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                                                                              ╚January 7, 1966

Man of the Year:General William C. Westmoreland

The Guardians at the Gate



Nothing is worse than war?
Dishonor is worse than war.
Slavery is worse than war.
                 --Winston Churchill


     To the quickening drumfire of the fighting in South Viet
Nam, Americans sensed early in 1965 that they might have to
choose between withdrawal or vastly greater involvement in the
war. By year's end, it was clear that the U.S. had irrevocably
committed itself the nation's third major war in a quarter-
century, a conflict involving more than 1,000,000 men and the
destiny of Southeast Asia.

     It was a strange, reluctant commitment. As the small, far-
off war grew bigger and closer, it stirred little of the fervor
with which Americans went off to battle in 1917 or 1941. The
issues were complex and controversial. The enemy was no heel-
clicking junker or sadistic samurai but a small, brown man whose
boyish features made him look less like the oppressor than the
oppressed. The U.S. was not even formally at war with him. Nor
at first could Americans be sure than divided, ravaged South
Viet Nam had the stomach or stability to sustain the struggle
into which it had drawn its ally.

     The risk and the responsibility for the war were, of
course, Lyndon Johnson's. "We will stand in Viet Nam," he said
in July. Thereafter, the President moved resolutely to make good
that pledge, weathering open criticism from within his own
party, strident protest from the Vietnik fringe, and the
disapprobation of friendly nations from the Atlantic to the
China Sea.

     All No Man's Land. It fell to the American fighting man to
redeem Johnson's pledge. Plunged abruptly into a punishing
environment, pitted against a foe whose murderously effective
tactics had been perfected over two decades, the G.I. faced the
strangest war at all.

     Professing to scorn the U.S. as a paper tiger, Communist
China had long proclaimed Americans incapable of combat under
such conditions -- while prudently allowing North Viet Nam to
fight its "war of liberation." The Americans turned out to be
tigers, all right -- live ones. With courage and a cool
professionalism that surprised friend and foe, U.S. troops stood
fast and firm in South Viet Nam. In the waning months of 1965,
they helped finally to stem the tide that had run so long with
the Reds.

     As commander of all U.S. forces in South Viet Nam, General
William Childs Westmoreland, 51, directed the historic buildup,
drew up the battle plans and infused the 190,000 men under him
with his own idealistic view of U.S. aims and responsibilities.
He was the sinewy personification of the American fighting man
in 1965 who, through the monsoon mud of nameless hamlets, amidst
the swirling sand of seagirt enclaves, atop the jungled
mountains of the Annamese Cordillera, served as the instrument
of U.S. policy, quietly enduring the terror and discomfort of
a conflict that was not yet a war, on a battlefield that was
all no man's land.

   20-Year Problem. In the process, American troops gave an
incalculable lift to South Viet Nam's disheartened people and
divided government. And, important as that was, they helped
preserve a far greater stake than South Viet Nam itself. As the
Japanese demonstrated when they seized Indo-China on the eve of
World War II, whoever holds the peninsula holds the gate to
Asia. Were Hanoi to conquer the South and unify it under a
Communist regime, Cambodia and Laos would tumble immediately.
After that, the U.S. would be forced to fight from a less
advantageous position in Thailand to hold the rest of Southeast
Asia. "If you lose Asia," says General Pierre Glllois, a
celebrated French strategist, "you lose the Pacific lake. It is
an extraordinary problem, the problem of the next 20 years."

     Lyndon Johnson had waited dangerously long before acting
on the problem. Thereafter, for all his repeated declarations
that the U.S. would sit down and talk "with any government at
any place at any time," despite even last week's multiplicity
of peace missions, the President moved swiftly and unstintingly
toward its solution. With all the resources available to the
world's most powerful nation, Johnson established beyond
question the credibility of the U.S. commitment to Asia.

     No Sanctuary. The troops under William Westmoreland did
more. "If the other guy can live and fight under those
conditions," said the general, "so can we." In baking heat and
smoldering humidity of the Asian mainland, the American applied
their own revised version of the guerilla-warfare manual that
Communists from Havana to Hanoi had long regarded as holy writ.
With stupendous firepower and mobility undreamed of even a
decade ago, U.S. strike forces swooped into guerilla redoubts
long considered impenetrable. Like clouds of giant dragonflies,
helicopters hauled riflemen and heavy artillery from base to
battlefield in minutes, giving them the advantages of surprise
and flexibility. Tactical air strikes scraped guerrillas off
jungled ridges, buried them in mazelike tunnels, or kept them
forever on the run. Unheard from the grounds, giant B-52s of
the Strategic Air Command pattern-bombed the enemy's forest
hideaways, leaving no sanctuary inviolable.

     Whatever the outcome of the war, the most significant
consequence of the buildup is that, for the first time in
history, the U.S. in 1965 established bastions across the nerve
centers of Southeast Asia. From formidable new enclaves in South
Viet Nam to a far-flung network of airfields, supply depots and
naval facilities building in Thailand, the U.S. will soon be
able to rush aid to any threatened ally in Asia. Should the
British leave Singapore, as they may do by the 1970s, the new
U.S. military complex would constitute the only Western outpost
of any consequence from the Sea of Japan to the Indian Ocean.

     The U.S. presence will also have a beneficent impact on
the countries involved. The huge new ports that are being
scooped out along the coasts of Viet Nam and Thailand should
permanently boost the economies of both nations. Vast, U.S.-
banked civilian-aid programs are aimed at eradicating the
ancient ills of disease, illiteracy and hunger.

     Small Windows. Recently, Peking has made it a point to
proclaim its delight at the prospect of the U.S.'s depleting its
resources on a major land war in Asia. That prospect may seem
less pleasing today. Where the Communists almost had victory
within their grasp last spring, the U.S. now bars the way and
stands ready to repel any other attempted aggression. Unless
Peking and Hanoi withdraw from South Viet Nam -- and lose face
throughout Asia -- it is the Communists themselves who risk
being bogged down in wars that they can neither afford nor end.

     Plainly, neither China nor North Viet Nam reckoned on full-
scale U.S. intervention in Viet Nam. Their blunder came as no
surprise to Westmoreland. "They look out upon the rest of the
world, and of America in particular, is what they want it to
be."

     A Kill at the Waist. At the beginning of 1965, the view
from Hanoi's windows must have been rosy indeed. From a force
of fewer than 20,000 at the end of 1961, the Viet Cong had grown
to a lethally effective terrorist army of 165,000 whose
supplies, orders and reinforcements flowed freely from the
North. Viet Minh regulars were infiltrating at the rate of a
regiment every two months. From the tip of Ca Mau Peninsula to
the 17th parallel, huge swaths of the South lay under Communist
sway, and with good reason: in that year, the Viet Cong had
kidnapped or assassinated 11,000 civilians, mostly rural
administrators, teachers and technicians.

     Saigon's army, which since 1954 has been trained by U.S.
advisors almost entirely to repel a conventional invasion from
the North, was seldom a match for the guerilla cadres. The
Communists were confident that they could sever the South at its
narrow waist in the Central Highlands. After that, victory would
be just a matter of time.

     The U.S. gave them little cause of doubt. All thorough the
1964 presidential campaign, while Barry Goldwater called for
bombing raids in the North, it was Lyndon Johnson's unruffled
position that the U.S. was already doing all it should to keep
the South afloat. After his landslide election, the President
became so engrossed in the Great Society that little Saigon
seemed all but forgotten. Asia rated only 126 words in the State
of the Union message that ran on for 5,000.

     Changed Rules. When the U.S. finally acted, it was almost
a classic case of too little, too late. What finally stirred
Lyndon's choler was the Viet Cong attack on two U.S. camps at
Pleiku in February. Eight Americans died, 125 were wounded.
"I've had enough of this," raged the President. Next day the
scores of U.S. Navy jets roared beyond the 17th parallel for the
first time to plaster "bloodless" military installations in
North Viet Nam. In return, the Viet Cong blew up a U.S. enlisted
men's billet in the port city of Qui Nhon. This time the U.S.
and South Viet Nam replied with a joint 160-plane raid.

     Abruptly, the ground rules had changed. Some 3,500 combat
marines from Okinawa landed to secure Danang Airbase. Advance
units of the 173rd Airborne also streamed in. One of the most
significant U.S. moves was to assign U.S. planes to bomb and
strafe Viet Cong units in South Viet Nam itself.

     Starting in late May, 100,000 U.S. servicemen were funneled
into Viet Nam in 120 days. Warships from Task Force 77, the
assault unit of the Seventh Fleet launched round-the-clock
bombing raids, trained their six-inch guns on Viet Cong
concentrations as far as 15 miles inland. Giant Guam-based
B-52s of the Strategic Air Command began blasting forested
guerilla redoubts. U.S. medium bombers inched ever closer to
the Red Chinese frontier in their raids against the North.

     "Maximum Deterrence." The Viet Cong also intensified their
war. As the summer monsoons neared, they switched increasingly
to the battalion- and regiment-sized attacks that, by the
doctrines of Mao Tse-tung and North Viet Nam's General Vo Nguyen
Giap, are needed to finish a guerilla war. Two full Communist
regiments overran a Special Forces fort at Dong Xoai, 55 miles
north of Saigon, decimating three Vietnamese battalions in the
war's biggest battle. The guerrillas seemed to be everywhere
-- and in strength. A full regiment overran Ba Gia; another
annihilated a Vietnamese battalion in Binh Duong province; a
third captured the town of Dak Sut; U.S. Special Forces
defenders were bloodied at Bu Dop and Duc Co. Talk of neutralism
began to stir the cities of the South as the fledgling
military regime of Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky -- the tenth
Saigon government since Ngo Dinh Diem's assassination in
November 1963 -- shakily took power in June.

     Acting on Westmoreland's urgent plea for more combat troops
and planes, the President in July spent eight days in secret
conferences before adopting a cautious program of "maximum
deterrence" calculated not to unduly alarm Hanoi's friends in
Moscow. For the first time in any comparable emergency, the
Administration did not order economic controls or mobilized
reserves. Monthly draft calls were doubled to 235,000. The armed
forces were authorized an additional 340,000 men for a total of
2,980,000. Most important of all, reinforcements were rushed
to Viet Nam.

     Main Artery. Even the sounds and sights of the land soon
changed as U.S. deuce-and-a-halfs, Jeeps, bulldozers,
helicopters and fighter aircraft raised whirlwinds of cinnamon-
colored dust and sand as white as snow. In the north, some
45,000 marines clustered around Hue, Danang and Chu Lai. The
new 1st Cav settled at An Khe, just off Route 19, main artery
leading to the beleaguered Central Highlands. Qui Nhon, Route
19's eastern terminus, was held by South Korea's crack 15,000-
man Capital Division.

     At pristine Cam Ranh Bay, where czarist Russia's fleet took
shelter just before its crushing defeat by the Japanese navy in
1905, combat engineers turned the natural harbor into a major
port. Twenty miles down the coast, the "Screaming Eagles" of the
101st Airborne Brigade began operating as a mobile strike force.
In the guerilla-infested jungles around Saigon prowled the 1st
Infantry Division ("Big Red One"), the 173rd Airborne, a 1,200-
man battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, a 250-man New
Zealand artillery unit.

     Water Through a Rag. Some of the marines barely had time
to pitch their tents when they were sent into their first major
battle. On a peninsula below Chu Lai, 5,000 marines, aided by
rocket-firing Cobra helicopters, jet fighters and naval guns
from Task Force 77, killed close to 700 guerrillas. But this,
they soon learned, was Viet Nam. No sooner did Operation
Starlight end, said an exasperated officer, than the surviving
Viet Cong "seeped back in like water through a wet rag."

     Not until the Communists began concentrating troops in the
Central Highlands was there another battle of Starlight's scope.
Worried that their supply routes might be in danger, 6,000 Viet
Minh and Viet Cong on Oct. 19 pounced on a Special Forces camp
manned by 400 montagnard tribesmen and twelve U.S. advisors at
Plei Me, near where the Ho Chi Minh trail snakes out of Laos and
Cambodia into South Viet Nam. But for 600 sorties that littered
the camp's perimeter with Viet Minh dead, Plei Me would almost
certainly have fallen. It was not the first time that air
strikes saved the day. "The ground troops keep telling us that
we are saving their necks." says Air Force Colonel James
Hagerstrom, boss of the bustling Tactical Air Coordination
Center at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Airport. As it was, the
Communists broke off their siege of Plei Me after nine days and
850 dead.

     "Come & Get It." A 1st Cav brigade set out immediately in
pursuit of the retreating Reds to check out intelligence reports
that seven and possibly nine 2,000-man regiments were assembling
in the highlands. "I gave them their head," recalls
Westmoreland, "and told them their mission was to pursue and
destroy the enemy." In the foothills of the Chu Pong massif,
practically in Cambodia's back yerd, the brigade found its
quarry. Helilifted to a spot called Landing Zone X Ray, a
battalion of cavalrymen found itself smack in the middle of the
66th North Vietnamese regiment. One platoon was cut off on a
ridge and badly mauled. Two others were lured into a trap and
wiped out; some of the U.S. wounded were shot or decapitated
and at least one was left hanging head down from a tree.

     The division's artillery saved the day, pouring more than
8,000 rounds into Viet Minh ranks, while strafing jets
hemstitched whole rows of assaulting Communists. SAC B-52s from
Guam provided tactical support in ten thunderous raids. The
battle of Chu Pong was over -- but another was about to begin.

     Moving out of the mountains and across the Ia Drang Rover,
500 troops walked through prickly elephant grass into a
Communist ambush. From three sides, Viet Minh hard-hats rained
mortar, rocket and small-arms fire on the troops. Shouting
"G.I. son of a bitch!," they sprang from behind hedgerows and
trees, giant anthills and bushes to take on the American in
savage hand-to-hand fighting. The cavalrymen hollered right
back, "Come on Charlie, come and get it!" The Reds, their flanks
raked by strafing fire and napalm, finally retreated.

     In the two battles, the Communists lost more than 1,200
men. US. casualties -- 2240 dead, 470 wounded -- were the worst
of the war, higher than the Korean War's weekly average of 210
combat deaths. Costly as it was, Westmoreland calls it "an
unprecedented victory" in the struggle for South Viet Nam. He
says proudly: "At no time during the engagement were American
troops forced to withdraw or move back from their positions
except for purposes of tactical maneuver."

     Phoenix-Like. Despite the loss of 7,000 men in seven weeks,
the Communists have displayed what one U.S. officer calls a
"phoenix-like ability" to recuperate. To speed the flow of
infiltrators, at least three new roads have been hacked through
the Laotian panhandle and some 10,000 Viet Ninh guards assigned
to keep them open. Down the trails, often concealed from the air
by a solid canopy of 150-ft. trees, move trucks, elephant and
wiry porters capable of toting 30-lb. loads 15 miles a day.

     Most of the Communist reinforcements are concentrating in
such plateau provinces as Kontim and Pleiku, where the only fire
brigade at Westmoreland's disposal has been the overworked 1st
Cavalry. To lend them a hand a 4,000-man contingent from the
Army's 25 Infantry Division was dispatched by air from Hawaii
last week.

     Westmoreland foresees a long war and is determined to be
on hand for as much of it as possible. While two years is the
normal tour for top U.S. officers in Viet Nam, he has asked to
stay on here after his time is up this month. "The job isn't
over yet," he says, "and unless it was beyond my control, I have
never left any job that I hadn't finished. I have no intention
of breaking that rule now."

     No Gimmicks. There is an almost machinelike
singlemindedness about him. His most vehement cuss words are
"darn" and "dad-gum." A jut-jawed six-footer, he never smokes,
drinks little, swims and plays tennis to remain at a flat-
bellied 180 lbs. --  only 10 lbs. over his cadet weight. Says
Major General Richard Stilwell, commander of the U.S. Military
Advisory Group in Thailand: "He has no gimmicks, no hand
grenades or pearl-handled pistols. He's just a very
straightforward, determined man." Few who know him doubt that
he will some day be Army Chief of Staff.

     Westmoreland belongs to the age of technology -- a product
not only of combat but also of sophisticated command and
management colleges from Fort Leavenworth to Harvard Business
School. The son of a textile-plant manager in rural South
Carolina, Westmoreland liked the cut of a uniform from the time
he was an Eagle Scout. Though he never made the honor roll at
West Point, he was first captain of cadets (class of '36) and
won the coveted John J. Pershing sword for leadership and
military proficiency.

     As a young artillery officer, Westmoreland worked out a
new logarithmic fire-direction and control chart that is still
in use. During World War II he got a chance to try it out as
commander of an artillery battalion in North Africa and Sicily.
During ten months of front-line combat from Utah Beach to Elbe,
he had two bouts of malaria and a brush with a land mine that
blew a truck out from him but left him almost unscathed.

     No Mischief. Volunteering for Korean duty in 1952,
Westmoreland went over as commander of the tough 187th
Regimental Combat Team, made a couple of paratroop jumps before
the armistice was signed. Fretful that the cease-fire was
playing havoc with his men's discipline, Westmoreland set them a
spartan regimen: reveille at 5, a two-mile run, digging
fortifications all day, baths in an icy creek and, after dinner,
2 1/2 hours of intramural sports, especially boxing. "By 10
o'clock every night," grins Westmoreland, "they were so
exhausted they couldn't make mischief of any kind."

     After a round of Pentagon assignments, he became the Army's
youngest major general at 42. Named superintendent of West Point
in 1960, he expanded its facilities, increased enrollment (from
2,500 to 4,000) and came under congressional fire for the first
and  -- so far -- only time in his career. His offense was to
hire Football Coach Paul Dietzel away from Louisiana State
University, and the Louisiana delegation was fighting-mad. In
1964, "Westy" was summoned to Saigon as Paul Harkins' deputy.
By midyear he was the Pentagon's natural choice for the top job
-- and a fourth star -- when Harkins returned to the U.S.

     More Hats than Hedda. In the command he inherited,
Westmoreland wears more hats than Hedda Hopper. He has the
politically sensitive job of top U.S. advisor to South Viet
Nam's armed forces and boss of the 6,000-odd U.S. advisors
attached to the Vietnamese units. As commander of Military
Assistance Command. Viet Nam (MAC-V), he has under him all U.S.
servicemen -- 115,000 soldiers, 10,000 sailors, 17,500 airmen,
4,000 marines, 250 coast guardsmen -- in the country. More than
1,000 Army helicopters and light aircraft are his
responsibility, as well as some 550 U.S. Air Force planes --
soon to be increased to 1,200 -- a Navy seadrome at Cam Ranh
Bay.

     Outside his direct area of responsibility, but closely
responsive to his needs are two other sizable forces: 1) the
150 warships and 70,000 men of the Seventh Fleet in station in
the South China Sea, and 2) the mushrooming U.S. military
establishment in Thailand, with seven fighter squadrons, 12,000
men, and more on the way. To supply them, the U.S. is not only
building facilities at Sattahip on the Gulf of Siam, but has
also laid in a storage area at Korat with enough supplies to
outfit a combat brigade -- just in case Red China makes good its
threat to stir trouble in Thailand's northeast. Thai-based U.S.
planes are already operating out of Udorn, Ubon, Takhli and
Nakhon Phanom to blast Red infiltration routes through Laos,
bomb North Viet Nam, and conduct rescue missions for downed U.S.
pilots.

     Work Like the Devil. To keep this vast establishment
operating, Westmoreland heeds -- and invariably exceeds -- the
advice he gave newcomers to Viet Nam: "Work like the very devil.
A seven-day, 60-hour week is the very minimum for this course."
Rising at 6:30 in his two-story French villa, Westmoreland does
25 push-ups and a few isometric exercises, usually breakfasts
alone (his family, along with 1,800 other dependents, was
ordered out of the country by the President last February, is
now in Honolulu). At his desk by 7:30, he rarely leaves it
before nightfall, even then lugs home a fat briefcase. "He's a
man who simply can't quit working," says an officer who has
served three times with him. At least two days a week he zips
around the field by Beechcraft U-8F and helicopter, often
galloping to and from his craft at a dead run so that he can
squeeze in one more visit to one more outpost in the "boonies."

     General Westmoreland tries valiantly to meet as many of his
men as he possibly can. Wherever he goes, he reminds them that
Viet Nam is not only a military operation, but a "political and
psychological" struggle as well "In this war," says Major
General Lewis W. Walt, who reports to Westmoreland as Marine
Commander in Viet nam, "a soldier has to be much more than a man
with a rifle or a man whose only objective is to kill. He has
to be part diplomat, part technician, part politician -- and
100% a human being." In a war in which the kindly-looking
peasant often turns out to be a gun-toting guerilla, that can
be a tall order. Snapped a marine private: "We try to help those
goddman people and you know what they do? They send in their
kids to steal our grenades and ammunition and use them to kill
us. The hell with them!"

     Golden Fleece. Yet, as it has done everywhere else, the
G.I.'s heart inevitably goes out to war's forlorn victims.
Marvels a Viet Nam veteran in the Pentagon: "Imagine a really
gung-ho West Point officer worrying about growing corn for
peasants!" Westmoreland, who is so gung-ho a West Pointer that
he looks well-pressed in swimming trunks, does worry. "Today's
soldier," he says, "must try to give, not take away,"

     In Operation Golden Fleece last fall, he'd employed 10,000
marines throughout northern paddyfields to give Viet Nam
peasants the most valuable present of all -- security to
harvest and sell their corps without interference. One result
was that the Viet Cong had to boost their 10% "rice tax" on
farmers to 60% in unprotected areas, with no rise in their
popularity rating. More often, the G.I.'s effort is spontaneous.
At Phu Bai, marines organized scrub-ins for the village
toddlers. Army Captain Ronald Rod, before he was killed by a
Viet Cong sniper in December, collected enough money and
supplies to get an orphanage started by writing to a New Orleans
newspaper. On his own initiative, Navy Medic "Doc" Lucier, a
burly, open-faced Negro from Birmingham, Ala., braves booby-
trapped trails to give shots, distribute drugs and administer
first-aid in out-of-the-way villages. There's just got to be
something more than bullets," he says. "Until we start treating
these people like human beings, they aren't going to want to
help us."

     43 Battles. Under a more formal program, more than 1,000
experts with the U.S. Operations Mission are distributing more
than $500 million a year in economic assistance, training civil
servants in a dozen Saigon ministries and advising local
officials. USOM in the past five years has helped build 4,682
classrooms, drill 1,900 fresh-water wells, set up 12,000 village
health clinics and establish 718 factories. In 1965 alone, it
brought 7,000,000 textbooks, and later this month will
inaugurate television networks designed to reach -- and help
unify -- close to half of the country's 15 million people. As
the AID men see it, they are fighting "43 separate battles in
the Viet Cong" -- one in every province -- and each is a touch-
and-go affair. For the man behind the water buffalo, security
is all; his allegiance belongs to whichever side can give it to
him.

     What the Vietnamese need most is at least 20,000 more
trained administrators to run each district after it has been
won by soldiers. Without them, says a U.S. officer, "we can take
ground, but we can't hold it."

     Blindman's Buff. At every level, the U.S. is locked in a
complex, unpredictable -- and brutal -- struggle. Last month
three U.S. marines and eight South Vietnamese captured by the
Viet Cong on a patrol 80 miles southwest of Danang were savagely
executed. One American was shot six times in the face at close
range. Another's face was hacked beyond recognition with a
machete.

     In many ways, it is the same kind of fighting -- with some
local refinements -- that G.I.s faced in the island-hopping
battles of World War II. It is and interminable blindman's
buff that has squads and platoons snaking steadily along tangled
jungle paths, ever fearful of snipers' bullets, ever watchful
for the trip wire that might set off a lethal "Bouncing Betty"
mine or drive poison-tipped stakes into a man's chest. The big
set-piece battles -- Chu Lai and Plei Me, Chu Pong and Ia Deang
-- were the exceptions, and even they rarely involved more than
a regiment on each side.

     Ninth Circle. When he was not under fire, the U.S.
fighting man was enduring living conditions that would have made
Dante's ninth circle seem cozy. He was mired in mud when it
rained, choked by dust when it did not. There were leeches and
lice, poisonous vipers and venereal disease, dengue, and a
virulent strain of malaria that has defied preventatives and
resists cure. Temperatures hit 130 degrees on the sandy beaches,
20 degrees in the mountains. In the water-filled bunkers of
Danang and Phan Rang, marines and paratroopers wrapped
themselves in rubberized ponchos to grab a few hours' soaked
sleep. In the endless paddyfields, man on long patrols came down
with agonizing foot sore from polluted ooze.

     "Everything rusts or mildews," complained Navy Lieut.
Commander Richard Escajeda, head surgeon of the marines'
"Charlie Med" hospital at Danang. "The sterilized linen never
dries. Bugs crawl into our surgical packs. Mud is everywhere."
An earthier -- or muddier -- protest came from a jungle-hardened
trooper in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment,
bivouacked with the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade. "Ya know, I
been here for six weeks, and for five of 'em I've never been
dry," he lamented. "If a man ain't wet with sweat, he's drenched
with rain. Me clothes are rottin' and me boots are fallin'
apart."

     Boiling Ants. In this dark, watery world, the enemy lurks
like a predatory pike, seldom visible, forever poised for the
kill. Both the black-pajamaed guerilla and the khaki-uniformed
Viet Minh regular from the North have become increasingly
sophisticated and determined fighters. At Ia Drang, Major
General Harry W.O. Kinnard, commander of the Army's 1st Calvary
Division (Airmobile), marveled at the way the Viet Minh hard-
hats "came boiling off those hills like ants and pushed their
attack right through our artillery, tactical air and small-arms
fire -- in broad daylight. It was eloquent testimony that this
war is a tough one."

     Though not always as aggressive as their comrades from the
North, the Viet Cong guerrillas have been around for so long
that they know every thicket and clump of elephant grass for
miles around. Kinnard told of a conversation his men had
monitored on the V.C. radio network. "All right," a Viet Cong
company commander told a subordinate, "I want you to move down
to that place where we laid an ambush for the French twelve
years ago."

     4-to-1 Ratio. By the end of 1966, U.S. strength is expected
to reach 400,000 -- nearly as big as an army as the French had
in all Indo-China, and with infinitely superior equipment.
Buoyed by the U.S. effort, South Viet Nam is simultaneously
strengthening its armed forces by 10,000 men a month, should
muster 750,000 fighting men by the end of 1966.

     The Communists in turn are increasing their 250,000-man
first-line force by up to 7,000 a month -- 4,500 by infiltration
from the North, and rest by forced drafts in Viet Cong-
controlled villages -- and by December had at least 80,000 more
men in the South than they had when the year began.

     By spring, the allies should outnumber the enemy 4 to 1
-- far less than the nearly 10-to-1 superiority that Britain's
General Sir Gerald Templer enjoyed in Malaya's twelve-year
guerilla war, but sufficient for them to take the initiative.
Once that happens, said a U.S. official, "we can begin
pacification and the tide will begin to turn."

     Building & Fighting. Pacification, in the long run, is
Westmoreland's greatest challenge. "Viet Nam is involved in two
simultaneous and very difficult tasks," he says. "Nation
building, and fighting a vicious and well-organized enemy. If
it could do either alone, the task would be very simplified, but
its got to do both at once. A political system is growing. It
won't, it can't reach maturity overnight. Helping Viet Nam
toward that objective may very well be the most complex problem
ever faced by men in uniform anywhere on earth."

     It is a challenge such as no major nation has ever faced
before. The great powers of the past were, first and last,
empire builders hungry for territory and treasure. The U.S.
seeks neither. The richest nation in history (its GNP has more
than doubled since Korea, to $672 billion), it has no goal in
Asia but the continued independence of free peoples. "We did
not choose to be the guardians at the gate," as Lyndon Johnson
declared. "But there is no one else."

     Not for Export. Some critics have faulted the U.S. for
naively seeking to impose U.S.-style democracy on South Viet
Nam. Conversely, others condemn Washington for supporting an
undemocratic regime in Saigon. Both miss the essential point.
Saigon may well suffer from instability, corruption and feudal
social system, but as Freedom House Chairman Leo Cherne has
written, "Far from wanting to export these defects, the South
Vietnamese ask only to be left in peace to overcome them. This
is the real tragedy of Viet Nam -- that history has denied it
the chance to grow and evolve in peace." The U.S. is there to
give it that chance.

     For all of Ho's gibes that the Americans in Viet Nam are
"imperialists" bent on fighting a "white man's war," Saigon's
threatened government did not see the arriving soldiers as
devils but as deliverers. Nonetheless, Westmoreland constantly
advises his men to remember their proper role there. "Saigon's
sovereignty must be honored, protected and strengthened," he
insists. "In 1954 this was a French war. Now it is a Vietnamese
war, with us in support. It remains, and will remain just that."
Nothing proves his point so eloquently as the casualty figures.
In 1965 the U.S. suffered 1,241 killed in action and 5,687
wounded; the South Vietnamese lost 11,327 killed in action and
23,009 wounded. (The total since Jan. 1, 1961, when the Pentagon
began counting casualties: U.S.: 1,484 killed in action, 7,337
wounded; Viet Nam: 30,427 killed in action, 63,000 wounded; Viet
Cong 104,500 killed in action 250,000 wounded.)

     "Wherever You Go." Pentagon officials quote the observation
by a Viet Nam veteran in a letter home: "You can't run away from
Viet Nam because it will follow you wherever you go." While
President Johnson insists that the U.S. will remain there as
long as Saigon's sovereignty is threatened, the war will
inevitably confront him with profound problems at home.

     For one thing, as the size and cost of the U.S. commitment
grows, Americans will understandably expect their forces to go
beyond containment and start reclaiming territory. So far, the
results have been less than spectacular. Despite the war's
ever-mounting tempo the Saigon government at year's end
controlled only 57% of the population v. 23% under Communist
domination, and 20% still in doubt. Physically, the Cong still
occupied between 70% and 90% of the entire country, though much
of it was barely habitable -- dank mangrove swamps in the Mekong
Delta, spiny ridges in the highlands, dense rain forests above
Saigon.

      In the next few months, the U.S. public can hardly demand
major victories -- at least until a serious supply bottleneck
is broken and Westmoreland gets the extra combat divisions he
has been pleading for. But as the U.S. troop level climbs
toward 40,000 men, as the price of war begins to crimp Great
Society programs and boost taxes, Americans may find it harder
than ever to accept the long war predicted by the Administration
Military men talk in terms of years, and though other officials
insist that "something will give" long before that, few would
risk curtailing the U.S. buildup.

     If American patience wears thin, Lyndon Johnson may find
himself in a two-way squeeze. From one side he will be under
increasing pressure to bomb the North into oblivion. Already
the U.S. has slit open the "red envelope" enfolding North Viet
Nam's major industrial centers with a raid on the sprawling Uong
Bi power plant at Haiphong; in 18,600 sorties, bombers have
plastered targets to within 30 miles of the Chinese border. Yet
Hanoi is pouring more men and material into the South each
month. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a long costly
stalemate may well persuade more and more Americans that the
pacifists and isolationists and columnists such as Walter
Lippmann -- not to mention Mao Tse-tung and Ho Chi Minh -- were
right all along in arguing that the U.S. has no business in
Asia. If that feeling becomes general, the U.S. will be forced
into the trap of seeking a negotiated settlement from a position
of weakness -- which at worst will give South Viet Nam to he
Communists as effectively as any military defeat.

     To Pierce the Apathy. Either way, Lyndon Johnson did not
help his cause in 1965 by a lack of candor on the severity of
the war or the scope of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam. "Light"
and "moderate" are still the official euphemisms to describe
U.S. losses in even the bloodiest engagements.

     It is already clear that the war will be the central issue
of this year's elections -- as it should be. Few could dispute
Lyndon Johnson's swift, determined action in meeting the
Communist challenge. But it is also becoming a major day-to-day
concern of all Americans. Thus far, the President has dealt
effectively with the Vietniks and isolationists on the one hand
and on the other with those who urge that North Viet Nam be
bombed "back to the Stone Age." His chief failure has been one
of articulation. He is, after all, no Churchill -- but who is?

     Nonetheless, Johnson has yet to address himself in
particular to the great majority of Americans who generally
support his Viet Nam policy, though not in many cases without
a certain apprehension. To sustain the broad base of support
that he will need as the war expands and the casualty lists
lengthen, he will have to pierce the apathy of those who -- as
of now -- trust the President to make the right decisions, but
have no sense of involvement in Viet Nam. There is another
sizable segment of the public that understands only too well
the necessity of the U.S. presence in Asia, but expects of the
President realistic information on the price and progress of
the war.

     To awaken and convince both groups, the President needs
more than pulpit platitudes, and the American people will
certainly demand more in 1966. Meanwhile, in return for their
support in the difficult days of 1965, they have a right to
expect more than 126 words on Viet Nam in this year's State of
the Union address.