Who Controls Vietnam

7/29/2019 Who Controls Vietnam

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WHOCONTROLSVIETNAM?

BY WILFRED BURCHETT


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WHO CONTROLS VIETNAM?

Th1'ee articles by Wilfred Burchettwhich f i rst appeared in the Guardian

Reprinted by SDSFebrua1y, 1968


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In the United States we hear a lot of argument about the war, for andagainst it, but we hear very little that te lls us about the facts of the war.We should know what's really going on in Vietnam itself before we make upour minds whether or not we should be there. Burchett-correspondentfor the Guardian-presents a side of the story that we don't usually havea chance to hear: WE ARE LOSING TIlE WAR IN VIETNAM.Burchett raises questions that are difficult for us to answer: He points outthat the "Vietcong" ninth division has been reported "annihilated" several

times, and that several incidents like the Vietcong Massacre" of Dec. 6on an unarmed village were complete fabrications. He says, and gives a lot ofevidence to prove, that we have lost the offensive on almost every frontof the war. He also says that the pacification program is failing and that,daily, Americans are losing what popularity and support they had from theVietnamese people.

I f it is true, as Burchett reports, that we are losing the war, then i t makessense to see the building up of tensions with Korea recently as the first stepin a further U.S. extension of the war in Southeast Asia: unable t!lpullout,the government may see its only alternative as one of extending the warfurther.But how can we know? How can we evaluate his evidence? How can we tellwho is telling the truth?And then i f we accept Burchett's evidence, along with additional evidencefrom hundreds of other writers in many countries, there are further questionswe must ask ourselves:We want to know why the U.S. is losing. Is it because, as Burchett says,we are fighting an indigenous army which has the support of the Vietnamesepeople in a popular revolution?We want to know why the American people have been lied to. Why were ourlosses, and the true situation of a Vietnamese popular revolution we werefighting, kept secret from us?

Those of us in SDS, because of a study of the information and because ofa growing distrust of our government and those in power in our country,have made up our minds about the war. We demand the complete withdrawalof American troops from Vietnam and an end to all intervention there. In ourstruggle to build a resistance to that war we have exposed much in this societywhich we now feel we must build a movement to change. We believe thateveryone, and especially the youth of America, must make up their mindsand take their stands.


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Examine the question: How Is the war used by those In power, and whydo they want to continue to keep American people fighting and paying forthe war It (1) It cannot be won an d (2) we ar e fighting against a governmentthat the majority of the people In Vietnam support?Some ssythat a few businessmen control the government's policy and thatthey see the war to their advantage. We know that companies that producefor the war are making profits from It : Dow, Ford, G.M., Boelng....We alsoknow that companies like Brown and Root Construction of Texas and UnionCarbide are makilli enormous proftts from investments in Southeast Asia.

It Isn't hard to fiIure that the people whoheadthosecorporatlons-IlkeEd Brown-also pay for the political campaigns of the party in power.But most of us In SDS believe It goes even deeper than that. All of us havea sense of how much foreign investment U.S. businessmen ar e involved In.

In fact, over 25% of our total Investments are out of the country, and a largechunk of those Investments ar e in developing countries where there is oftenthe threat of popular revolutions. We also know that the U.S. governmentIs bound to protect those foreign investments. One of the ways they can do thatis by protecting governments which are sympathetic to them. Agovernmentthat protects primarily the interests of foreign businessmen (or foreignmilitary powers) Is not likely to be popular with its own people. That Isat least part of the story In Vietnam. And we have seen that the U.S. is willingto stake a l o t - a lot of our lives-to prove that popular revolutions cannotsucceedagalnstlOvernments which we support.The war In Vietnam has taught us that those in power In this countryar e willing to use force to protect their power whenever the social systemthey control can't keep the people in line. That social system-for instancethe educlltlonal system in this country-functions largelybyglvingusliesto cover up thillis we could not stand for. The war was one example. The factthat over 1/3 of the people in this country barely get by, while a small minorityare mUlti-millionaires, is another: Did we learn about the real hurtingday-to-day poverty of 1/ 3 of the American people in school? And did weever have to face, in school or from the press, the large-scale brutal

repression of black people that goes on everyday in this country7When the Vietnamese get out of line-fighting for their ownself-determinatlon-a war is waged against them, and the American peopleare lied to. When black people get out of line-fighting for a decent lifeand against the oppression of racism-they ar e repressed and the Americanpeople are lied to.Now as young Americans begin to see through the lies and to respond by"getting out of line, they ar e called "lawless and repressed by force. And

the Amt!rican people will be lied to about that, unless we can build a movementthat finds and exposes the truth about this society and the way those in powerrun it.


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We will not be part of the racist system of exploitation that we arc askcdtobe part of. We refuse to be used by this system to secure a world empire.We believe that others will soon have to make up their minds bccausc llursociety Is quickly being converted into a military machine to protect thatempire.


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NLF THW ARTS U.S. FORCESBy Wilfred Burchett, Guardian Staff CorrespondentPhnom-Penh, Cambodia

As the New Year begins, the National Liberation FrontofSouthVietnam (NLF)is on the offensive at all points.This indigenous peasant army is clearly winning the war in Vietnam againstall the might short of nuclear arms that the world's most developed,technologically advanced power can deploy.The true facts about the war have been denied the U.S. public by theextraordinary antics of Gen. William Westmoreland and his public relationsteam in Saigon.Unable to present any successes in terms of terrain reoccupied orpopulation won back from areas controlled by the NLF, the U.S.-Saigoncommand has resorted to an old trick the French used until the fall of DienBien Phu-the claim to be wiping out tens of thousands of enemy troopsfor the loss ofa handful of their own.But the facts are that NLF units "annihilated" in one communique are backin the field days or weeks later with more violent attacks. (The "9th VietcongDivision for instance was "wiped out" at Loc Ninh in late October, but turnedup lessthana month later tobesiege and launch a furious attack against Bu Dop.)The facts are also that with two of the best months of the operational season- the dry season in central and southern Vietnam-the U.S.-Saigon forcedid not launch one large-scale offensive operation. Westmoreland-or Gen.Creighton Abrams, field commander-has lost the initiative. In the 1965-66and 1966-67 dry seasons, U.s. offensive operations were well under wayby the first week in November at the latest. But in the 1967-68 dry season,the best the U.S.-Saigon forces can do is to react to NLF initiatives, rushingtroops from one zone to another or cancelling operations to defend whateverbit of terrain the NLF forces have decided to attack.

For a commander with over one million troops at his disposal to havelost the initiative is a very serious matter indeed, especially when in this casethe almost half-million U.S. troops include the best Washington has to commitina South Vietnamese-type battlefield.Throughout 1967, Westmoreland was hopelessly outmaneuvered in strategyand his troops were outfought in the field. "The Vietnamese have their problemin getting Americans out of Vietnam, but the Americans have their problemin getting Westmoreland out of Vietnam. He's a disaster." This was theironic remark of one knowledgeable Bri tish correspondent in Saigoncommenting on the fact that in September-October, Westmoreland was fightinga bitter battle in Washington against Mc amara's decision to sack him.In all fairness, it was not "Westy's fault: any other general would havedone as badly.

One classic mistake, however, was In sending marines to occupy theDemilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the 17th parallel as a prelude to setting upbases for an attack against the North. The riposte was swirtand shattering.Not only were the marines thrown out of the DMZ, as well as all the SaIgon1


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.-rrtson 1lnd police posts, but the 17th parallel as a mllitary expressiondisappeared. Apart from a few marine outposts along the coastal areas,all the area west to the Laotian border and south for scores of miles is nowsolidly NLF-controlled. The marines have been "hurting" ever since in tryingto hold on to outposts like Con Thien, Gio Linh, and others for prestigereasons, their usefulness having long been lost as they are hopelesslyoutflanked. NLF forces completely dominate the area.The DMZ adventure ended in U.S. forces being knocked off balance. Troopswere withdrawn from other areas, including the highly strategic threefrontiers area in the Central Highlands where a U.S. dry season offensivewas being prepared. to be rushed to the rescue of the marines. At Con Thien,U.S. forces were sucked into a trap and Westmoreland was caught up in thefatal contradiction of concentration or dispersal. Concentration to dealknockout blows to the NLF mobile forces, dispersal to take over "pacification"-infactoccupation" duties from the lackadaisical Saigon troops.Westy" has been constantly taken by surprise.JnlateOctober, he briefeda few chosen war correspondents in Saigon to the effect that the NLF forceswere definitely on the defensive and that his analysis of intelligence reports,"confirmed" by a careful study of Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap's exhaustive analysisof the mllitary situation, proved that from now on the NLF were incapableof launchlni any large-scale actions and were reduced to hit-and-runguerrlllaralds.The mlll tary commentators hardly had time to get all this optimism intoprint, before the NLF launched their biggest operation of the war at Loc Ninh,on the night of Oct. 28-29. This was an action in which U.s. troops suffereda very heavy defeat, tholllh details are just now beginning to filter intothe U.S. press. Westmoreland's explanation: this was a last desperate flingby the Vietcong", who had taken staggering losses of about 100 to 1. Thencame Dak To, a still bigger operation with the NLF forces for the first timewaging day-time battles for weeks on end, cutting at least two elite U.S.battalions to pieces. And then Bu Dop, waged by the same unit thatWestmoreland had "wiped out" at Loc Ninh.NLF deals master blow

To save the situation at Loc Ninh, Westmoreland withdrew troops earmarkedfor operation. in the Mekong Delta. and from the Pleiku-Kontum area in theCentral Highlands. When the NLF struck in this area, he rushed troops infrom the An Khe base earmarked for operations in the coastal plains. Elementsof several of his divisions are fighting on fronts separated by hundredsof miles. The NLF riposte at Con Thien was in fact a master blow indestroYlni Westmoreland's dry-season operational plans, and in preparingterrain for the NLF's own dry season, or winter-spring offensive.There is a new qualitative change in the situation, and this Westmorelanddesperately tries to keep from the U.S. public by the fantastic paper workon VietcolII" losses. In the 1965-66 and 1966-67 operational seasons it wasthe U.S.-sallon command who held the strategic initiative, deciding whenand where offendve operations were to be launched. In the 1967-68 season,It is the NLF that has the strategic initiative. Not only that. Because of thedispersal-concentration dilemma, It is the U.S. command that has lost the. 2


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capacity to launch large-scale operations, whereas the NLF has acquiredthe capacity toO do just this. I t Is a safe prediction that Westmorelandor Abrams or whoever else succeeds the latter will be unable to launch In the1967-68 season such large-scale operations as "Junction City with 45,000men and almost 1,000 tanks, as were dispatched in the 1966-67 operationalseason. Facts have turned out to be exactly opposite to the predictions otWestmoreland and his brletlng ottlcers last October.1965 marked new phaseThere Is an interesting parallel to be made. Intheverytlrstdaysot1965the war entered a new phase, with the complete destruction ot elite units

at the Saigon army's strategic reserve in classic daylight battles stsrtlngat Binh Gia andtollowedwithin days bysimllar catastrophicdeteates sufieredby the Saigon troops in the Mekong Delta. I t was the tlrst, but decisive, signthat the NLF was capable of fighting and defeating the best of the Saigon Armyin terms of classic warfare.The Saigon army and regime started to crumble, and It was this that broughtabout direct U.S. Intervention with the bombings ot Hanoi in February 1965and the direct commitment of U.S. combat units two months later. Obviouslythe commitment of elite divisions of a U.S. Expeditionary Force createda new situation tor the NLF: They were forced onto the strategic defensiveeven though within each U.S. operation they held the tactical initiative. decidingit, when, where, and how to fight, and preserving terrain and their main forceunits, continuin& to develop the latter and to study the enemy's tactics andtechniques untuthey were ready to take the offensive again.Three years la ter, a t the turn of 1967-68, the NLF forces, at a much higherlevel, are on the offensive-tearing the guts out ofel1te units of the U.S.strategic reserve in South Vietnam, that Is, i ts moblle forces. The differenceIs that at the turn of 1964-65, with the impendin&defeatofthe Saigon army,the Americans always had their ow n forces in reserve. Whose forces have theyin reserve today? Will there be general mobillzationback home?The NLF have brought about this situation with their ow n forces. (Even thehighest estimates at North Vietnamese troop. in the South, it one acceptsU.s. figures, Is about 50,000 of some 290,000 NLF troop ) In other wordswhatever the U.s. has in r..erve, the NLF has st111 more. The U.s. estimateot the North Vietname.. army is 450,000 men, of whom only 10% are claimedto hive been committed to the South. And i t the Vietnamese need to draw onthe reserves of their friends (China Is ready to put a million or 10 troopsinto the North and releale the whole North Vietnamese army i t necessaryto help their compatriots in the South> then the situation is in true perspective.Viewed from whatever allile, the relation oftorces after two and a halt year.at bitter battles with the U.s. ExpeditlonaryForce has turned sharply lJl faYorat the NLF. This seems clearly an irreversible trend.MOOD OF DEFEAT PERVADES SAIGONPimom-Penh, Cambodia

One after anotller, the YUiou role....lined by _ Americans to tM3


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Saigon army have failed, Including the lates t effort at "integrated units".Under "special war It was the South Vietnamese army-financed, armed,trained, and finally officered by Americans-that was to do the fighting.This was a fallure, as the series of battles starting New Year's Day, 1965atBlnhGiaproved.Then the Saigon army, after direct U.S. intervention, was to fight side byside with U.S. forces-divisions alongside divisions, regiments alongsideregiments, battalions alongside battalions.This also failed, the Americans claimed, because Saigon units had a habitof slipping away from the flanks they were supposed to be guarding, or simplyrefusing to advance in line. The Saigon troops claim this failed because theywere always given the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. (A current best-sellerin Saigon is a book in Vietnamese which describes how U.S. troops abandonedSaigon uni ts in the Plei Me-Ia Drang batt le of October-November, 1965.)Saigon troops then were assigned independent operations, and the U.S. presswas full of reproaches that they were not "combativeenough,refusingtoadvance i t they encountered enemy fire. In early 1967 it was announced thatthe Saigon army would be withdrawn in large part from operat ions andretrained for "pacification duties, occupylngthe terrain cleared of "Vietcongby U.S. troops.Pacification is riskyThere were two major weaknesses in this. First, areas "cleared by U.S.

troops were found to be more violently "Vietcong than ever after the passageof U.S. soldiers on their "kill all, burn all, destroy all missions. I t isa standard joke among U.S. troops: "If there were no VC when we came here,by God, there'll be hundreds when we leave. "Pacification" under suchcircumstances became a dangerous business. Second, the Saigon army felthumiliated by this secondary role, and many of the officers and men weresickened by the massacres and tortures inflicted on their compatriotsotten on their own relatives-by U.S. troops. "Pacification in many areasturned into a sort of non-official "fraternization. This was particularly soin the First Corps area, that is, in the provinces immediately south of the17th parallel, and in the Fourth Corps area of the Mekong Delta.When the U.S. Expeditionary Force first arrived, Saigon troops wereassigned to protect U.S. bases, but as these were more and more frequentlyattacked, the Saigon troops got the blame and were replaced by U.S. t roopswhich did nothing to lessen the rhythm and scale of the attacks. DuringMcNamara's ninth visit to Saigon, in the summer of 1967, he demanded thatSaigon troops play a more "active" role, and so the idea of integrated unitswas tried at various levels, from platoon up to battalion, with Saigon troopsintegrated with similar-size U.S. units in the proportion of one to two.But this doesn't work, either. As far as the Saigon army is concerned now,since It Is "America's war,let Americans do the fighting and dying. Moreoverit Is a war the U.S. isloslng.Who, among even the most ardent U.S. supportersof a year or so ago, wants to be identified with the losing side? A handfulat the top may pull out with the Americans, but the vast majority have tolive on in a Vietnam where everything connected with the U.S. is hated anddespised.Visitors from Saigon these days are unanimous that the atmosphere of

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defeat is very apparent there. It Is retlectP.d by the attitude of Vietnamesetoward Americ&IIll. From prostitutes, bar girls, and taxi drivers to cabinetmlnis&er. and top-ranking officers, they all sneer at Americans no matterhow high the latters' status. "Why dOll't you go to Oak To?" was a favoriteretort at the end of the year to any American who made himself unpleasant.HIgh officials and officers of the Saigon administration and army are sendingtheir wives and children to France with pleas to Frenchfrlendsto look atterthem until the head of the family can join them, with as many dollars as theyhave managed to squeeze out of the occupiers.Callsldviser "swine"A French acquaintance of mine with many years experience in Indochinawas sitting recently with a Saigon cabinet minister, a onetime pupil of his.An American adviser came in without knocking. and the Frenchman rose toleave. but the mlnlster said in Vietnamese: "Stay where you are. This swine

didn't even bother to knock at my door-let him wait.' The two continuedto talk in Vietnamese for more than an hour,ostentatlouslylgnoringtheAmerican. "Impossible for such a thing to have happened a year ago'commented my acqpaintance.Americans from South Vietnam, including Quakers, International ServicesVolllllteers. and journalists, who came through to Phnom-Penh during thesecond half of 1967 were unanimous that there had been a very sharp riseof anti-American feeling in that period. In fact. what they felt was theuninhibited expression of a hostility which has been there all the time. Theyexplained this as mainly due to resentment that Westmoreland was setting upa sort of military occupation regime based on treating the entire Vietnamesepeople as "hostile", subject to the draconic rules and regulations of anoccupier of enemy-held territory.Whatever the reasons. the fact of this total hostility was recognized In anofficial U.s. document, extracts of which were published In the New YorkHerald Tribune (Paris edition) on Dec. 7. I t reads as follows:"A weekly report privately drafted and distributed within the U.S. missionin South Vietnam portrays American officials In the provinces as gloomyabout the war and the mood of the South Vietnamese people...many Vietnamesebelieve that Americans In Vietnam have been so dominant, especially In thedirectlOll of tlte war, that the very sovereignty of Vietnam Is threatened."Entitled 'h'ovlncial Attitudes', the report covers a one-week periodfrom Nov. 26 to Dec. 2. The findings of the document Indicate, however,that the Americanofficials In the field weremeeting long-range-and growingproblems with the South Vietnamese...."While American officials in recent weeks have Issued optimistic publicstatements on both the war effort andpaclCication. they have not dealt withthe mood and the attitudes of the Vietnamese people. Over the last few months,however, officials In Saigon have noted an anti-American mood among theVietnamese. especially in the Saigon newspapers...."Discussing what it termed the 'strange drif t from reali ty regarding theU.S. role In Vietnam'. the report said that In the area around Saigon. a groupof 12 middle-age citizens felt that the mobilization law (which lowers thedraft age from 20 to 18) had been enacted at 'the behest of the Americanswhose real aim Is the extermination of as many Vietnamese as possible' ...."5


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The fact that people In the streets, and especially Saigon newspapersafter so many successive purges and drastic censorship, dare to expressthemselves openly In such a way is another reflection of the atmosphere ofdefeat, of U.s. defeat, which hangs over the country. No faked communiquesand fantastic flgures of "body count losses Inflicted on the National LiberationFront can cover this up. Even high-ranking Americans in Saigon with a grainof Intelligence and knowleclge of the real situation are admitting within theirInner circles that defeat, political and mllitary, stares them in the face.I t was doubtless because McNamara was well aware of this, and the riskthat he might state itpubllcly too near election time, that President Jolu1sondecided to sack him well ahead of the Presidential campaigning season.This will not prevent the stench of defeat from eventually seeping Into theWhite House Itself. The greatest defeat of all has been the InabUlty of theU.S.-Saigon command to win the decisive battle for the hearts and mindsof the South Vietnamese people.In a Scripps-Howard column, "Washington Size-up, published Nov. 18,omclal statistics are quoted to show how much of the population is effectivelyunder U.S.-Saigon control: U.S. officials put them In three categories:friendly (201 hamlets with 600,200 population), pacified (1,895 with 4,000,000people), and protected (3,092 with 3,500,000 population). The last categorymeans hamlets are safe enough to hold elections, but occasionally are underfire ...."Pacified and "protected mean hamlets where the population lives underthe barrels of U.s.-Saigon guns, The fact that Washlngtoncan clalm onlyabout five per cent of the rural population as "friendly reflects the magnitude-fthe U.S. defeat.Plu1om-Penh, CambodiaAccompanying every revelation of a military or polltical reverse for theU.S. In South Vietnam is a barrage d inventions from the U.S.-Saigonpsychological warfare servicestodlvertpubllcattention.Thus, the same day that a drastic rise in anti-American feeling was revealedIn the Provlnclal Attitudes weekly analysis, headlines In all U.S. newspapersreported a "Vietcong Massacre, "Worst Atrocity of the War, describingthe alleged kllllng of 121 "Montagnards clvillans by National LiberatioD Front

(NLF) forces and the burning of their villages.For days on end the Western press carried stories on this, and RepubllcanPresidential hopeful Senator Percy and his wife were flown to the spot todramatize the "atrocity"', What In fact happened was a very different storyto that related by Mr. James Magee, the American Publlc Affairs officialwhose version was carried by the U.S. press.NFL forces, In a surprise attack Nov. 28, wiped out a battalion of the FirstU.s. Infantry Dtvlsion at Bu Dop, capital of Phuoc Long province, a llttle over18 mlles northeast of Loc NInh. The U.S. command stated the 4lttacklni forcewas the same one that they had claimed to have wiped out at Lac NInhjust a month earlier. A second battallon of the same U.S. division was sentto replace the one which had been wiped out. On the night of Dec. 2.3, NLFforces attacked a post held by Sailon torces atDakSon,aboutnlnemUes


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north c#. Bu Dop, completely wiping it out. This post controlled two "strategichamlets" in which some 2.000 Montagnard trlbespeople were concentratedbehind barbed wire.As usual in such esses, ss soon a . the military post was dealt with,the Inmates ot the "strategic hamlet" dealt with their local guard., tore downthe barbed wire, and returnedtothelrorlginalmountsinvlllages,settlngtlreto their barracks betore they left. On the tollowlna day, two companies of.Civil Guards" set out in pursuit, shooting down any Montqnard stragglersthey could tind until they tell into an NFL ambush and were wiped out to thelast man, 130 ot them being killed. The whole complex of military postsin the Da k Son area was wiped out.On Dec. 8 NFL torces launched another surprise attack against thereplacementbattallon otthe First IntantryDlvlsion, at its headquarters areaabout 300 mUes northeast of Bu Dop, at the same time launching a morterattack against a nearby Special Forces camp and U.S. garrison headquarterson the local a1rt1eld. According to the NFL communique, this second battalionwas also wiped out and NFL torces occupied the battlefield, destroying two105 mm art1llery pieces and 106.7 mm morters and seizing large quantltiesot anns and equipment. Of this whole action trom Dec. 2-3 on, the U.S. pressreported only the alleged "massacre" described by a Mr. Magee who tIewinto the area two days later. The first on-the-spot account was trom ajoumal1st who arrived on the scene tlve days later after the action at Oak Son.In the same category as the "Montagnard massacre" story was thesensational discovery of a "Vietcong camp near Mimot in Cambodia by twoU.S. agency correspondents, at a place and time convenient to divert attentionfrom the considerable U.S. deteat just across tne trontier at Lac Nlnhand even to explain that deteat. The story, publ1shed in the U.s. press onNov. 21, claimed the camp had been discovered by a UPI and an APcorrespondent and an AP photographer. "All three newsmen, stated theAP report, "veterans ot long tours in Vietnam, telt the cllmp was unmistakablyViet Congo Evidence tound there Included military records written InVietnamese and North Vietnamese medical supplies. Dated scraps ot paperindicated the camp had been used over aperlodot several months dating backto lsst February.... On the basis of this report, calls went torth tromeditorial writers and old warhorses like President Eisenhower and GeneralBradley. backed by the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee, to InvadeCambodia. etc.The "camp" Itself consisted ot a tew bamboo and thatch huts, similar tothe temporary structures that woodcutters set up everywhere In the Cambodiantorests. For anyone who knows the extraordinary security measures takenby the Vietnamese. the Idea ot "military records" and "dated scraps ot paperleft behind Is absolutely Inconceivable. Probably to quiet the doubts otatew

of his colleagues, George McArthur of AP-one ot the "dlscoverersrevealed in Editor and Publisher, the American newspaper trade journal,how the "discovery was made."All of us had been long In Vietnam and knew that the lIkellhoodottlndinganything in the jungle was remote unless you knew precisely where youwere going. That knowledge came to us two days later when Herndon (ot UPI)received a cable from saigon. I t pinpointed a spot just Inside the borderabout a tlve-hour drive trom Phnom Penh .... As the Cambodian authoritiesmade no dltflcultles", the three setotf, tound the camp, and produced the7


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incriminating Mevidence" which the Pentagon hawks want to use as a pretextfor carrying the war Into Cambodia.From years past, journalists from conservative U.S. newspapers such asthe New York Times, Washington Post, and others have been given everyfacility to go wherever they like In the Cambodian-South Vietnamese borderareas to find traces of a "Ho Chi Mlnh" or "Slhanouk" trail, of "Vietcong"bases,sanctuarles,orsupplyroutes.Militaryattachesofthevariousembassles,Including the Australian embassy which represents U.S. interests in Cambodia,have been given the same facilities. So have the members of the InternationalControl Commission aCC), and the unanimous opinion has been, and still Isto my knowledge, that there are no such bases, sanctuaries, or supply routes.U.S.-Saigon troops have shown no inhibitions In the past In attacking insideCambodian ten-itory-occupy1ng, for instance, the Cambodian village ofChak Kranh for a whole week in March. U.S. planes have innumerable violationsIn attacking and bombing Cambodian frontier vll!ages. strange Indeed thatSaigon knew of the existence of this camp but did not attack it, and signaledits existence only to U.S. journalists and not to the Cambodian governmentor the ICC. An ICC Investigating team, sent to the spot on the Insistence ofthe Cambodian Head of State, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, found the remnantsof woodcutters' huts, two long-abandoned shelters such as all Cambodiansliving or working near the frontier areas dig forthemselves-especiallyin the much-bombed Mimot region-but no trace of anything that looked likea "Vietcong" camp.It does not require an over-suspicious mlndto suspect that one of the manySpecial Forces commando teams which Westmoreland has planted along thefrontier areas, and which are directly controlled by the CIA, Infiltratedacross the border and planted the documents, and that Saigon then obliginglysent the cable to Herndon of UP! in Phnom-Penh. That such things couldeasily happen is proven by the fact that a few months earlier In the samegeneral area there had been a brush between Cambodianfrontiermllitiaand Special Forces commandos dressed In the blackpeasant garb of MVletcongeself-defense guerrillas. One of the commandos was killed and another waswounded and captured, revealing at his trial that his band had orders tocarry out sabotage and assassinations, to leave traces of "Vietcong" activity,and, in the event of capture, to pretend they were VletconR" guerrillas.This was revealed at the time of the trial of the saboteur, published In theCambodian press but not published in the West.Everything Is being done In fact to try to make Cambodia a scapegoatto explain U.S. military defeats on the other side of the border and to providea pretext for extending the war Into this neutral oasis of peace. After the"Vietcong" camp discovery, there were not very oblique diplomatic hintsfrom Washington that If poor little Cambodia could not herself protect herborders aaainst "Vietcong infiltrations", the United states and ItsallIeswere prepared to take over the task. Prince Sihanouk's react1ontothiswas' to make clear that the entire Cambodian people would take up armsto defend Cambodia's sovereignty against violations of her territorial Integrity.A major aim of all the hue and cry over Cambodia's supposed complicitywith the NFL has been to divert attention from the unprecedentedly severedefeats U.S. forces suffered during the first two months of the 1967-68dry season, the extent of which can be judged from the following balance sheet,8


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p\i)lIlbed by the NFL 011 the occalion of the leventh anniverll l' )' of thefOUDdiDfoftheF'roat:_181ntaDtrYbaUal101l1 Wiped outaslDlitl,lncludl.ngseftllU.S.battall6Dl;

_2u.s.artil1erybaUaliOllswipedout;_18a1&ODtaDksquadrorldelltroyedj_400planelandbelicopterldestl'oyedOllthelJ'OUll(lorshotcSon.lncludlDr50 destroyed lnara1dOllthe Clu Lai marlne baH Nov. 30;_278taDks andarmol'ed carl destroyedj_500 truckl destroyed (not Includinl a 70-truck convoy completel1 wiped outDec. 4 between An Khe and Pleiku, on the Ill-fated Route No. 19, the IJ'lve7U'd

of France'l famous GJ'OI4*Dent Mobile No. 100);-130 artillery pieces destroyed;-54brldres blown up;_40,000 eDemy troops, Includinl almost 20,000 Amerlcanl, Idlled, WOUIIded,

or captured.S!


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Who Controls Vietnam