Word: arvn
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...huge B-52s and the smaller, faster fighter-bombers provided no decisive answers for the President. Neither the Nixon Doctrine nor the South Vietnamese army has failed?yet. U.S. airpower has not turned back the North Vietnamese ?yet. If it had prevented an almost certain rout of ARVN, the issue on the battlefields was still in doubt (see story on page 16). A 20,000-man ARVN force led by President Nguyen Van Thieu's personal elite guard, dispatched to relieve An Loc, abandoned the effort 15 miles short of its goal on Highway 13. Late last week...
...them to start talking only by stopping the bombing sorties entirely. Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rogers and Laird insisted that the Commander in Chief's constitutional duty to protect American troops justified the bombing raids. Conceivably, that rationale could cover tactical air-support missions in support of ARVN troops in South Viet Nam, where American forces remain, but it is a thinner reed to lean on to defend bombing the North Vietnamese capital and the country's biggest port...
...Many ARVN units fought well-notably the Rangers and Marines, and sometimes even units of the often-maligned Regional and Popular forces. But the South Vietnamese had yet to mount an effective counteroffensive anywhere. The primary reason was the excessive caution of ARVN generals, who apparently preferred to let airpower do the job rather than risk their troops, even when risks were mandatory...
...north side of An Loc, where most of the civilian population lived, and holed up there against daily aerial bombardment that marked the town's location with a continuous pillar of smoke. The defenders, lacking supplies, could do little to drive them out. At one point a besieged ARVN fire base was down to twelve 105-mm. howitzer rounds. Vietnamese air force helicopter pilots, fearing antiaircraft fire, declined to go in with more. Finally, U.S. Chinooks dropped the needed ammunition and food...
...That left the choice to the North Vietnamese. As long as Minh refused to move, they could leave a small force behind to keep the An Loc relief column pinned down and slip southwest for an attack on the provincial capital of Tay Ninh-to which elements of the ARVN 25th Division reportedly repaired last week in a "tactical retreat" from their position four miles away, even though they had not been attacked. U.S. intelligence estimated that five North Vietnamese regiments in the area had not yet surfaced-and could attack at any time in any of the three provinces...