Word: saigon
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That push proceeded swiftly and smoothly. On some days, reports spoke hopefully of a near cessation of fighting. In fact, that was an ominous sign: it meant that the NVA was methodically encircling Saigon without encountering much resistance. There was enough fighting, however, to impress Nam Pham, then a college freshman. Every night during that last week of April, he would climb to the roof of his family's house in a Saigon suburb and watch the flashes of bombs and gunfire coming ever closer. Says Pham: "It gave me kind of a weird feeling, watching something you love...
...Saigon, as the NVA closed in, Major General Homer Smith, head of the U.S. defense attacha office, had by now finally got a major evacuation going out of the giant Tan Son Nhut air base just outside the capital. Even in early April, Smith's operation was moving out 500 people a day. April 20, says Smith, "was when we really started to pick up the pace and started moving people out." That was the date when simplified paperwork rules for departure went into effect--and two days before embassy officials tried to arrest Rosenblatt and Johnstone for attempting...
This system had its inequities. Bar girls, waiters and others who could easily find American sponsors in Saigon got out, while villagers who had risked their lives to supply vital intelligence to the Americans were sometimes left behind. General Smith, however, did call in 16 U.S. Marine guards from the embassy to keep Vietnamese army and air force officers from elbowing civilians aside and filling the planes. On April 25 he had to summon an entire platoon of 43 Marines to hold at bay frantic Vietnamese airmen who had climbed over the fence at night...
...April 26 NVA forces had surrounded Saigon. That night ex-President Thieu was persuaded to leave while he still could; Ambassador Martin organized a group of cars to spirit him out of the city to Tan Son Nhut. Snepp, who went along on the ride, half expected Thieu and his American escorts to be hauled out of their cars and shot at some checkpoint by ARVN soldiers incensed at being abandoned. Nothing happened, but the little caravan took the precaution of racing onto the air base with lights out and braking to a skidding stop alongside a runway. Thieu...
...SAIGON IS SHELLED...