Foreign Relations: Northwest's Passage

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Over the blare of a dance band, the flat, jarring crack of explosions rang loud and near. "Gee," said a woman, "I hope that's a salute." Hubert Humphrey peered into the rainswept gloom outside Saigon's Independence Palace and said: "I hope so, too." The three salvos were in fact salutations from the Viet Cong, whose mortarmen thus welcomed the U.S. Vice President to Viet Nam and attempted to turn last week's inaugural reception for President Nguyen Van Thieu and Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky into a wake. Fired from the roof...

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