The path of Vietnamization has been successful.
SO declared Richard Nixon as he revealed on television the details of his secret peace proposals to Hanoi. The swift, scornful reaction to the plan from North Viet Nam made it doubly clear that Vietnamization must work if the U.S. is to succeed in making what the President called the "long voyage home." Radio Hanoi last week dismissed Vietnamization as a "bankrupt program." It is not that by any means, but few would deny that its reliability as a key factor in U.S. withdrawal strategy remains to be proved.
As TIME'S Saigon Bureau Chief Stanley Cloud reported: "If Nixon meant that Vietnamization has been successful on the battlefield, his assessment was premature. During the past two years—the years of Vietnamization—the war inside South Viet Nam has been primarily a war of nerves, featuring mainly sapper attacks and small-scale skirmishes. But not even the occasional battles between main-force units in Cambodia and Laos have been conclusive in any real sense." The first test of Saigon's forces on their home ground is likely to come in the Communist offensive that is widely expected to begin during the current dry season. As combat activity slowly picked up last week, troops uncovered caches of pre-positioned Communist supplies in central South Viet Nam, and surveillance was intensified at the highway checkpoints around Saigon.
Though Vietnamization has not been tested in battle, the process is largely complete, reports Cloud, who has just finished an extensive tour of South Viet Nam's four military regions: "From the DMZ in the north to the U Minh forest in the south, the sunburned or black faces of American G.I.s have been replaced by the delicately carved, pale yellow faces of Vietnamese, who are obliged to carry on the fight. Now, in all but a few corners of the country, the South Vietnamese, trained and supplied by the U.S. and supported by American airpower, are on the line alone."
In size, South Viet Nam's 1,100,000-man military machine is second in Asia only to China's. Saigon's air force is supposed to receive its full complement of 1,200 aircraft before the end of 1973. That goal may not be reached on schedule, but the South Vietnamese already account for 90% of the air activity within their own borders. They also account for nearly 100% of the casualties, both ground and air. During the past few months, ARVN soldiers have been dying at the staggering rate—in view of the low level of fighting—of 200 to 300 a week.
Cowboy Gangs. The new role of ARVN in the war has wrought many changes in South Vietnamese life. On the shabby tin huts outside the base at Cu Chi, which was turned over to the South Vietnamese in 1970, the signs in English that used to hawk steambaths and massage parlors have been only partially covered over by messages in Vietnamese tuned to ARVN needs and tastes: cheap gifts, laundry services and sinh-to, the Vietnamese variation of Orange Julius.