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In a small way, all this has backfired; there has been a slight increase in defections of Viet Cong supporters. But the Reds obviously feel that they can afford to pay this price in return for the fear they are spreading across the countryside—and in the capital as well. Twice last week Saigon tensed for Viet Cong attacks. One night rumors swept Saigon that the guerrillas planned a major assault on a U.S.-operated secret communications center south of the city's outskirts. The next night the Vietnamese army massed artillery amid reports that the Reds planned to charge Saigon airport. The attacks failed to materialize, but this did not dispel the suspicion that the Reds might have been capable of mounting them.
Nettling Neighbor. As if Saigon did not have enough on its hands with the Viet Cong, it faced the problem of a troublesome neighbor, Cambodia. South Viet Nam's Red guerrillas have long used Cambodia as a sanctuary, and though the rugged border is admittedly hard to police, Cambodia's neutralist Prince Sihanouk has done little to discourage his guests from next door. Their busiest crossing points are a stretch bordering Viet Nam's Tayninh province, the Plain of Reeds due west of Saigon, and an area south of the Cambodian village of Soairieng (see map, preceding page). The three sectors form the "duck's bill" portion of the frontier, which juts to within 40 miles of Saigon.
The Viet Cong roam freely, U.S. military men claim, for some 30 miles inside Cambodia, cache arms and supplies there, maintain small command posts. Conducting themselves as polite guests, the guerrillas rarely even chase Cambodian girls, use their haven chiefly for rest and regrouping. But because South Vietnamese troops sometimes pursue fleeing Viet Cong into their sanctuary—and, according to Cambodia, killed seven Cambodians earlier this month—Sihanouk's delegate charged before the U.N. Security Council last week that his country has been the victim of aggression.
The U.S.'s Adlai Stevenson denied that Americans had anything to do with the latest incidents, retorted that the Communists have used Cambodian territory "as a passageway, source of supply, and sanctuary from counterattack." He proposed some sort of U.N. supervision of the border, which would bring the U.N. into Indo-China for the first time in such a capacity. South Viet Nam's General Nguyen Khanh expressed approval, but it remained to be seen whether Sihanouk would go along.