Saigon: Will the Retreat Turn into a Rout? – Thieu Gives Up Two-Thirds of South Vietnam

Intercontinental Press – March 31, 1975
By Peter Green (John Percy)

The most stunning defeat for U.S. imperialism and its Saigon puppets in the history of the Indochina war is now taking place. In the space of a week a massive retreat by the Saigon army has relinquished more than two-thirds of South Vietnam to the liberation forces, and the consensus among most observers is that worse is yet to come.

Thieu’s withdrawal of his troops created a sensation in Washington. On March 18 it was learned that the regime was abandoning the three provinces of Kontum, Pleiku, and Darlac in the Central Highlands. Two days later it was ten provinces – most of the inland part of the country north of Saigon. By March 23 it was clear that even the coastal strip would not last much longer.

The aim behind the huge retreat by Thieu’s forces appeared to be to form a series of defensible “enclaves,” from Saigon and the Mekong Delta to Da Nang in the north, connected by a thin strip along the coast.

According to a report in the March 22 New York Times, Pentagon officials were doubtful that the regime would even be able to hold onto Da Nang. Evacuations continued all along the coast – even from the new headquarters for Military Region II, which shifted to Nha Trang from abandoned Pleiku city in the highlands.

Saigon itself may he threatened. One of the reasons given for the precipitous retreat from the northern two-thirds of the country was the need to rush troops back to defend the capital. Communist demolition units have been reported in the city’s suburbs. Fighting occurred only six miles away. According to a dispatch from Philip A. McCombs in the March 23 Washington Post, the regime is considering stationing troops in tall buildings in key areas where street fighting might occur.

“United States experts believe the Saigon area is the military key to the immediate future,” said the March 23 New York Times. “The speed with which the North Vietnamese assemble sizable forces near the capital, the Americans believe, may prevent Mr. Thieu’s armies from establishing a coherent defense perimeter.

“If that should be the case, the Thieu regime may be in danger of total collapse, either through military defeat, a loss of popular support or both.”

The Pentagon sees no hope of holding the line in the north, and is banking everything on defending Saigon and launching counterattacks by Thieu’s troops from there.

“Whatever they do, they must do it soon,” said one officer in Washington quoted by Drew Middleton in the New York Times. “A little more delay and they may lose control of the situation around Saigon. Then – blooey!”

White House spokesmen have denied any responsibility for this new defeat. They have even denied being informed in advance of the withdrawal. The retreat was “very much a South Vietnamese decision,” said one administration official.

The attempt by Washington to avoid blame is so much hogwash. It installed Thieu and holds all the strings.

In fact, Washington is responsible for this latest move as well. The strategy of pulling back to “defensible” enclaves has been advocated by some Pentagon strategists for the last five years. According to James M. Markham in a dispatch to the March 18 New York Times, “military analysts have long considered the withdrawal an eventual necessity.”

Perhaps the clearest indication of Pentagon thinking was given by Gen. William Westmoreland, the former U.S. commander in Vietnam. He termed the retreat a “prudent action.”

The general may have made this ploy only to help provide Thieu with a badly needed smokescreen on the publicity front. Westmoreland’s interpretation was backed by part of the American capitalist press. They called it a “regrouping operation,” “a decision as bold as the North Vietnamese attacks.”

The March 18 New York Times quoted one Western military analyst as saying that the pullout decision was “not all black.”

There were other indications that at least the State Department was tipped off on the impending withdrawal. On March 15, three days before the evacuation of the highlands began in earnest, the U.S. embassy evacuated virtually all Americans from the region. An embassy spokesman called it “a precautionary, temporary measure.”

The news media have played up atrocity stories, featuring in particular alleged barbarous acts committed against the refugees by Communist-led forces. The stories remain to be verified.

According to some reports the insurgents were helping out in the retreat. As a company of Saigon troops withdrew from Quang Tri, said Malcolm Browne in a March 20 dispatch to the New York Times, “... North Vietnamese military units approached, but did not open fire, using the strong headlights of their tanks to light the way for the Government troops.”

Few major engagements have taken place, and the casualty figures reported in this enormous transfer of territory have been light.

In most cases no attempt has been made by the liberation forces to disrupt the movement of refugees. The road from Hue along which refugees were fleeing to Da Nang was “unhindered by any Communist harassment despite the closeness of major North Vietnamese units,” Browne reported March 22.

There were reports of attacks on the huge exodus from the highlands that was attempting to reach the coast down a disused trail. But the fact that the insurgents had total control over all roads out of the highlands and could have blocked the refugee column at will indicates that their policy was to let it through.

In fact much of the destruction came from the looting and pillage carried out by some of the Saigon troops. Most reports indicated the gravest danger for the refugees was death from hunger and thirst.

Why this enormous retreat? And why at this time?

Central to the countrywide collapse of the Saigon regime’s position was the danger to Saigon itself. Tay Ninh city, just fifty-five miles northwest of the capital, was surrounded by Communist troops. The only road to Saigon had been cut several times, and after a string of victories in the area the insurgents appeared ready to drive on Saigon. Heavy fighting was also occurring to the northeast near Xuan Loc, forty miles from the capital. Highway 1, the main coast road connecting Saigon with the north, was cut, and the insurgents threatened to consolidate an arc of control just north of Saigon stretching from Cambodia to the coast.

The final incident that led to the collapse of Thieu’s position was the liberation on March 14 of Ban Me Thuot, the capital of Darlac Province in the highlands. The Communists had already cut all the main roads leading out of the highlands and had surrounded the district capitals of Kontum and Pleiku. With effective control of the highlands they were in position to drive to the sea and split the Saigon-held territory, or move to the south and reinforce the attack on Saigon.

What has emerged clearly in the past week is that Saigon’s army is rotten through and through, and no match for the liberation forces. McCombs reported that “in most places where the government has stood and fought its forces have been defeated.”

The regime’s armed forces total about 980,000 men and possess one of the largest air forces in the world, yet they are being outfought by much smaller forces that lack the most modern weapons and have no air force. Even in the battle for Ban Me Thuot it was reported that the size of the insurgent force was not great.

Republican Congressman Paul McCloskey said of this aspect of the defeat: “There can be only one answer for this situation: The aggressiveness, will and sense of purpose of the North, its leaders and its soldiers, presently far exceed the aggressiveness, will and sense of purpose of the bulk of their South Vietnamese counterparts.” The morale of a people fighting for their liberation from imperialism will inevitably be higher than that of an army of mercenaries and conscripts.

The corruption of the Saigon regime has further weakened its army. In addition, heroin addiction is reportedly widespread among the puppet troops, especially in the highlands. According to the February 23 New York Times, about 30 percent of the soldiers and airmen stationed in Pleiku were using heroin.

A key reason for the rapid collapse of Thieu’s position in the highlands appears to have been the growing disaffection of the Montagnard peoples.

The Montagnards had at one time been organized and trained by the U.S. Green Berets and the CIA, but the February 24 New York Times reported that in the last few months an armed rebellion of dissident tribesmen had broken out in Darlac Province.

The attack on Ban Me Thuot was apparently led by Montagnards. Agence-France Presse reporter Paul Leandri was killed by Saigon police on March 14 after he wrote an article reporting this. He had refused to disclose the name of his source, a Vietnamese priest who had escaped from the besieged highlands city.

Estimates of the number of refugees leaving the abandoned areas have been as high as half a million. “Why do they flee?” asked an editorial in the March 23 New York Times. The editors offered various reasons: because they have been ordered to go by the Saigon government, because they are trying to escape the war itself, because they fear the unknown. A more concrete reason was supplied by Philip McCombs in a dispatch to the March 20 Washington Post:

“Sources said the government has declared Pleiku and Kontum free-fire zones, that is, the military may attack them without prior political clearance. Since then more than 50 bombing sorties over the highlands have destroyed 100 airplanes, oil depots, ammunition dumps and other important government positions, sources said.

“‘We’re following a scorched earth policy like the Russians used against Hitler,’ said a government official.”

In spite of all this, many people remained in the abandoned areas. On March 23 the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam issued an international appeal for foreign aid to help feed more than a million people who have now come under its rule in the Central Highlands.

American imperialism has been forced to recognize a humiliating defeat in Vietnam. After the expenditure of $150 billion, after the death of 55,000 U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, and after countless Vietnamese deaths, Washington is forced to recognize the liberation of cities and provinces that have been fought over so bitterly – names like Hue, Kontum, and Pleiku, which have been seared so deeply into the memories of the American people.

Yet the White House is still pressing for more money to prop up their Saigon puppet; and if it is not granted, to place all the blame on Congress for the defeat. According to Pentagon chief Schlesinger the cause of the retreat was the “niggardly” level of U.S. support. Gen. George Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that South Vietnamese “backs are against the wall” partly because of the lack of U.S. military aid.

Kissinger let it be known that he would not have signed the 1973 Paris “peace” agreements if he had anticipated that Congress would reduce aid to Saigon. There were also rumblings from the White House that it didn’t feel “bound” by the 1973 agreements any longer.

What has “bound” imperialism has been the mass antiwar sentiment in the United States and around the world. In the wake of Watergate and the developing U.S. economic crisis, the options of Ford and Kissinger are limited even further. Their wisest course would be to end their intervention in Vietnam right now and allow the Vietnamese people to settle their own affairs.

Source: https://www.themilitant.com/Intercontinental_Press/1975/IP1312.pdf#page=4&view=FitV,3