Word: abandoning
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Suddenly the war in Viet Nam was a big story again. TIME Saigon Bureau Chief Peter Range was hardly back from covering the desperate situation in Cambodia when the South Vietnamese government decided to abandon a large portion of the country in a strategic withdrawal. After a hectic scramble for transportation, Range managed to cadge a seat on a flight to Danang, terminus for streams of refugees from the northern provinces. His eyewitness report accompanies this week's cover story...
Saigon had decided abruptly to abandon much of its territory to the Communist forces, sending long lines of forlorn refugees stumbling southward from northern provinces and the Central Highlands. They were joined by demoralized ARVN soldiers, whose rushed retreat was aimed strategically, and perhaps wisely, at reinforcing the defenses of Saigon and the Mekong Delta...
...home leave in North Carolina recovering from dental surgery-and probably also to show independence of Washington out of pique for not getting more military aid-Thieu did not consult with U.S. officials in either Saigon or Washington in advance of his momentous and daring decision to abandon the provinces. But then again, many of his own military commanders got their first hints of it by reading the Vietnamese newspapers...
...spends more money than he screws out of other people; second, for the miasma of the thirties, the thrill of the moment when you can no longer be sure that the roller coaster you're on is going to carry you up again, and you just lay back and abandon yourself to the pleasures of a swift rocketing downwards...
Within a few hours, Communist tanks had penetrated the outskirts of Ban Me Thuot, forcing some 4,000 ARVN troops to abandon the downtown area. The South Vietnamese provincial commander, Colonel Nguyen Trong Luat, called on the air force for help. Bombing inaccurately at high altitudes to avoid North Vietnamese ground-to-air missiles, the South Vietnamese F-5s and A-37s managed to blow up Luat's command headquarters. Meanwhile, the 23rd Division's forward command post had been destroyed by sapper charges. For a time, the only ARVN communication with the outside world was provided...