At cockcrow one day last week, loudspeaker trucks began to cruise slowly through Saigon's streets. "Countrymen," they blared, "come to the popular meeting to protest against the Geneva agreements. This is the 20th of July, a national mourning day. One year ago at Geneva our country was partitioned against our will."
Soon, convoys of army and civilian trucks were jamming the square in front of the rococo city hall, bringing load after load of Vietnamese—schoolboys, peasants, silk-robed girls, civil servants in their Sunday best. Before long there were about 100,000 people in the vast square, and the crowd began to...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
