Nation: The Great Gas Flap

For months, U.S. newsmen in Saigon had been trying to pin down rumors that South Vietnamese troops "were using gas"—none of the rumors said what kind—against the Viet Cong guerrillas. Last week, quite by accident, German-born Associated Press Photographer Horst Faas succeeded, and thereby touched off the noisiest and most hysterical protests since the Communists accused the U.S. of waging germ warfare in Korea.

Macabre Memories. Hitching a ride back to Saigon from a remote staging area, Faas found himself in the midst of a major operation by South Vietnamese troops against a Viet Cong stronghold in Binh Duong province. He noticed...