Word: cong
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...instructions from Hanoi. Even then, it may be a while before the interim leaders can agree on the wording of those instructions. Nor is a quick shift expected on the battlefields of the South, where last week Communist forces staged their heaviest attacks in almost a month. The Viet Cong and North Viet Nam, however, announced that there would be a three-day ceasefire, perhaps this week, to mark Ho's death. There were indications that the allied forces would tacitly follow suit...
...only truly national leader that Viet Nam has produced in modern times?and he will be missed.' In Hanoi, faces were somber and black bands of mourning appeared on thousands of sleeves. A crowd formed before Ba Dinh Congress Hall, where his body lies in state. The clandestine Viet Cong Radio, echoing Hanoi broadcasts, reported that the new wave of attacks in the South last week had been launched "to change sorrow into a revolutionary act after receiving the news of Chairman Ho's death...
...reaction was ambivalent. There was "nothing important" in Ho's death, said President Nguyen Van Thieu. "What is important is whether the North Vietnamese will end their aggressive policies or will end the war." Communist defectors felt that Ho's death would cause deep morale problems among the Viet Cong, who admired Ho hugely. One defector noted that the guerrillas have long dreamed of seeing Ho riding triumphantly into Saigon, which then would be renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Nobody expects the V.C. to lay down their weapons because that dream has dissolved, but their righting spirit could be affected...
Despite the reports of declining infiltration, allied fighting men thus found no shortage of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese fighters. In fact, U.S. headquarters in Saigon places enemy strength at the same level as it was nine months ago: 205,000 combat troops, plus 45,000 administrative and political cadre (see map following page). Powerful enemy forces remain deployed throughout the country, with the heaviest concentrations in the III Corps area, which contains Saigon. While the enemy maintains strong support forces in its Laotian and Cambodian sanctuaries and north of the Demilitarized Zone, few large units have recently crossed into...
...Pentagon is a sorely besieged place these days, and Melvin Robert Laird, the tenth U.S. Secretary of Defense, has frequently found himself fighting off attackers who are nearly as tough and persistent as the Viet Cong. One day recently, mulling over reports from Viet Nam, the latest volley of criticism from Capitol Hill, fresh disputes over strategic weapons and new attacks on the ROTC, Laird had had enough. Thumping his desk, he demanded of an aide: "Aren't we ever going to have any good news? Is it always going to be bad?" He topped that with a resigned scholium...