Word: nguyens
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That set the stage for the final, and almost comically unheroic, scene of the war. NVA Major Nguyen Van Hoa, commanding tank No. 843, a Soviet-made T-54, with six other tanks following, had entered Saigon before dawn. His little column ran into a brief fire fight at the Thi Nghe bridge, knocking out two ARVN M41 tanks. Rolling into almost deserted streets, the column kept going toward its target, the Presidential Palace. But where was it? Says Major Hoa: "The only directions we had were to go through seven intersections and we would find the palace." His column...
...Nguyen Huu An, then an NVA major general, tells a different story. He says he entered the Presidential Palace at 11:30, only to find that "the men who had taken the surrender, Lieut. Colonel Bui Van Thong and Deputy Commander Pham Xuan The, had taken Big Minh to the radio station to read it. Colonel The had drafted the surrender for Big Minh, but when Minh looked at it, he complained that The's handwriting was so bad he couldn't decipher the document. So he asked The to read it to him or write...
...Saigon on April 20, Martin called at the Presidential Palace for a long interview with President Nguyen Van Thieu. The South Vietnamese leader bore no small share of the blame for the impending catastrophe: it was his order to the army to withdraw from the Central Highlands without much of a fight that touched off the final rout. In the last few weeks, he had shuttled from one villa to another, increasingly out of touch with his aides and allies, and with reality. He even speculated that bombing strikes by American B-52s might halt the NVA's onslaught. Hanoi...
Thieu had another caller on April 20: Nguyen Van Toan, commander of the ARVN third corps. Says Tran Can Van, Thieu's Minister of Housing who was at the Presidential Palace that day: "Toan normally swaggered around, but that day he was like a robot, in a trance. I said, 'Hello, General,' but he didn't answer. He kept walking toward Thieu. Thieu was really tough, one of those guys who, if you looked right into his eyes and tried to shoot him, you wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. But that day when Toan came in, Thieu...
Huong's moment in the sun was brief and illusory. The communists had announced in advance that they would not deal with him. Throughout the seven days of his presidency, South Vietnamese politicians and their American and French advisers intrigued furiously to arrange another transfer of power. Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, a former head of government and advocate of dead-end resistance, alternately got the impression from American visitors that he was being urged to stage a coup and fight to the last, or that the U.S. wanted him to smooth the way for Big Minh to take over...