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Meanwhile Nixon, in effect, ordered a resumption of the unconditional bombing of the North. The invasion across the DMZ, he charged, had shattered the so-called "understanding" under which Lyndon Johnson had ordered the bombing halt in 1968. (The North has never admitted acceding to it.) For a "limited duration," which seemed to mean until the end of the offensive, U.S. pilots would be allowed to attack any military targets; before, they could only stage "protection reaction" strikes on antiaircraft sites. The new franchise did not extend to "punitive raids" on targets such as Hanoi and Haiphong. The main objective seemed to be the missile sites massed in a narrow belt above and below the DMZ, where they could extend an air-defense "umbrella" over the invasion force in Quang Tri.
The step-up in the air war would inevitably renew the ugly worldwide image of the U.S. once again clobbering the North from the skies. To counter possible reaction at home and abroad, the White House ordered up a kind of pre-emptive public relations strike that emphasized Communist villainy. Administration officials pressed the view that South Viet Nam had been the victim of a flagrant "invasion" from the North; they also emphasized the enemy's ample Soviet hardware.
At a tough-talking Washington press conference, Laird branded Moscow as a "major contributor" to the war, and blasted the North Vietnamese for "marauding throughout Southeast Asia." Before the U.S. would return to the Paris negotiations, "the enemy would have to draw back across the DMZ." Privately, Administration officials were pleased that neither the Soviets nor the Chinese had reacted sharply to the bombing and the rhetoric; Moscow, like Washington, seemed unwilling to let the fighting get in the way of May's Nixon-Brezhnev summit.
The Proof. The White House saw another possible plus in Hanoi's switch from guerrilla tactics to conventional warfare. By coming out in the open with their heavy armor and artillery, the Communists have made themselves vulnerable to fearsome losses from air attacks. Said one senior U.S. military adviser: "They are going to be hurt badly." Conceivably—but that prophecy points to a crucial element in the war: the continued dependency of the South Vietnamese troops upon massive U.S. air support. Without it, ARVN might well have had to surrender even more territory than it did last week, which would have further reduced its credibility with the civilian populace that has counted upon it for defense.
But can ARVN lose? U.S. military experts are reasonably confident that unless overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, ARVN can handle North Vietnamese regulars. Nixon's criteria for success should not be beyond ARVN'S reach. The President told a press conference last month that he was confident that "the South Vietnamese lines may bend, [but] not break. If this proves to be the case, it will be the final proof that Vietnamization has succeeded."