists. From 1965 until last year, most ARVN units were engaged largely in pacification work, while the Americans took over the major combat role. "Naturally," said a U.S. general, "we felt that we could do the job better and faster, and, of course, ARVN worked less and less. Unfortunately, once you imply that a fighting force is second-rate, and treat it that way, it becomes pretty hard to reverse the trend." To G.I.s, South Vietnamese soldiers were a joke. They were referred to as "gooks," as "them Nugents" (from Nguyen, a popular Vietnamese surname), or as "the little people." A favorite epithet was "Marvin the Arvin." After the Tet offensive of February 1968, however, the sneers began to vanish. ARVN units stood and fought--and in many cases fought well. Last year the South Vietnamese lost 17,466 men, the U.S. 14,592. As American arms reached South Vietnamese units in steadily increasing numbers, the performance of the troops continued to improve, as did morale. Still, ARVN is not yet a match for its .enemies, particularly regular North Vietnamese units. Major tests are likely in three areas where U.S. combat forces either have left or are scheduled to pull out soon:

THE DELTA: The first test may well come in the rice-rich Mekong Delta, the South's most populous region. On Sept. 1, the U.S. 9th Infantry Division turned its base at Dong Tarn over to the South Vietnamese Army. During its more than two years of operations, the 9th all but eliminated main-force Viet Cong units, which had previously controlled the area. Now, responsibility rests with the ARVN 7th Division, which is working hard to shuck its former reputation as the "Search and Avoid Division." "Ever since your 9th Division left," Colonel Tran Tien Khang, commander of the division's 11th Regiment, said last week, "we have had to work very hard. Before, every man averaged 20 days a month on operations; now, they average 28. This means that men are on patrol, on search missions or night ambushes, almost every day." So far, there has been little combat--in keeping with the recent passivity of the enemy throughout South Viet Nam. But two North Vietnamese regiments (about 1,200 men) are reported to have infiltrated into the Delta since the G.I.s departed.

THE DEMILITARIZED ZONE: Far to the North, near the 17th parallel, there is concern as well. By Dec. 15, the 18,500 men of the U.S. 3rd Marine Division will have been withdrawn, leaving the gap to be filled by ARVN's 1st Division. The U.S. Commander in Viet Nam, General Creighton Abrams, calls the 1st the equal of any American division in the country. In line with its slogan, "More sweat in training, less blood in combat," it gives each trooper an extra five weeks of special training, and its combat record is excellent. Though it is twice the size of most other ARVN divisions, with its six regiments, the 1st may well have to be spread too thin across the 37 miles of vulnerable frontier.

SAIGON: Spotted around the capital are three divisions that are generally conceded to be South Viet Nam's most ineffectual. A U.S. general calls the 5th "absolutely the worst outfit I've ever seen," and a Vietnamese General Staff member was quoted as saying that until last year the 25th was "the worst division ever to enter any battlefield east of Suez." In the past year, both divisions have improved slightly, as has the lightly regarded 18th Division. Now that the U.S. is withdrawing the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, the defense of Saigon rests in these shaky hands.

If the South Vietnamese divisions are to continue to improve, more effort must be put into retraining. Accordingly, the U.S. last July launched a program called "Dong Tien" (Progress Together), under which some U.S. troops have been working, eating, fighting--and at times dying--together with ARVN troopers. The program has so far produced encouraging results. Under U.S. tutelage, ARVN units are learning to call in artillery and air support quickly and precisely--something they rarely did in the past. The South Vietnamese have also begun conducting night patrols more aggressively. In one respect, at least, the ARVN can tutor the G.I.s. "They think more like the Viet Cong than we do," said Major Kenneth Sweeney. "They're better at finding booby traps."

A Matter of Time. For all the progress, there is serious doubt about the ability of ARVN to stand on its own. A Vietnamese who spent four years in uniform and now practices law in Saigon predicted glumly: "They will not hold without the Americans standing behind them. They will collapse, unit by unit. I predict that you will see entire units deserting and going over to the enemy."

The outcome may well depend on just how many support troops the U.S. can maintain in South Viet Nam and for how long. Will U.S. public opinion stand for this support indefinitely? And how would such a U.S. presence in the South affect the chances of making a deal with Hanoi?

If the last of the U.S. combat units are not withdrawn for a few years, the South Vietnamese might develop, as the Koreans did in the 1950s, into effective fighters. So some of the more optimistic U.S. planners argue--possibly ignoring not only the differences between the two wars but between the two peoples and their ethnic characteristics. At any rate, a key element in the Vietnamization program may be time. If Richard Nixon, in response to domestic pressure, feels compelled to accelerate U.S. withdrawals, the program could fail. If the pullout is gradual, it might work. "It is a very hopeful idea," said a Pentagon official of Vietnamization. "It is the only one that will let us get out of there eventually. But please, Jet's not go too fast."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.