“They’ve succeeded beyond their fondest dreams,” said one Western source quoted by New York Times correspondent Bernard Weinraub even before the forces of the Provisional Revolutionary Government had liberated Da Nang. Since then they have swept through province after province with extraordinary speed.

“A rout beyond our wildest fears,” was how one “Western military analyst” in Saigon described the crumpling of the puppet troops in face of the advance of the liberation forces.

The disintegration and rolling hack of Thieu’s army – trained, equipped, and paid by the Pentagon – constitutes a massive defeat for imperialism. The defeat is irreversible. It marks the end of the road for Washington’s large-scale effort to gain a military beachhead on the Asian continent and to take over the French colonial holdings. It is Washington’s Dien Bien Phu.

The most stunning defeat for U.S. imperialism and its Saigon puppets in the history of the Indochina war is now taking place. In the space of a week a massive retreat by the Saigon army has relinquished more than two-thirds of South Vietnam to the liberation forces, and the consensus among most observers is that worse is yet to come.

After five years of war against the people of Cambodia, the Pentagon and its puppets in Pnompenh seem to be reaching the end of the road. But what will happen when Pnompenh falls? Who are the insurgents?

The White House says it doesn’t know. It bombed and shelled and napalmed them for five years. Now Ford and Kissinger claim they don’t know who to negotiate with. “It is not clear to me that if Lon Nol decided to surrender, he would know where to send the surrender offer,” said one State Department official quoted by the March 1 New York Times.

In a new escalation of its war threats against Vietnam, Washington issued a bellicose statement January 13 warning that North Vietnam “must accept the full consequences of its actions” in “turning from the path of negotiation to that of war.” A State Department spokesman declined to elaborate on what the “full consequences” might be, but more concrete indications of Washington’s intentions were soon provided.

Following the liberation of Phuocbinh, capital of Phuoclong province, by the forces of the Provisional Revolutionary Government on January 7, the hawks in Washington came out in force. Not only did they issue threats, some veiled and some not-so-veiled, but the White House and the Pentagon have set to persuade Congress to step up allocations for the war.

In the last few months South Vietnam has undergone the heaviest fighting since the “cease-fire” agreement went into effect in January 1973.

In the Iron Triangle area north of Saigon, clashes have occurred since May 17, when three militia outposts near Bencat were captured by the liberation forces. Two have still not been retaken. Skirmishes have taken place only sixteen miles from the center of Saigon, and Bienhoa airfield, the largest military airfield in South Vietnam, was said to have been threatened at one point.