The Last Battles And a New Siege

THE muffled thunder of outgoing artillery fire could be heard in Saigon up to the end--and after, as the fighting stubbornly rattled on. Yet, when the moment arrived at 8 a.m. last Sunday, the sound of sirens and church bells took over the teeming streets. Policemen whistled motorists and Honda drivers to a stop to observe a minute of silence for the 183,500 South Vietnamese troops who had died in battle since their country was created in the last Viet Nam settlement at Geneva 19 years ago.

Saigon's streets were festooned with saffron and red flags and banners that declared VICTORY FOR SOUTH VIET NAM or, more convincingly, THE ENTIRE PEOPLE WELCOME THE CEASEFIRE. Yet there was no rejoicing, not even a sense of relief. Sunday, cease-fire or no, President Nguyen Van Thieu had decreed that all South Vietnamese civilians should go to their jobs as they would on a workday. The idea was to show that there was little to celebrate and that little had changed--a point Thieu made repeatedly in a combative TV address to the nation. "There is no peace yet," he said. "This is only a standstill ceasefire. If the Communists commit small cease-fire violations, we will respond with small actions. If they commit big violations, we will respond with big actions."

In Hanoi small groups gathered in the streets--under banners commanding them to SACRIFICE ALL RATHER THAN SUBMIT--to hear the cease-fire news from the same loudspeakers that had honked warnings of U.S. air attacks less than a month before. In contrast to Thieu, North Viet Nam's leaders seemed ready--even eager--to admit that something had changed with the Paris agreement. At a presidential-palace reception, North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong, 64, had a smiling, two-word reply to a foreign diplomat who offered his congratulations: "At last!"

Almost inevitably, the cease-fire was preceded by an awesome spasm of violence. Both sides used the 117 hours between the announcement of the agreement and the actual start of the cease-fire to seek last-minute military advantage. The grabbing added up to some of the heaviest fighting since the Easter offensive. Flying from bases in Thailand, Navy carriers offshore and the airbase at Bien Hoa, home of the last U.S. combat unit in Viet Nam (see box), U.S. pilots flew record sorties in an effort to stop the Communist drive. The Viet Cong made some potentially significant last-minute gains, especially in strategically important Tay Ninh province northwest of Saigon, where government control of the provincial capital was seriously threatened.

The last hours of the Viet Nam War took a cruel human toll. Communist and South Vietnamese casualties ran into the thousands. Four U.S. airmen joined the missing-in-action list when their two aircraft were downed on the last day. Another four Americans were known to have been killed--including Lieut. Colonel William B. Nolde, 43, of Mt. Pleasant, Mich., who was cut down in an artillery barrage at An Loc only eleven hours before the ceasefire. He was the 45,941st American to have died by enemy action in Viet Nam since 1961.

Even before the cease-fire began, the effects of the Paris agreement were beginning to show up at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport. Among the first Americans to board homeward-bound planes were 110 civilians who had been training South Vietnamese police; before long, all U.S. civilian employees involved in military tasks will be withdrawn, leaving behind a fluctuating population of some 1,800 U.S. civilians serving as advisers in such fields as education and land reform, or as technicians working under contract for private firms and agencies. Saigon's uniformed allies were ready to pull out well within the prescribed 60-day withdrawal period. The 35,000-man South Korean contingent was awaiting orders to pack up. The first large-scale withdrawal of the 23,700 G.I.s still in Viet Nam was due to begin this week. A bulletin board at the MACV headquarters at Tan Son Nhut sported an old but newly appropriate wisecrack: LAST ONE OUT, PLEASE TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.

As the Americans left, the trustees of Viet Nam's fragile peace began to converge on Saigon. U.S. officials anxiously awaited the arrival of the Communist delegations to the supervisory four-party joint military commission. The members of the North Vietnamese delegation were expected to arrive in Saigon by a flight from Hanoi via Vientiane. The Viet Cong promised a more bizarre entrance. U.S. officials awaited a signal to dispatch a helicopter to pick up the V.C. delegation chief (a general, most likely), who would be waiting either in the U Minh forest, an old Communist stronghold in the southern tip of the country, or in the area west of Saigon near the Cambodian border.

Having failed to stave off a ceasefire, Thieu last week redoubled his efforts to win the subtler struggle that now faces him (see following story). The regime placed its considerable military machine on full alert and invented a series of new security measures --some of which seemed on the hysterical side. The use of firecrackers in this week's Tet celebrations was banned in order "to prevent the Communists from taking advantage of the explosions" to attack government installations. Under tough new decrees, anyone passing out Communist flags or leaflets will be arrested; Communist agitators will be shot on sight. So will anyone who tries to urge refugees to leave their camps and return to their homes in areas under Viet Cong control.

Despite Thieu's tough stand--or more likely because of it--Saigon was quiet. No students or demonstrating veterans have taken to the streets. Even Thich Huyen Quang, the head of the militant An Quang Buddhist faction, offered a somewhat ambiguous endorsement of the settlement. "We hope that both winners and losers will put down their weapons," he said.

Saigon shoppers laid in extra supplies of food--not because they feared civil chaos, but because of widespread expectations that Thieu might extend the 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. A very few South Vietnamese suddenly decided that it was time to "visit relatives in Paris." But there was no exodus by Thieu's middle-and upper-class constituency, and no important defections from his regime. The coup rumors that floated through Saigon's cafes only a month or two ago had faded away, although, like the fighting war, they could resurface with a vengeance at any time.

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