Word: outpost
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...phase-down or even quick withdrawal. As it has been for so long, the President's position seems firm and fixed between the extremes. He is determined to stand fast. He is, moreover, determined to hold Khe Sanh, for he believes that the loss of the outpost would allow the Communists to roll from the mountains of Laos right down to the South China Sea. Addressing American sailors on the deck of the 60,000-ton aircraft carrier Constellation last week during a tour of U.S. military facilities, he put his feelings into forceful words. "Men may debate...
...blade on our Achilles' heel at Khe Sanh," says a Pentagon intelligence specialist. "He's sawing away-and we're committed to hold." The blade is also poised above Westmoreland. His reputation-and much more-is riding on the ability of that barren, hillgirt outpost to stand...
...South Vietnamese and Montagnard irregulars and 24 Green Berets, operating out of a deeply dug bunker made of three feet of rein forced concrete and two-inch steel plate, complete with its own ventilation system. As much as any place can be in Viet Nam, it seemed an ideal outpost, immune to artillery attack and so situated that ground troops would form a carpet of corpses if they dared attack up its hillside...
Crucial in a Sense. But Giap had a surprise for Lang Vei: nine Soviet light tanks, equipped with thin armor but powerful guns, the first Communist use of tanks in the entire war. The tanks deployed in classic fashion east and west of the outpost, then rolled right through the camp's wire and up onto the bunker roofs, followed by North Vietnamese infantrymen. "We heard them," says a Green Beret, "but we never thought they were tanks. We thought they were our generator acting up." Soon the Communists started shoveling satchel charges, grenades, napalm and tear gas down...
Under Arthur Krock and James Reston, the Times's outpost in the capital grew into an independent fiefdom, often brilliant but sometimes slack and slow compared with less lofty competitors. Complaints along these lines from New York headquarters were brushed aside almost as a matter of principle. In 1964, Reston acquired the pulpit of a full-time pundit, and was replaced as bureau chief by Tom Wicker, a top reporter, occasional columnist and indifferent administrator...