(9 of 9)
Scent. Seemingly there would be no end to the details that would have to be worked out if the shooting were to be stopped. South Viet Nam's joint general staff was unhappily puzzling last week over one of the smaller ones: an American plan for the demobilization —following a cease-fire—of half of the country's armed forces, including seven of its eleven infantry divisions. Other problems will prove more complex, among them the dismantling of the assassination squads maintained by the Viet Cong and by the Saigon government under its Phoenix program.
If the Kissinger approach has any validity at all, however, the lesser issues should fall into place once the big problems are settled. Those big problems of peace in Indochina have not been resolved—at least not yet—by any means, but Kissinger's idea is catching on quickly. As Cloud reported from Saigon last week, "the tantalizing scent of peace is in the air for the first time in years. To the South Vietnamese the political questions are secondary—at least for the moment—to the almost unbearable temptation to hope for the best. Such hopes do not come easily to the Vietnamese after 26 years of war. Once they are fully entertained, they could become overwhelming political reality here." Those hopes could be dashed again—in Saigon, Washington or Hanoi —as they have been in the past. But this time it would be a disappointment of tragic proportions.