Word: saigon
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...Paris peace accords "permitted" each side in the Viet Nam War to replace arms on a "piece-for-piece" basis, and Kissinger had publicly committed the U.S. to doing so for its South Viet Nam ally. Although vast amounts of military aid had been appropriated by Congress to Saigon since fiscal 1973 ($4.9 billion worth), the level of replacing each expended or lost military item had not been maintained...
High Road. That controversy is minor compared to the potential divisiveness and discord latent in Ford's insistence in his speech on Congress's role in bringing about the present crisis and its responsibility to provide instant aid to Saigon. Of such stuff are "Who lost China?" poisons brewed in the body politic, even if Ford, as he vowed, would not be the Republican to cast blame...
...barring a sharp turnabout in congressional opinion this week, there seemed to be almost no chance for more military funds for Saigon. "I think the American people and the U.S. Congress figure that $150 billion under five Presidents is enough to spend in that part of the world," said Mike Mansfield in typical understatement. Democratic Senator John L. McClellan, a longtime Viet Nam hawk whose Appropriations Committee would have to approve the military aid request, expressed a prevailing congressional view: "I think it's too late to do any good. Further military aid could merely prolong the conflict and perhaps...
Perhaps the only thing that could alter such harsh and final judgments is evidence from Saigon that the worst fears of the Administration are justified, that the aid is indeed the price and ransom of bringing the Americans out of there safely...
Actually, the initial street reaction in Saigon was that U.S. military aid was on the way. That was probably due to the fact that the Saigon government praised the speech as "encouraging" and a "reaffirmation" of continued American support. More sophisticated Vietnamese were skeptical. Ford, observed one doctor, really meant that "we're on our own. April 19, and then it's over." Commented Saigon's Chinh Luan newspaper: "This speech came to South Viet Nam just as a final touch of a magician seeking to give a few more minutes of life to a dying patient...