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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04829.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04829
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Title
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Ghoulish Air of Saigon, City In Death Grip
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about the continued effects of the Việt Cộng's encirclement campaign against the city of Saigon, page 6
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Date
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1965, Jul. 5
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Subject
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Saigon (Vietnam); Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Guerilla Warfare; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Campaigns--Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Seige warfare
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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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Container
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B4, F6
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Format
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newspaper clippings
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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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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
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extracted text
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6
Ghoulish Air
Of Saigon, City
In Death Grip
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
Saigon is beginning to be a capital without a country.
It is beginning to suffer visibly from strangulation in
;low motion-but it is not yet being starved to death.
"The Viet Cong are putting the squeeze on Saigon," one
ITietnamese intellectual who had once served with the Comnunists explained. "But they won't go to the breaking point
;o starve Saigon-until they are ready to seize power. And
;hat is several years away."
Saigon is the hub for five main .road arteries plus the
11ational railroad.
Route No. 1 and the national railroad running northward for 400 miles has been cut for six months, as the
Viet Cong and a devastating flood combined to sever the
country, creating a runaway inflation of prices in the
~orthern provinces.
A second road leading northwesterly to Cambodia has
a.lso been cut for months.
A third road linking Saigon to the sea and to the popular beaching resort of Cap St. Jacques is open only at the
pleasure of the Viet Cong, which creates a shortage of salt
in the city by restricting transportation from the, salt
centers near the sea. High-class Vietnamese and French
residents complain bitterly when the Viet Cong will not let
them pass-by paying "road taxes"-to spend a weekend on
the beaches.
A fourth road leading directly to the high plateau has
been cut for months. It has been the scene of so many
ambushes that American GI's call it "bloody Route 14."
A fifth leads to the rich Mekong Delta region. The Viet
Cong place "road taxes" on rice, charcoal and fish coming
into Saigon through this route but have yet to snip completely the roads, bridges and ferry crossings. ';['hat will
come later. But at this time Saigon still survives on the
<:harcoal and other produce the Viet Cong allow to flow. ·
·
The electric power lines leading from a newly constructed multimillion-dollar hydroelectric dam, built by
the Japanese as part of the war reparations program, have
recently been cut by the Viet Cong. Now electricity is virtually rationed in Saigon, with certain blocks being blacked
out each night. Both big commercial companies and poor
families have stockpiled candles or kerosene lamps. Restaurants serve dinners tn t he eerie gaslight atm9sp!J.er..,,_,.~!lili:.-,
previous century,
AIR OF FANTASY
There is a ghoulish air of fantasty and unreality in
Saigon. Saigon appears to be a seat of government; instead
. it is being governed. It has the aura of prosperity; yet a
rice crisis develops-and housewives and Chinese speculators hoard the precious white grain-once the Premier
mentions dropping the price.
.
It appears to be a center of anti-Communist resistance ~
yet in the invisible subversive war, the number and influence of the Communists are growing politically within the
city. It ls the anti-Communist families-and not the proneutralist or pro-Communist ones-that are afraid of being
kidnapped or assassinated.
"The Western ideit is to have Saigon as the capital and
use it to control the countryside," a Vietnamese intellectual
explained. "The Viet Cong idea ls the opposite. They use
the countryside to surround the towns and ultimately seize
control of the towns-but Saigon will be 'the last of the
towns to be seized."
Under President Ngo Dinh Diem, who ruled from 1955
to 1963, power was centrallzed in Saigon-specifically tn
the Presidential Palace. Since his fall in November, 1963,
however, power and leadership have fragmented and
crumbled. The ministries in Saigon no longer are linked
strongly to their provincial representatives.
"Never belleve that these neon lights and this pretty
middle-class llfe is Viet Nam," one high-ranking Western
diplomat explained. "It ls the llttle people wearing black
pajamas in the jungle that control the country, and Saigon
is simply reacting to these waves of pressure splashing in
from the countryside."
Saigon is an upside-down city. American pilots, who
risk death during their daytime f!lghts, enjoy excellent
French food and wines, while lovely Vietnamese singers
ha11nonize In love songs. From the root of Saigon's hotels,
where businessmen meet for cocktail parties and dinners,
the bright flashes of machinegun fire can be seen in the
distance.
It is a city of instant sex and sin. American and
Vietnamese troops relax here, escaping from their daytime
trials of the war.
·
The Viet Cong, however, use Saigon as the economic
an~ Political frontline--to create political divisions among
political leaders, to gain intelligence information from
Vietn~mese colonels or bargirls; to buy drl.\gs or black
material for uniforms.
The city once known as "the Paris of the Orient" formerly sparkled with sidewalk cafes along the tamarindlined streets. But by 1962, with the influx of American
advisers, the sidewa1k cafes disappeared; they were too good
a t arget for a Viet Cong grenade. .
Not many Vietnamese like to walk near American
installations. Vietnamese taxi drivers refuse to drop pas11Sengers near them. Since the Viet Cong terrorist bombings
"l~·etnamese have learned to s,tay away from places usually
'f re
ted by Americans.
Ye despite the tensions, terrorist incidents, small
,:,roblems of rice, Saigon is a privileged city-and considers
'seU such. The impact of the real war of the countryside
noted only on the obituary pages, which daily 11st the
~olences to he victims' f mllies.
