Word: thieu
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...never came about. The North Vietnamese assault on Ban Me Thuot had caught ARVN defense forces stretched out thinly along a line from Kontum through Pleiku all the way south to Ban Me Thuot along Route 14. In a desperation move, President Thieu ordered the last two regiments of Pleiku's 23rd Division to the defense of Ban Me Thuot. But the North Vietnamese 320th Reserve Division, which was never actually committed to the fighting, set up an impregnable half circle on the western side of the city, forcing the ARVN regiments to take up positions for a counterattack...
...decimation of the 23rd Division robbed Pleiku of its defenses. At the same time, the Saigon government realized that it was badly outgunned in Kontum as well. There are now four North Vietnamese divisions in the Central Highlands. Thieu met secretly in the coastal city of Nha Trang on March 14 with Lieut. General Pham Van Phu, commander of Military Region II. The President decided to take the most drastic of steps-strategic retreat. The four ranger groups defending Kontum were shifted southeast to the coastal province of Phu Yen, to be followed a few days later...
During the evacuation of the Central Highlands, Thieu made another crucial decision in his historic rearrangement of the Vietnamese political map. He flew to Danang for consultations with ARVN'S best field commander, Lieut. General Ngo Quang Truong, and decided to carry out plans that apparently had been drawn up months ago: to pull back the main line of defense from 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...
...Danang itself. These populous cities have economic and military value; they also contain vital facilities such as harbors and airstrips that offer the best opportunity for successful defense. Although most American military experts rejected the enclave strategy when Gavin first proposed it, many of them are now giving Thieu high marks for his strategy of retreat...
Gavin himself, now chairman of Arthur D. Little Corp., a Cambridge think tank, argues that Thieu's plan of retreat actually bears little resemblance to his own original enclave theory, 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...