Word: tannings
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According to intelligence estimates, ten North Vietnamese divisions were gathering in the region of Saigon, awaiting a signal to attack. Communist shelling of the city and of nearby Tan Son Nhut airbase could begin at any time. U.S. Army Chief of Staff Frederick Weyand returned from South Viet Nam to Washington two weeks ago convinced that "the North Vietnamese seek a total military conquest of South Viet Nam." With so many options available to them, they might decide instead to pursue a strategy of slow strangulation, gradually cutting Saigon off from the coast, from the Delta and finally from...
...Communists were not far away. At midweek units of the North Vietnamese army and its Viet Cong allies started probing key government positions in the Saigon area. Often, as at Tay Ninh, 50 miles northwest of Saigon, the attacks were no more than random artillery or rocket barrages. At Tan An, which straddles strategic Highway 4 and is only 20 miles southwest of Saigon, Viet Cong commandos overran the airstrip and held it for eight hours before government troops drove them...
...thing, there is the logistic problem of how to get the Americans from downtown Saigon to either Tan Son Nhut Airbase (five miles distant) or another possible evacuation site, Newport, a cargo area near the port of Saigon. During the rush last week to get home before the special 24-hour curfew was imposed, traffic in Saigon was her-ringboned at every intersection. What then might happen in the midst of the real hysteria that will almost surely come in the capital's final hours...
There is the danger that the Communists will shell the airports. There is also the grim possibility that South Vietnamese forces will turn their guns on Tan Son Nhut, Newport, or even the American embassy's small rooftop heli copter pad if the Americans make a move to evacuate. Given the anti-Americanism that flared in Danang and Nha Trang before they fell, it is hard to say who might pose the greater threat-Communist enemy or South Vietnamese friend...
...Saigon, at least temporarily, after embassy officials promised that he and other bank employees would have equal priority with government personnel if and when it came time to run. Pan American last week managed to operate two scheduled flights into Saigon, even though the airline said that its Tan Son Nhut airport personnel were "trying to rush hundreds of passengers aboard airplanes" and "coping with bayonet-carrying MPs." Thursday's 373-seat Pan Am 747 flight, however, left with only 170 passengers aboard. One reason: some of the remaining Americans were making getaway plans and then postponing them. Explained...