Word: saigon
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Fearful that the enemy is infiltrating along with the refugees, the government is setting up guard posts on the roads leading into Saigon to keep out any additional outsiders. Cyclos (pedicabs) have been banned because the government fears that Communist sappers might use them to transport satchel charges into the city. In an effort to prevent riots or a possible coup attempt, new army orders forbid civilians to congregate in groups on the streets or off-duty soldiers to carry their weapons in the capital. Many Saigonese fear rape and rampage by their own troops as much as they dread...
...many people are selling precious heirlooms to raise money for tickets abroad. The Chinese of Cholon, long the city's most sagacious businessmen, are shuttering their shops and slipping away to the coast, where they hope to find ships that will take them to Malaysia. The scenes at Saigon's banks are reminiscent of the financial panic that gripped Shanghai shortly before it fell to the Chinese Communists a quarter-century ago. Each morning hordes of Saigonese besiege the banks to withdraw their life savings. Almost to a man, Saigon's Indian haberdashers have switched to money...
Officials at the U.S. embassy have literally been overwhelmed by the number of applications. "How many?" pondered a weary consular officer. "Don't ask. I haven't had time to count them." Many Americans in Saigon are marrying their girl friends so that the Vietnamese girls will qualify for the preferential treatment accorded spouses of American citizens...
...threat of attack has caused some Vietnamese in Saigon to turn for solace to sorcery or religion. On Easter Sunday, only a few people attended services at St. Christopher's, the little Protestant church next to the U.S. embassy, and those who did were tense and anxious. In one pew, a young Vietnamese girl and her brother, both refugees and no older than 14, sat alone. She wept openly, and the boy held her hand throughout the service. "Amid great stress and suffering," intoned the Anglican priest, "we come to a celebration of life-baptism." Then he sprinkled holy...
Inevitably, the headlong exodus was interpreted as a political statement by partisans of both sides. Saigon claimed that the refugees were struggling to escape Communist rule; Hanoi attributed the flight to propaganda inspired by the U.S. and South Viet Nam, and claimed that many refugees were forced to flee at gunpoint by panicky ARVN troops...