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Until the current bombing campaign, only one B-52 had been lost in combat in seven years and 100,000 sorties in Indochina. Yet in the past two weeks, 15 were lost—each with a crew of six, most of whom are listed either as missing or captured. Why the high toll? First, as Air Force spokesmen are quick to point out, the B-52s were invading the "most heavily defended antiaircraft area in the world"—at least in conventional-weapons terms. Since the October bombing halt, the Soviet Union has shipped enormous quantities of missiles and improved radar systems into the North, and the North Vietnamese fired them this round with a prodigality never before displayed. U.S. Air Force officials estimate that 50 to 60 SAM "telephone poles" were fired at each three-plane B-52 formation, or "cell." While a cell's electronic defenses can cope with a number of incoming missiles, volleys as large as those were difficult to block completely. And because the B-52s lack the agility of the smaller U.S. planes, they cannot dodge missiles that crack the B-52s' defenses, or, with their huge supply of inflammable fuel, survive a SAM hit as Phantoms sometimes do.
One of the most troubling aspects of the Nixon blitz—quite apart from the death inflicted on its victims—was that his show of overweening force increased the U.S. investment in lives, prisoners and prestige. This happened just at a point when the public mind believed that that investment was about to be liquidated. The President, who surely wants the war over as much as any American, seemed for a time to be raising his own ante, apparently making it more difficult for the U.S. to extricate itself from Southeast Asia. One State Department dissenter from the bombing observed gloomily early last week: "Tomorrow it may be different, but all reason and logic and history are against the North Vietnamese making substantive concessions because of the bombing."
Hanoi, in fact, called the heavy U.S. air losses "America's Dien Bien Phu of the skies" and anticipated the halt by suggesting it would be seen by the North Vietnamese as an admission of American weakness. That was doubtless boasting for effect. But what concessions, if any, either side is now prepared to make remains cloaked in the secrecy of the exchanges between the White House and Hanoi that led to the agreement to go back to the table—exchanges that conceivably may have been by cable directly between the President and North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong, as they were in October. Around the White House there is a heady sense of having gambled and won. Says one aide: "The North Vietnamese underestimated what Richard Nixon would do. He had given them warning, and once it became clear that they were diddling us, he ordered the bombing. Now they've had time to look around and see what he can do. He was completely aware of the mounting pressure, but he stood tall."
Implicit in the mood is the conviction that should he be "diddled" again in Paris, yet another blitz will be ordered. If Hanoi does not resume the talks in the proper vein, says a source close to the President, "he'll turn it up full blast again." The U.S. expects Hanoi in particular to:
1) return to its earlier position of an unconditional release of the American P.O.W.s;