Word: saigon
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...strange trip from Saigon to Winston -Salem
...when children walking on a roadside a few miles away found the footlocker with its lock broken and its contents-papers and notebooks-scattered through the underbrush. Last week the Justice Department disclosed that the documents included top secret copies of communications between Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon from 1963 to 1975, and that the FBI for months has been quietly investigating the car's owner, former Career Diplomat Graham Martin...
Martin was U.S. Ambassador to South Viet Nam from the summer of 1973 until Saigon's capture by Communist troops in April 1975. He was later criticized, most recently by former CIA Officer Frank Snepp in his book Decent Interval, for mishandling the evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese supporters from Saigon. Soon after Martin returned to Washington, he retired...
Much of the emigration is the consequence of Hanoi's efforts to relocate southern urban residents in so-called New Economic Zones?often tracts of uncultivated jungle. Officially, the relocations are voluntary. Says one Communist official: "We try to persuade them." Maybe. But during their Saigon stay, members of the U.S. delegation observed a squad of Vietnamese soldiers, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, descending on Cholon to round up a truckload of ethnic Chinese for no apparent reason...
...whatever means, the Vietnamese government has "persuaded" about 700,000 people to move to the economic zones during the past three years?far fewer than authorities would like. During the same period, Saigon's population has declined from 4.5 million to 3.5 million; Hanoi would like to see it reduced by another 1 million. Many people, however, manage to escape from the New Economic Zones and return to the former southern capital clandestinely. Communist officials view the recidivism philosophically. Says one: "It's natural. Life is very hard in the New Economic Zones. It's even dangerous, since there...