Word: saigon
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...Quang Tri and probably Thua Thien provinces down to the coastal city of Danang. General Truong had already lost the backbone of his defense the week before when Thieu ordered 4,000 men of South Viet Nam's crack airborne division back to their original base headquarters near Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport. Thieu felt it necessary to beef up the defense of the capital, just in case the Communists decided to concentrate their forces on Saigon itself. The transfer of the troops sent a shock wave through the streets of Hue. Without a government order...
...Saigon's strategy was clear: to cut off the exposed limbs of the Central Highlands and the northernmost provinces in order to save the body of South Viet Nam. From now on, as one Pentagon analyst put it, "a truncated map of South Viet Nam" will have to be drawn. It will include most of Military Regions III and IV-the eleven provinces around Saigon and the 15 provinces of the Mekong Delta region farther south-along with various pockets of control dotting the coast as far north as the expected new line of defense at Danang...
...which was designed as a first tactical step toward extricating U.S. forces from Viet Nam. Gavin is pessimistic about the chances for success of the South Vietnamese strategy. "The difficulties of trying to keep control are so obviously beyond Thieu," he told TIME last week, "and the penetration of Saigon by the North is so great that what I get is a very gloomy picture of Saigon's ability to save itself...
Still, the arguments for abandoning the provinces make some military sense. All the surrendered provinces were heavily infested with Communist forces. In the Central Highlands, only the provincial capitals remained firmly in government hands; the surrounding areas had long since fallen into Communist hands. Thus the retreat should allow Saigon to mass its units better in concentrated areas. As it was, ARVN forces were strung out across the country, firing away at dubious targets from thin lines-with few reinforcements available to mount consistent offensives...
Despite these grim possibilities, there were those last week who held to an optimistic interpretation of Thieu's great retreat. Many analysts, especially in the Pentagon, felt that Saigon had realistically given up provinces it was bound to lose anyway, shortened its supply lines, consolidated its forces and prepared a more defensible perimeter. Beyond that, it could be argued that the Communists would have to divert considerable effort and energy to consolidate their hold on the surrendered provinces...