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Hué, the ancient Vietnamese imperial capital, is presumed to be a prime target of the Communist invasion. So far, the North Vietnamese have been unable to slip past Bastogne and Birmingham, the ARVN 1st Division bases that guard the approaches to the city. Last week, Hué had a besieged look, nonetheless. No effort had been made to repair the walls and shrines that had been reduced to ruins four years earlier—the traditional period of mourning in Viet Nam—in the Tet offensive of 1968. At the university, faded signs on walls urged: SMASH THE ATTEMPT TO VIET-NAMIZE THE WAR. The students were out in the streets, canvassing for contributions to relieve the plight of 50,000 refugees who swarmed into the city from the north.
Few Clues. "They came by bus, by put-putting Rototillers, aboard army trucks borrowed for an afternoon from ARVN," wrote TIME's Rauch. "Those who had time to pack chose peculiar things to salvage: one family had a refrigerator in a wheelbarrow, nothing else. A lieutenant carried an enormous Sanyo sound system, still in its carton and minus the speakers, strapped to the back of his motorbike. Nearly everyone seems to have a pig. Pigs are strapped onto Honda seats, pigs are tied onto front bumpers, pigs hang in wire cages from tail gates and are slung from poles that peasants and their wives heft onto their shoulders. On the highway, a Jeep carrying six prosperous refugees had tried to pass a slower vehicle, strayed off the tarmac and hit a mine buried in the unpaved shoulder. The explosion blew the Jeep and its passengers clear across the road and into a field. No one even bothered to look at the bodies; like pedestrians avoiding a dog mess, the refugees just skirted the hole dug by the blast and continued on toward safety."
What were the North Vietnamese really up to? There were few clues from the Communists; Mme. Nguyen Thi Binh, the chief Viet Cong negotiator in Paris, spoke conventionally of overthrowing "the repressive regime of Saigon" and establishing a goverment of "national concord" All that intelligence officers know for sure is that Hanoi has planned a five-phase offensive for 1972.
The first two phases, described in captured documents as terror in the countryside and attacks on militia outposts, began after the Tet holidays last February. Evidently, last week's offensive began Phase 3: an effort to pin down South Vietnamese forces where they are weakest, inflict casualties, and discredit Vietnamization. The final phases are at tacks on major cities (quite possible) and a general uprising leading to the fall of the Thieu regime (farfetched).
In opening a multifront offensive, as they seemed to be doing last week, the Communists could whiplash the ARVN command by reducing the pressure in one region, only to step it up suddenly in another. The idea would be to force reserve units to move and thus to weaken vital areas. Saigon last week was all but stripped of its reserves; even the presidential palace guard was sent north to the action.