Word: saigon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Before them the Northerners drove long, miserable columns of refugees, civilians, ARVN soldiers, the old and young, all terrified, struggling numbly south toward Saigon. The Communists shelled and machine-gunned some columns. The refugees stumbled on across the corpses and the dying. From the Danang airfield, the last plane took off with men clinging to the landing gear and stairs. Some who went aloft crouched in the wheel housings were crushed as the landing gear cranked up. Along the coast, ARVN soldiers deserted their families and in some cases shot civilians for a place on a boat...
...toward the end, the Americans tried to evacuate some 240 orphans, and their plane crashed in a paddyfield outside Saigon; only 100 or so survived. That seemed to be the fate of even the best American intentions in Viet Nam. As an early French colonialist reported home from Viet Nam in the 19th century: "Everything here tends toward ruin...
...Diem was overthrown and subsequently slain. Though various accounts linked the U.S. to the coup against the recalcitrant Diem, Lodge always maintained that he had done nothing either to "stimulate or thwart" the overthrow. Lodge resigned in 1964, took part in the presidential election campaign and then returned to Saigon, becoming involved in a peace effort that ultimately failed. He continued to field diplomatic assignments for many more years...
Whatever happens on the substance of foreign policy, 1985 will be a year of heavily symbolic anniversaries. Some are unhappy, signifying American defeat or continuing dilemmas. The U.S. will scarcely be inclined to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the fall of Saigon in April, or the 40th anniversary of the Yalta Conference next month. However little the outcome was intended, at least by American negotiators, that conference led to the division of Europe between Western and Soviet blocs that plagues international relations to this...
...William Westmoreland, former commander of U.S. forces in Viet Nam, tell a very different story. By painstakingly unraveling The Uncounted Enemy, Westmoreland's principal attorney, Dan Burt, is trying to convince the jury that the only public deception was by CBS, not by Westmoreland and the high command in Saigon. Last Tuesday, Westmoreland rested his case in his $120 million libel suit against the network. CBS Lawyer David Boies immediately began the arduous process of piecing the documentary back together in an effort to show that it was true, or at the very least that CBS had every reason...