The Final Tragedy of Vietnam

...At what stage of the war...

...Truong and his First Division would have been totally defeated, but for the efforts of U.S...

...In fact, the wealthiest families of Hue and Da Nang had, by and large, abandoned their homes several years ago for the security of the capital...

...It is my theory (everyone has his pet theory on Vietnam) that the "corruption factor" exercised tremendous influence over President Thieu's decision to evacuate the highlands, and then over his indecision in the face of the threats on Da Nang and Hue...

...Not that they ever fully believed the ruling clique in Saigon, yet at least it seemed to stand for stability and security...

...So what does the United States really owe the South Vietnamese Establishment...

...Only the General did not actually surrender...

...Donald Kirk is an Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City...

...Congress had provided the aid they said they needed...

...This provincialism, as it were, was a manifestation of Saigon's isolation...

...It is a grim irony that our leaders should have thought the highly publicized airlift of several thousand orphans would help relieve suffering or even assuage the conscience of the American people...

...And in the spring of 1972 the same "unreliable sources" were glad to tell you the U.S...

...Is there any way to avoid the guilt...

...Probably nothing more than free flights out of the country...

...Today this same factor may operate in reverse, in the sense that the corrrupt network of officials surrounding Thieu will now feel compelled to support the kingdom of influence-peddling and illicit payments on which they base their lives...

...Then there are relatives, friends, members of minor political organizations, not to mention the million or so Catholics who fled from North Vietnam after the signing of the Geneva accords in 1954...

...Should they-these people you might meet at any roadside food-stand, the ones no one would think of airlifting to safety-feel betrayed...

...We are caught in the abyss not only of our military, political and diplomatic failure but of our betrayal as well...

...And which betrayal was more serious, that of refusing to fight for oneself, or of abandoning millions of people-many of whom will surely suffer-to Communist rule...

...Then he literally deserted his fleeing troops for the comforts of an air-conditioned bunker in a rear base...

...Marines, who fought block-by-block for four weeks to oust the enemy...

...During the 1968 Tet offensive, for instance, coffeehouse rumor-mongers were saying the United States had rigged the attacks as a pretext for withdrawal...

...Many Americans would no doubt prefer to run out on these several million people, exposing them to the cruelty of a conquering army...

...In the end, there is no real way out of the conflict...

...The question of betrayal, though, goes much deeper than Washington's obligation to an enervated regime...

...The arms, planes, ammunition, luxury items, trucks, and cars were sometimes channeled through Da Nang, Qui Nhon and Cam Ranh, but the bulk came into Saigon...

...Now we are entering a new phase of the Vietnam tragedy and most of the victims, as usual, will be average Vietnamese...

...If, in 1968 and 1972, many South Vietnamese were still willing to trust the United States, today you would hardly find a man in Saigon not ready to condemn the great American "benefactor...

...they may get even richer than before, when they had to maintain a truly national Army...

...All clipped military mannerisms as he pointed with his swagger stick at dots and circles on a map, Truong assured me his troops could fend off a North Vietnamese threat against Hue...

...Yet who really betrayed whom...

...Were these suspicions merely paranoic, or, as is so often the case with such accusations, was there a fundamental truth in them...

...In 1972, there was the general commanding the Third Division, the outfit that was supposed to hold the bases south of the old demilitarized zone dividing the two Vietnams...

...He simply dee-dee'd-the Americanization of the Vietnamese term for running out...

...Thus, despite the high praise Truong received from his sycophantic American advisers, I have always winced at any mention of his name-and thought it fitting that he, elevated to command the entire northern region, should have been the man to surrender the area to the Communists almost without a fight...

...Why, on the one hand, should we pay to prop up an establishment whose system of corruption is at total variance with our democratic ideals...

...At times you couldn't find a politician or Army officer in Saigon who wasn't deeply suspicious of America's basic intentions...

...Reasons exist for thinking the South Vietnamese soldiers would fight more effectively within this perimeter than they did along the northern and central coasts-the most important being that there is nowhere left for the Saigon elite to run...

...There is no way of fulfilling our original goals...

...By continuing the level of military aid agreed to by Congress before President Ford's requests for supplementary support, we might insure the Saigon Army's control of a tightly defined fiefdom, with a 50-mile radius, for a limited period...

...One answer is that we could probably still buy time for those trapped in the Saigon enclave covering the area from Tay Ninh on the west to Vung Tau on the coast, to Binh Hoa on the north to Mytho and Cantho in the Mekong River delta region...

...He not only retreated from along the DMZ but a month later ordered the withdrawal from Quang Tri before it was really necessary...

...This government is not perfect," was a remark I frequently heard in Vietnam, "but it is better than any other we have had...

...For the sight of President Ford cradling a Vietnamese infant in his arms only underlined the weakness, the indecisiveness of our national policy...

...Yet one already hears of executions in Da Nang and the highlands, and more will doubtless follow...

...The history of the war could be written in terms of inadequate, cowardly performances by South Vietnamese officers-more often than not the very ones American advisers lavishly praised...

...But in my own mind the basic conflict persists...

...In view of Truong's performance, and that of hundreds of South Vietnamese officers like him, can anyone really accuse the Americans of betrayal...

...The American money, after all, arrived there...

...An assumption behind the evacuations of the highland centers, even the flights from Hue and Da Nang, was that a safe haven remained for those able to get out...

...From the point of view of the typical Saigon desk-bound military administrator, the problems of coordinating shipments-and pocketing fringe benefits-have been infinitely simplified...

...The specter of hordes of refugees, most of them finally trapped in regions overrun by the North Vietnamese and Vietcong, seems to be the final proof of a U.S...

...How, on the other hand, can we escape our commitment to the mass of Vietnamese still dependent upon that system for some semblance of security...

...In wrestling with these questions, a correspondent who reported the war inevitably adduces special memories and incidents...

...I remember talking in January 1968 to Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, then commander of South Vietnam's First Division, described up to the moment of its final failure as "the best in the South Vietnamese Army...

...The rich will continue to get richer in Saigon...

...How much better would the General and his cohorts have fought if the U.S...

...sellout...

...There was also a feeling among certain leaders that the rest of the country didn't matter that much...

...There is not even a way to salve our national conscience...

...When the North Vietnamese finally took Da Nang, by then swollen with more than a million frightened refugees, he was safely on board a ship off the city's coast...

...had encouraged that offensive to hasten the conclusion of peace talks...

...All have reason to fear what will happen to them after a Communist victory...

...Everybody has betrayed them-the Americans who incessantly propagandized them with a Utopian view of democracy, and their own leaders as well...

...Beneath the top sliver in Saigon are several million Vietnamese who one way or another have served the Thieu government-as soldiers, bureaucrats, merchants...

...Two weeks later an entire North Vietnamese division occupied the city, including much of the sprawling old citadel that served as the General's headquarters...

...And for America, this is the final tragedy of Vietnam...

...Thus, from the point of view of immediate success or failure, continued American aid will not really be "wasted...

...If, near the end of the war, we are aiding a handful of babies, a marginal percentage of the children left without parents, we remain guilty of betraying all those who, for widely varying reasons, placed their hopes for personal survival in American hands...

...The answer is Yes...

...Never again will customs officials in Da Nang be able to demand quid pro quo kickbacks from shippers, from government employes, from a coterie of middlemen the American public never knew about...