Word: kontum
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While the South Vietnamese have fought bravely in some sectors, they have caved in elsewhere. The North Vietnamese, heavily supplied by the Soviet Union, are driving hard for Kontum in the Central Highlands, toward Quang Tri near the coast, and are menacing Hue. As the Communists approach urban centers, the U.S. faces another painful decision: whether to continue its air and artillery support at the cost of civilian lives in the cities. The open aggression has signaled a third Indochina war, and it could drag on as inconclusively, as destructively, as hopelessly as the earlier two wars that engaged first...
...Central Highlands had been forecast as long ago as last December. But when North Vietnamese troops and upwards of 50 tanks finally struck in force last week, they met shockingly weak resistance from the poorly led ARVN troops, who abandoned a string of 14 firebases northwest of Kontum in what Saigon euphemistically called a "tactical withdrawal." At week's end U.S. advisers remaining with the slender garrison at Kontum were ordering supplies for a two-day siege -two days because, as one adviser said, "You're never going to get enough ammunition into this place to give...
ARVN casualties were certain to increase still more with the opening of a third front in the Central Highlands. There, the Communists had waited until Saigon pulled a seasoned airborne brigade out of the Kontum area and dispatched it to the hard-pressed provinces near the capital. That left a U-shaped string of firebases on the ridges overlooking the eerily quiet approaches to Kontum and along the Poko River Valley largely in the hands of one of ARVN'S weaker divisions, the 22nd...
...North Vietnamese attacked bases northwest of the city of Kontum yesterday. A U.S. official said the highlands provincial capital must be held at all costs...
Some military authorities believe that the North Vietnamese will not attack Kontum until there is had weather. Bad weather would blunt U.S. air power. Others say that the North Vietnamese are steadily consolidating and regrouping their forces and will attack when this move is complete...