Word: bien
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Deadly accurate Communist 130-mm. guns had already neutralized Saigon's huge airbase at Bien Hoa, and SA-2 and SA-7 missiles were trained on Tan Son Nhut airport. A single regiment could easily cut off Saigon's sole escape route to the sea by severing Route 15, leading to the port of Vung Tau. "Every time we blink, the map changes," said one military analyst...
...believe that the Communists are determined to be in Saigon in time for the May 19 celebrations of Ho Chi Minh's birthday. "They want to inherit Ho Chi Minh-grad intact," a South Vietnamese official said sardonically. "Half the industry in the country is situated between Saigon and Bien...
Though President Eisenhower, rejecting his vice president's advice, decided not to give the resurgent French a couple of nuclear bombs, shortly before the fall of Dien Bien Phu, it was the United States that encouraged Ngo Dinh Diem to cancel the nation wide elections to reunite a divided Vietnam that had been called for in the Geneva agreement of 1954. After helping Diem wrest control of the South Vietnamese army, the United States continued to support him as he used it to break up and destroy competing religious-political sects, disband traditional village councils, and force peasants to leave...
...Xuan Loc, a provincial capital only 40 miles east of Saigon, a valiant defense by outnumbered and outgunned government forces finally appeared to be crumbling at week's end. Only 15 miles north of Saigon, Communist artillerymen launched first assaults on the huge South Vietnamese airbase at Bien Hoa. Using 130-mm. artillery with a range of 15 miles, they momentarily disrupted ARVN'S fighter-bomber traffic...
...possible strategy for a political victory would be to strangle Saigon by cutting off its Delta food supply and capturing the key cities and ports (such as Xuan Loc, Bien Hoa and Vung Tau) surrounding it. That might easily create enough discontent inside the capital to force Thieu's ouster or resignation. A new government might be ready to negotiate with the Communists and give them some sort of governing role. French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing has indicated that his country is prepared to use its "good offices" to help in the evolution of a political solution...