Firecrackers

Anxious to prove a good host, Saigon had gone all out to make an impression on the delegates to the annual meeting of the 21-nation Colombo Plan, the British-fostered scheme designed to help the backward nations of Southeast Asia. New paint gleamed everywhere. Old buildings and the sidewalks before them were scrubbed as clean as any in Amsterdam. Mayor Nguyen Phu Hai had sternly forbidden his citizens to spit in public or walk even partially naked in the streets. Energetic President Ngo Dinh Diem's capital had come a long way from the fear and misery of the days when every sidewalk cafe was guarded by heavy wire mesh from the grenades of passing terrorists.

At 7:30 one morning last week, a bus stopped to pick up officers and men of the U.S. Military Advisory Group at their quarters. There was a deafening explosion. A huge hole opened in the bus's floor while glass and splinters flew like bullets. At almost the same time, another bomb exploded in front of the Five Oceans Hotel, where more Americans were waiting to go to work. That afternoon there was still a third blast in the library of the U.S. Information Service. In all, 13 Americans and three Asians were wounded.

Who had done it? Nobody could be sure. Many took it as a warning of new anti-American activity by Communist groups still terrorizing the swampy country near the Cambodia border. But if the Communists had hoped to disrupt the Colombo conference, they had failed miserably. Dancing an exotic Brazilian samba to the music of a New Orleans jazz band at the Cercle Sportif that evening, an Indian economist announced happily, "The bombs had no effect whatever on our conference. This city is simply full of life."

Too immune to real terror over the last decade to be frightened by what they called "firecrackers," the lively Saigonese were suddenly thrown into a genuine panic as a result of their own celebrations. As thousands flocked to the trade fair marking their young republic's second birthday, a bottleneck developed at the two narrow bridges leading to the fair grounds. A stampede resulted; one of the bridges collapsed. Some 49 celebrators, including 36 women and children, were killed.

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