Word: saigon
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...South Viet Nam, the swift advance of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops made venturing outside Saigon a dangerous proposition. Yet as days went by, the suffering, disintegration and chaos in outlying areas became at least as important a subject for coverage as anything happening in the capital. "It's getting easier to get a candid view from high-ranking military officers now," said New York Times Correspondent Malcolm W. Browne. "But there is a fatalistic belief that nothing they say or do matters any more." Still, added Associated Press Bureau Chief George Esper, "you have to be present...
Rumor Service. Getting there was becoming ever chancier, as the ARVN collapsed before the Communist onslaught. Some newsmen in Saigon were able to buy their way onto a handful of small planes. Others had to be content with piecing together accounts of the war from eyewitnesses, press briefings (including weekly sessions conducted by the Viet Cong in Saigon under the terms of the Paris accords) and an infinite number of rumors. "Just pick up any hotel phone and ask for rumor service," said one correspondent wryly. Ambassador Graham Martin, never a favorite of the U.S. press corps, has discouraged...
Martin is not alone. As the military situation darkens, newsmen in Saigon sense a rising hostility from the South Vietnamese. The normally bland army newspaper Tien Tuyen (Frontline) last week demanded that the Thieu regime "take strong, hard measures against foreign correspondents" for being "in major part" responsible for Communist gains. As Danang fell, a group of American journalists gave two South Vietnamese marines a lift to the airport. When the marines asked the journalists their nationality, their driver thoughtfully replied that they were English. "That's good," said one of the soldiers. "We're ready to kill...
Taxiing at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Airport one night last week, a World Airways cargo jet was ordered over the radio to hold its position on the runway. "There are V.C. on the airfield," the tower warned. Suddenly, the runway lights were turned off, the field was closed-and the U.S.-bound DC-8, with 58 Vietnamese orphans and World President Edward Daly aboard, fired up its engines and took off in darkness. Said Pilot Kenneth Healy later: "It seemed like the time to go." On the five-hour flight to a refueling stopover at Japan...
...World is seeking a bigger slice of the U.S. commercial-air-travel market-and trying to start a fare war with the nation's big trunk airlines to win it. While Daly was off packing a .38 in Saigon last week, the line petitioned the Civil Aeronautics Board for authority to operate regularly scheduled coast-to-coast flights. Its proposed one-way fare between New York or Washington and Los Angeles or San Francisco: $89 plus tax, or about 25% less than the lowest transcontinental fares on United, American and TWA. Predictably, other airlines announced plans to fight...