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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-06579 to 363-06587.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-06579 to 363-06587
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Title
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Article about fighting in the Saigon's streets
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Description
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Original title: "streets", Keever's title: "Communist Launch Mobile Warfare in Saigon", Article draft about continued fighting in the streets of Saigon as the Tet Offensive rages on, for the Christian Science Monitor
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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2020 sag
yy 1jp
streets page (NO MASS / DEEPE)
SAIGON, February 8-Fighting in the streets, alloys
and storefronts of this harried capital is pivoting into a new pattern:
Communist mini-mobile warfare.
This tactica pa tactical pattern is tailspinning the
South Vietnamese government of President Nguyen Van Thieu into
another round of an increasingly grave crisis in the near future.
In a larger timeframe, this tactical pattern is
already succeeding partially in implementing longer long-range
Communist strategy of attrition-to chop off the roots of the government
at the police precinct and small outpost level within the city limits.
#more reuter
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2020 886
Jy 1jp
streets = (Nom ASS / DEEPE).
In short, the Communists appear to be eroding the
government strength from the botoom bottom echelong upwards as a
prelude to overthrowing it at the top in the future.
Mobile warfare, the militi military tactics in which
the Communists semi-conquered tax Vietnam's rice paddies, is now
being implemented in miniature along the streets and an alleys
of Saigon with enough sucess success to appall senior officials here.
Thus far the pattern has jelled in the Chinatown
section of Saigon, called Chol Cholon, where Communist squads,
platoons and one company is establishing a momentary, but mobile
frontline with government police stations and posts and military
units. This Phase Two tactic appears to be an attempt to
establish an equilibrium if or biance
the
balance of forces with
Mobile warfare in the countryside
government strength in the area.
was generally conducted with larger units,
==more reuter
from company strength upwards.
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2020 sag
yy 1jp
streets pex 3 (normass/deepe)
American officials originally predicted the Communists
would be routed from the capital city two days after their sensational
January 30th assault into the city.
H fluD Hit-Fr D-Hi Dc
BUT
Now, the Communists have continued
to maintain consent harrassment in at least three of the city's
nine precincts.
The three critical ones are the sixth, seventh and
eighth precincts, in the Cholon section, most of which includes
lower-class working and residential areas,
canal-side wharves
and warehouses, home industries such as textile spinning, light
industry such as rice wine distilling, the racetrack area, and
the "duck farm" and slaughterhouse areas from which produce from the
countryside is processed and routed for use in the city.
Situated
on the six southern extremity of the capital, these three precincts
arebbeing so critically harrassed by the Communists that commercial
traffice into the food-producing Mekong Delta has been severed.
==more reuter
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2020 888
yy 1jp
streets 4 (normass/deepe)
"We are now faced with the prospect the Communists
can set up a permanent enclave in those three hon Cholon
precincts," one reliable source explained and launch terror raids into othe
parts of the city from there."
"Even worse, the South Vietnamese government is toying
with the idea the only way to solve the problem is to flatten it
with bombs," he continued.
"That is the cowardly way to do it-
with wretching political overtones.
"But, the police can no longer handle the job.
The Americans have never armed the police with heavy enough weapons-
they don't even have basic infantry weapons. And there's not enough
infantry Loops troops to wiggle the Communists out of there.
"Even worse,
there's no good intelligence information
I asked
on how many organized units are in there--or where they are.
four different high-level sources today--and got four different answers."
Some reliable sources estimated one organized Communist
battalion inside the ow I assisted by a wide array of local
New Yor
guerrillas, plus four "fresh"
Communist battalions tucked
around outside the cityd beyond the Suburbs &
==more reuter
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2020 sag
yy x 1jp
streets 5 (normass/deepe)
Another source explained: "If the Communists
can hold those precincts for three to eight weeks,
the results
will be just horrific. It's quite possible the government could
fall in one way or another."
Large sections of Gehl Cholon are barricaded off
by the Vietnamese government with puffballs of concertina wire and
top stop signs.
But, now the Communists have started to barricade
smaller alleys and side streets with water jugs, rain barrels
and the charred remains of tin roofing from previous bombing
raids near An Quang pagoda. These Cam homemade x Communist
barricades become a fluid frontlines AR Resistance WAR FARE
==more reuter
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zozo sag
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streets 6 (normass/deepe)
At night,
the government forces become barricade
BeHinD
ad an island-fortress of barbed wire and pillboxes; the vast sea
of population living between posts are living virtually at the mercy
of the Communists--* reminescent of warfare in the rural areas for years.
From within this sea of population, roving bands of
Communists pounce from government post,
sub-precio precinct
station--and now even the three precinct stations have become targets
along with American officers billets in the area.
Recently, the
eighth precinct headquarters was abandoned by the ranking police officer.
He, along with 25 policement who did not desert him,
set a up a
second line of defense--but the Communists did not attempt to assault
the building and it was later reoccupied.
==more reuter
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2020 sag
yy 1jp
streets
Normass/
s/deepe)
Most
Almost all of these police posts and subprecinot stations have
been harrassed or assaulted in the area--and the Communists are now increasing
the pressure on even the maxx fifth precinct, which includes the heart
of the wealthy Chinese section. Momxnxxmam Some of these Communist
attacks occured during daylight--and set the small posts to flames as
NUMBERS
they overran it. Some posts held out against the mounting Communist
incidents. Government Ranger battalions are regularly dispatched to
the area--and often they get pinned down, or attacked while in a defensive
And A for
Military depots, Archto
position. HAVE
BEEN AHACKED.
Nightly, enough flares are dropped over the heart of
Chinese section "to read a newspaper by," as one source explained.
Occasionally, the mini-
of "Puff the Magic Dragon" C-47 aircraft
- P
or helicopter rockets pounde down to strafe the Communists as they
attempt to cross the canals into the heart of Cholon.
The government
units are protecting the key bridges leading, into the central area BORNE
but the Communists simply line up barges and sampans to form a bridge
across which they can move.
=more reuter
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zozo sag
yy 1jp
8.
streets (Normass/deepe).
While the military officialdom is concerned about organized
companies and battalions of Communist strength, far more worrisome
Chokon Residents
to 10081 mabitants are the local guerrilla and political cadre
People.
who know the e neighborhoods and the residents.
While
hundreds of displaced persons have fled the area to avoid the fighting,
anti-Communists behind
those remaining
are fearful of a Gestapo-like knock on their door
Communist
by these local cadre.
A Snowball ffect
This trend has already set in--and if it snowballs more would
CATAST
be considered Fethal for the Vietnamese government.
One Vietnamese Senator in the elected legislature was
awakened to find the Communists knocking on doors in gh neighborhood
No
fox so they would listen to a propaganda lecture. None Tax
This
the
resident even peeped outside their doors, but the next night the
Senator moved his family and slept with friends.
One Vietnamese army officer repr
reported he
saw
a Communist assinatio assassination squad murder another officer-friend
strolling along the street with his wife and two children.
The
assassinated officer was not in uniform at the time he had been
had
FRe
"fingered" by a Communist who lived two doors away from him for ten years.
Police families in the area hage also been known to have suffered TEST
represi reprisals and assassinations in the area--but statistics are
NUMEROUS
unavailable.
Government intelligence agents--or Chinese working closi
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2020 sag
yy 1jp
streets
✓
(normass/deepe)
Some
e local guerrilla squads are made up predominantly
of Vihm Chinese with Vietnamese citizenship, reliable sources
report--and many of their numbers are highly agr aggressive women,
that HAVE
some of whom worked in the Chinese-owned textile mills in the
Chinse w
Now Been Balo
mam Under government regulations, they allowed to
hold trade union meetings to learn about their jobs--and these have for
years been turning into Goh Communist cell meetings, rather than
pro-government labor sessions, reliable sources report.
The impact of this has been to make Vietnamese suspect
suspicious of other Vietnamese--and under this orust of sund
SUR
JACE.
suspicion lies a cauldron of anti-Americanism which has yet to bubble over.
"This is the time when every Vietnamese has two feet and
two fa faces," a tearful housewife explained.
And, as a newly arrived journalist first a witnessed
the muc mushrooms of so smoke and flames befogging the city, he
scribbled in his notebook, "Is Saigon burning?"
(prohayward: Maybe you'd like to ask Frederick Yu at
details. Beb--
Coo Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to morbumam
az zeepage a profile of Cholon. Might ask Beb about it for
Churck Chuck and An fine. Am relieved John Hughes arriving.
of town Thursday in Saigon area, returning Friday--will file after that.
I'm going out
Yes,
let's do the payments as you suggested on monthly basis with
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Date
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1968, Feb. 8
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Tet Offensive, 1968; Street fighting (Military science)
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B9, F15
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
