Crisis Leaves Saigon Unruffled

Item

derivative filename/jpeg

363-04771.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-04771

Title

Crisis Leaves Saigon Unruffled

Description

Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about Vietnamese reactions to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, page 2

Transcript

--------------------
- Page 1
--------------------
Page 2
Crisis Leaves Saigon Unruffled
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
The latest shooting inci-
dent in the Gulf of Tonkin.
left few visible marks in
South Viet Nam's capital
yesterday-unlike the crisis
that first broke there just
seven weeks ago.
Although some reports said
American military forces were
supposed to be on a new spe-
cial alert, the streets of Saigon
were even more crowded than
usual, and Americans seemed
to be moving about just as
freely as the Vietnamese, who
were preparing for today's
celebration of the annual
moon festival.
The propaganda mills in
Communist China and North
Viet Nam cranked up, pre- *
dictably enough, but neither
showed any sign of taking
action against the United
States, and the invasion panic
that swept through South
Viet Nam after last month's
Gulf of Tonkin incidents did
not materialize this time.
IN HANOI
In Hanoi, North Vietnamese
Xuan Thuy accused the U. S.
of trumping up the incident
Friday as part of an "imperi-
alist scheme of aggression."
He warned that Washington
"must bear full responsibility
for all serious consequences."
In Peking, Gen. Lo Ji-Ching
observed that his government
"has long ago clearly declared
that any aggression against
the Democratic Republic of
Viet Nam means aggression
against the People's Republic
of China."
Gen. Lo, who is both a Dep-
uty Premier and the Army
Chief of Staff, added that
"the Chinese people know how
to deal with the war mani-
acs." But he made no prom-
ises of concrete support for
Hanoi and no direct threats
against Washington.
In South Viet Nam the flap
surrounding the shooting in
the Gulf of Tonkin may actu-
ally have strengthened slight-
ly the hand of Maj. Gen.
Nguyen Khanh at home. The
Premier seemed more con-
cerned about his country's
running border dispute with
Cambodia than about the
incident at sea.
Gen. Khanh, who put the
country under virtual mar-
tial law after the U. S. cli-
maxed last month's crisis in
the Gulf of Tonkin with air
strikes against North Viet
Nam, said he thought the
shooting Friday was primar-
ily Washington's concern, not
Saigon's.
"We have not received very
clear details yet," the Premier
said. "But we are not sur-
prised, because the Commu-
nists have plans and they
go on with the plans they
have drawn up."
He added that he would
try to find out more later in
the day when he flew to Da
Nang, 370 miles north of the
capital, on & previously
scheduled visit to victims of
a recent typhoon. A U. S.
7th Fleet spokesman said be-
fore the latest shooting in-
cident that a task force was
operating about 100 miles
from Da Nang on the South
China Sea.
Da Nang, only 80 miles
south of the North Vietna-
mese frontier, is a major base
for the American F-101 Voo-
doos and F-102 Delta Dag-
gers flown in during the Au-
gust crisis when everyone
was worried about Commu-
nist retaliation for the U. S.
air strikes. The other big
concentration of the super-
sonic jets is at Bien Hoa,
only 10 miles northeast of
Saigon.
9 CLASHES
The internal Communist
threat was underlined yester-
day by a South Vietnamese
military spokesman's report
that government troops had
clashed with Viet Cong guer-
rillas in tnine separate actions
during the day-evidence of
a big step-up in insurgent ac-
tiivty.
Government casualties-24
dead, 24 wounded and 30
missing-fra outnumbered
Viet Congo losses-five killed
and nine captured-according
to the spokesman.
Three Americans were re-
ported wounded in fighting
yesterday Friday in the guer-
rilla-infested area around Ben
Cat, less than 25 miles north
of Saigon. An American mili-
tary spokesman said 316 afir
sorties had been flown in sup-
port of government troops-
also a sharp increase.
The Viet Cong have re-
sumed their pressure on the
Khanh regime during the
past week after alull during
the coup-and-counter-coup
maneuvering among top army
officers. Nine Americans have
been wounded in combat since
In the capital yesterday,
however, Amercian officials
worked their customary Sat-
urday morning and tok their
usual Saturday afternoon off.
A spokesman pointed out that
few of them knew much about
the Gulf of Tokin incident
because the 7th Fleet chain
of command does not go
through Saigon.
A statement by Le Trang,
North Viet Nam's press and
information chief, explicitly
declared that "no battleship
of any kind from his country
was in the Gulf of Tonkin
when the shootinf took place
Frida. He said the U. S. had
manufactured the incident to
"pave the way for launching
fresh military attacks" on
North Viet Nam.
Hanoi protested the in-
cident in a message to the
Soviet Union and Britain, co-
chairmen of the 1954 Geneva
conference that dismembered
Indo-China. Foreign Minis-
ter Thuy urged "energetic
to
and timely measures
check the U. S. scheme for
renewed war acts against the
Democratic Republic of Viet
Nam.”
A Hanoi message to the
International Control Com-
mission established to police.
the 1954 Geneva agreements
requested an extraordinary
meeting of Canadian, Polish
and British representatives
to look into the "despicable
schemes and acts of provoca-
tion" of the U. S.
An earlier Hanoi broad-
cast said Washington had
concocted the Gulf of Ton-
kin incident "to bolster up
the morale of their hench-
men in South Viet Nam"
and "to secure more political
assets to cope with the Re-
publican party in the present
Presidential campaign."

Date

1964, Sep. 20

Subject

Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Vietnam (Republic); Tonkin, Gulf of; Public opinion; Tonkin Gulf Incidents, 1964

Location

Saigon, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6311

Container

B4, F6

Format

newspaper clippings

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries

Language

English