Word: saigon
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...Vietnamese extended family is "like a chain letter," stretching to include a virtually endless stream of cousins, nephews, grandmothers and in-laws. One American departed from Tan Son Nhut with 39 "dependents." A U.S. businessman recognized a couple of prostitutes he had seen at the Palace Hotel bar in Saigon and discovered that they were leaving under a new "no-marriage clause"?which meant, in effect, that in the crisis, a departing American can take his girl friend along. They, and thousands of other "endangered Vietnamese," as President Ford had referred to them, were being whisked through the lines...
...Saigon's Central Post Office, crowds clawed their way toward the telegram counter from 8 a.m. until the curfew at 8 p.m. Cable traffic quadrupled to 20,000 messages as the cries for help went out round the world. One man in West Virginia got a typical plea couched in garbled but earnest English: "Please send Red Cross to U.S. embassy in Saigon to help me process paper as a fianc?...
Bullhorns echoed on Unity Boulevard as gray-uniformed cops tried to control the crowds seeking exit visas. Every American firm, bank and news organization was besieged by strangers seeking help to get out of Saigon. "My daughter worked here during Tet," one old woman told the manager of a news bureau as she held up a snapshot of the girl. "Can you help me?" A CBS correspondent trying to reach Hong Kong by telex kept typing: "Can you get me Hong Kong?" The Vietnamese operator down the street kept tapping back...
...trust your uncle? " he was asked. "No," he replied. A group of Indian haberdashers who had made a killing in the lucrative money-changing business made plans to escape by chartering their own Air India flight?in the hope that the plane could still make it to Saigon. Most airlines had already closed down all of their regular operations...
...with time running out, there was no guarantee that the U.S. would be able to remove all of the remaining 140,000 on the list by air. At week's end U.S. planners were reported ready to risk sending the first bargeload of evacuees 70 miles down the snaking Saigon River past the muzzles of enemy guns to Vung Tau. For obvious reasons, details of the plan were a closely kept secret. The sight of 5,000 Vietnamese being hauled away in a single barge could set off exactly the kind of panic in Saigon that Ambassador Martin feared. Worse...