The Buildup

Red General Giap last week concentrated eight regular Viet Minh divisions against the 300-mile edge of the Red River Delta. The French, anxiously awaiting reinforcements from Europe and North Africa, still believed they could hold. The position on the eve of the Delta battle: Communists: Giap has deployed two infantry divisions and one heavy-weapons division against the Delta's northern rim; he has two divisions ready in the south.

Giap has also infiltrated the Delta with the equivalent of three more divisions.

Best estimate of the Communist strength: 110,000 regulars, up to 200,000 irregulars.

French: General Rene Cogny has a smaller force--27% French Union (mostly North Africans and Foreign Legionnaires), the rest Vietnamese--but he still possesses superiority in heavy weapons, plus an unopposed air force operating almost on top of its bases. Cogny has regrouped one-third of his army into nine mobile groups, three smaller armored task forces, and a paratroop reserve; but most of his Vietnamese are tied down behind fixed defenses.

Considerations: i) The Communists are almost totally mobile, and may concentrate against any single point; the French must rely upon the heavy counterpunch.

2) Communist morale is high; French morale is shaken; Vietnamese morale is low. 3) The Communists already hold two-thirds of the Delta by day, almost all of it by night; the Delta population--except in the cities, with their anti-Communist refugees--is considered either pro-Communist or neutral.

Under normal conditions, Cogny could not long hold out without substantial reinforcement. The French are still counting on the weather. IndoChina's heavy rains will commence around July i. the Delta will flood, and both sides will have to stick to the roads or contend with a shoulder-high quagmire.

Cogny is regrouping behind an intricate series of rivers and canals, a loosely connected perimeter 100 miles shorter and more easily defensible than his present one; he intends to let the Vietnamese army prove itself by defending the outer zones. Cogny believes he can hold until the dry season and the fall--when he must have certain reinforcements.

Giap has always fought by the classic Mao Tse-tung doctrine of Asian war: "Never fight unless victory is certain"; he must also synchronize with Peking and Geneva. But Giap has perhaps three clear weeks, and apprehensive French eyes are already turning towards a rubble-dust town called Phuly, 40 miles south of Hanoi, and the most vulnerable spot in the Delta. Giap has already eroded eleven of Phuly's twelve outlying defense posts; he has the twelfth under harassment; and from now on, his possibilities are a succession of dangerous "ifs." If Giap attacks Phuly, if he gets it, if Vietnamese and Western morale further crumbles, he might decide to try a big pincer offensive from south and north, designed to cut in between Hanoi and the sea. If Giap can do this, Cogny will have to evacuate Hanoi. These are "ifs" indeed; but though the French still keep up an optimistic front, U.S. military observers on the scene are already talking about "whens."

-- Shamed be he who thinks evil of it.

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