THE NATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400240003-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 17, 1999
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: April 9, 1965
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

ST,19TSPE ?*7
THE WEEKLY NEWSMAGAZINE
April 9, 1965 Vol. 85, No. 15
"Outrages like is
For at least three weeks Saigon had
een rife with rumors that a Commu-
nist suicide squad was going to try to
low up the U.S. embassy in reprisal
or air attacks on North Viet Nam. Last
eek the Communists made the. rumors
ome true.
It happened on a clear, hot morning.
ore than 150 embassy staff people
ere at work inside the five-story build-
ng. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor was
n Washington for talks with President
ohnson; left in charge was Deputy
mbassador U. Alexis Johnson. Out-
ide the embassy, a sentry unit of six
aigon policemen ambled conversation-
illy along the sidewalk.
At 10:46 a.m., a man on a Lambret-
a motor scooter buzzed past the cops,
irked across the street from the em-
assy. Moments later, a Renault Fre-
ate sedan drove up, pulled up to the
urb about four yards from the build-
ng. The driver got out, complained
bout having motor trouble. When a cop
old him to move on because he was
locking traffic, he opened fire with a
istol. The Lambretta rider also began
lasting away. The Saigon cops shot
ack; the car-driving terrorist was rid-
led, and the scooter rider fled for his
ife. One policeman fell, wounded in
he stomach. Hearing the gunfire, em-
assy workers hurried to peer out the
indows. They got there just in time to
cc a plume of white smoke curling
from a rear window of the car. Then
250 lbs. of dynamite, crammed inside
he car, exploded.
Glistening with Blood. Every win-
ow in the embassy burst inward.
Jagged glass bits blasted like a blizzard
of razor blades through every office.
The ground floor was turned into a
nee-deep mass of rubble. Parked cars
spun into the air and landed in twisted
heaps. A crowded Chinese restaurant
across the streef collapsed in smoke and
flames, its floor strewn with still bodies
and flopping forms of the wounded.
Dozens of pedestrians in a nearby shop-
ping district were flattened by the blast.
Where the car had been, there was only
a smoking pit, two feet deep. Three
charred bodies lay near by, and bits of
pulverized flesh littered the street.
from the wreckage. They became
screams. Sirens began to wail in the
ble from the embassy, blood streaming
from their faces and arms, their hair
glistening with blood and tiny shards
of glass.
Deputy Ambassador Johnson had
been in his fifth-floor office. Immediate-
ly after the blast, he appeared at the
shattered entryway, calmly directing
first-aid operations and bringing the
first order out of chaos. His face was
cut and blood dripped on his shirt. A
Navy enlisted man lay on a stretcher
while a medic held his hand over a
gaping wound in the sailor's throat. A
man rushed down the street cradling
the corpse of a little boy in his arms.
Many of the wounded who could walk.
left bloody footprints on the pavement.'
Two Americans were dead. Embas-
sy Stenographer Barbara Robbins, 21,
who had come to Saigon from Denver
six months before, died at her desk, a
ballpoint pen still clutched in her .hand.
Navy Storekeeper 2/C Manolito W.'
Castillo, 26, a clerk at the embassy, was
AP
killed in the doorway of the building
when the bomb exploded. Three Saigon
policemen were blown to bits. In all,
22 persons, most of them innocent Vi-
etnamese pedestrians, were killed, and
190 were hurt. The motor-scooter driv-
er had raced out of the blast area, was
shot twice and arrested by pursuing po-
lice. He claimed he was a hired helper,
that he had been paid $139 by the Viet
Cong to offer getaway transportation
for the bomber.
Same Program. When the news got
to Washington, it was evening. Presi-
dent Johnson was in the midst of mak-
' ing a champagne toast at a White
House dinner when an aide handed
him a small brown envelope. While a
segment of his toast was being trans-
lated into French for foreign guests,
the President read the message. His
face tightened, and he stumbled slight-
ly over his words as he continued the
toast. Even as he talked, Johnson
handed the . note to Secretary of State
Dean Rusk, seated near him. Rusk read
it and quickly left the room. Later the
President, in quiet fury, circulated word
of the bombing among his guests.
Next day the President issued a blis
tering statement: "Outrages . like this
For a moment ere Was silence. will onl einfg[ce the deter,~,irlatjQrl o o,~g T Y R s~ uER
Aeld.n
Then the first pathe udJrIM169nd lOlil4O r OEadC p1S?rill#IMroI'fiU j ~ 6i j ence. ,
C;intinued
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000400240003-5
ment to continue and to strengthen
their assistance and support for the peo-
plc and government of Viet Nam."
Johnson, Rusk, Defense Secretary Rob-
ert McNamara and Foreign Policy Ad-
viser McGeorge Bundy decided not to
launch any massive attack against
North Viet Nam in specific retaliation
for the bombing. After a long session
with the President, Ambassador Taylor
said: "We are simply going to stay on
our program of doing what we did be-
fore. We've just got to do what we have
been doing more effectively."
Through the week, U.S. and South
Vietnamese forces continued to do,
what they had been doing-hitting
North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong
with bombs and ground fire (see THE
WORLD). To make the U.S. commit-
ment more effective, the President
agreed with Taylor's request to send
more men, money and equipment into .
the war. Several thousand more U.S.
troops would be dispatched to beef up
the 27,500-man contingent there noW,
and another 160,000 men would be
added to the existing South Vietnamese
military force of over half a million.
Should the Red Chinese choose to inter-
vene with ground forces, some 350,000
U.S. troops could be thrown into the
war, according to a longstanding Ad-
ministration contingency plan.
Twittering Doves. Meanwhile, U.S.
air strikes were intensified-and ex-
tended farther to the north. There was
a considerable twittering among the
doves, and complaints that the bomb-
ings had so far produced no tangible
results. Before he returned to Saigon
at week's end, Taylor replied to them:
"I think that it is premature, too early
to see any great visible sign. What
I do see is a very notable, increase
in morale and confidence." The Pres-
ident, too, remained adamant, told a
press conference: "I think that we are
following a course of action that is
calculated to best represent the inter-
ests of this nation, and beyond that
I see no good that would flow `from
prophecies or predictions."
The U.S. course of action may have
brought at least one result: there were
new indications all last week that the
Hanoi regime might be softening to-
ward the idea of negotiating a cease-
fire and, eventually, a full settlement
that might not require a complete pull-
out of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia.
But the negotiating table remained a
long way off. Viet Nam was still a
bloody, violent battlefield, and U.S.
forces were committed to an ugly war.
Last week alone, seven Americans
died in combat. And Saigon was rife'
with new rumors to the effect that
,Viet, Cong suicide teams were taking
aim on their next target: the six-story
,
glass-walled United States Information
Service building.
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APR 9 196S
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SOUTH VIET NAM
Taking the Initiative
11,N The U.S. bomb line was moving slow-
ly closer to North Viet Nam's capital of
Hanoi. Sweeping in from their carriers
in the South China Sea, U.S.. Navy
fighter-bombers struck twice at a vital
bridge link on the coastal highway just
65 miles south of the capital. The
bombs and rockets that smashed the
span marked the first time U.S. air
power had hit a purely strategic target
in North Viet Nam.
As the Navy planes knifed through
the cloud cover high over the shat-
tered bridge, they were challenged by
a trio of Communist MIGs, in their
first appearance since the air strikes
over North Viet Nani began two months
ago. The Red fighters made one in-
effectual pass at the Navy planes, then
disappeared into the haze.
That encounter may have indicated
that Hanoi's Red rulers are worried
that their hard-won light-industrial com-
plex-located between Hanoi and the
port city of Haiphong-might be the
U.S.'s next target. Other U.S. strikes
last week hit at half a dozen air-defense
radar titations throughout North Viet
Nani, blinding the electronic eyes that
might later be used to direct Commu-
nist interceptors against attacking
American.. forces. Within South Viet
$? Nam itself, U.S. jets and prop-driven
fighter-bombers flying from ships and
shore continued their pounding of the
Communist Viet Cong.
Attacks by Night. The noise of air-
plane engines and the violence of the
Viet Cong's sneak attack on the U.S.,
embassy in Saigon (see THE NATION)
were in sharp contrast to a curious
silence on the ground in South Viet
Nam. For nearly a month the Viet
Cong "main force" has been lying low,
refusing to tangle with the South Viet-
namese army. Communist-provoked in-
cidents have dropped from a peak of
1,020 a week during December (long
before U.S. air strikes began) to 400 a
week last month. In the critical Mekong
Delta, South Viet Nam's prized and
hotly-contested "rice bowl," night at-
tacks by the Viet Cong slumped to the
lowest level in years.
What was happening? Were the Viet
Cong finally being hurt by the air
strikes? Or were they merely regroup-
ing for harder and deadlier actions in
the weeks to come? No one could say,
but the Viet Cong follow Mao Tse-
tung's combat-tested guerrilla formula:
retreat in the face of superior force,
choose your own time and place for
battle, and cultivate patience as if it
were rice.
Bloody Scuffle. From Danang to the
Mekong Delta patience was growing
thin Iasi. week on both sides. Taking
SOUTH VIETNAMESE MARINE CAUGHT IN DELTA AMBUSH
In the rice bowl, patience is 'a crop-and the crop is thin.
the initiative, some 3,000 South Viet- palm), while behind them flew C-123s
namese marines slogged through 38 dropping drums of fuel oil.
slimy canals south of Saigon batting The forest went tip in flames-pre-
away leeches even as they caught slugs cisely as U.S. planners had figured.
from Communist snipers. The toll was Then came the sort of absurd disaster
light-18 Viet Cong killed-but it was for which the Viet Nam war has be-
the first government offensive since De- come famous. The intense heat of the
cember in the delta, and U.S. advisers Boiloi boil caused the wet, tropical air
hoped it would encourage the govern- overhead to condense into giant thun-
ment troops to undertake bigger and derclouds. The "thermal convective
more effective pushes not only in the condition," as U.S. Air Force mete-
delta, but throughout the country. orologists later defined it, triggered a
The Viet Cong were clearly willing to drenching downpour that doused the
fight when they were engaged, whether forest fire and left Boiloi's Viet Cong
in the delta or farther north. Up in safe and unsinged in their caves.
Quang Tin province, near Danang, a The operation may have backfired,
helilift of South Vietnamese paras, hop- but still, the initiative in the air and on
ing to provoke a big battle, made con- the ground in Viet Nam last week re-
tact with the Communists in a slough of mained on the side of the government
serried hills, scuffled briefly but blood- forces.
ily, then withdrew to regroup. The Viet _
Cong did not press their advantage, so
the government troops waded in again.
By week's end more than 300 Reds had
been killed. Government losses were 34
dead-plus two U.S. Marine Corps ad-
visers killed by ground fire.
Operation Backfire. Almost simulta-
neously, South Vietnamese and U.S.
forces launched another key offensive
in the Boiloi Forest, 48 square miles of
Communist stronghold 25 miles north-
east of Saigon. Leaflets were dropped
on the cave-infested region, warning all
noncombatants to get out fast. More
than 2,000 did. Then planes saturated
the woods with chemical defoliants.
After a few weeks of sunny, wind-
scoured weather, the Boiloi Forest was
tinder-dry. Last week U.S. bombers
swept in with loads of Incendijel (an
incendiary compound derived from na-
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APR 9 1965