What Makes Charlie Run?

Flying in a small, slow, unarmed prop-driven plane from Saigon in the south all the way to Danang in the north without once being shot at is pretty good proof, to this correspondent at least, that the situation is not as bad as it has been made out to be. Flying even lower and slower from Danang to Hue in a chopper, hovering over rice paddies and villages and closely following the contours of the land in order to draw fire, and not getting any, reinforces the impression that the Vietcong cadre is still recovering from 1968 and that much-maligned program, Vietnamization.

Let us consider what is actually happening in Vietnam right now, as distinguished from the impression the outside world has formed.

Flying in a small, slow, unarmed prop-driven plane from Saigon in the south all the way to Danang in the north without once being shot at is pretty good proof, to this correspondent at least, that the situation is not as bad as it has been made out to be. Flying even lower and slower from Danang to Hue in a chopper, hovering over rice paddies and villages and closely following the contours of the land in order to draw fire, and not getting any, reinforces the impression that the Vietcong cadre is still recovering from 1968 and that much-maligned program, Vietnamization.

Let us consider what is actually happening in Vietnam right now, as distinguished from the impression the outside world has formed.