One year ago Saigon's Rue Catinat was a glittering, neon-splashed midway choked with shoppers, promenaders and fun-seekers. Last week its sidewalks were all but deserted. Shop after shop stood with windows boarded up. At a cabaret once loud with the jokes and brawling of red-bereted paratroopers, sailors and the képis blancs of the French Foreign Legion, all was quiet. By the hundreds and thousands the French, with no place in the new independent state of Viet Nam, were leaving the city they had once made famous as "the Paris of the Orient."
Last week Radio France Asie, the official French broadcasting station...
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