Word: saigon
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...that's not an all-out offensive, I don't know what is," said one American official in Saigon last week. He was referring to the latest outbreak of fighting in South Viet Nam, which the U.S. Defense Department, at least at first, did not seem to regard as particularly serious. The South Vietnamese military, understandably, took a grimmer view. For the first time in a year, the ARVN high command revived (at 3:30 p.m.) the once-famed "5 o'clock follies"-the daily military briefing for the 60-odd foreign newsmen presently in Saigon...
...week's end, the Communists announced that they had captured the capital; Saigon admitted only that the enemy forces had not been dislodged-but conceded that two-thirds of the city had been severely damaged...
...three base camps, thereby threatening Quang Duc province and its capital of Gia Nghia. Still farther south, in Military Region III, the North Vietnamese tightened the pressure on another embattled provincial capital, Tay Ninh (TIME, Feb. 17), by trying to cut Route 22, which connects it to Saigon...
...Nonetheless, the Communists are in a more threatening military position than at any time since the signing of the Paris Accords. If the Communists successfully hold Ban Me Thuot, the city would become the second provincial capital to fall this year. That would be a major psychological defeat for Saigon. In addition, the Communists' scattershot assaults along Route 14 may enable them to consolidate their hold on the entire strip of mountainous territory that borders on Cambodia. More ominously, with the Central Highlands as a staging area, they are now in a position to strike toward coastal provinces, thereby...
Still, the evidence does not suggest that Hanoi will try to topple the Saigon government by military means alone -at least not soon. Captured Communist documents call for limited offensives in various parts of South Viet Nam during the current dry season, which will end in late May. The main purpose is to erode ARVN morale, break up Saigon's administrative network in government-controlled districts and upset the South Vietnamese economy while killing or capturing as many troops as possible. Hanoi evidently hopes that a series of defeats will demoralize the South Vietnamese army. There are signs that...