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Reached by a curious U.S. reporter, the girl said that she had turned down half a dozen men because they could not meet an unadvertised condition: the prospective bridegroom had to find a way out for her parents and two brothers. Asked why the family wanted to flee, she replied: "We are very afraid of the Viet Cong. They will kill our family." Was she seeking a permanent marriage? "If he likes me, I will marry him. And if he don't like me, we will divorce." What if she disliked him? "I know I will like him. I will like anybody."
Since fleeing to Saigon, the police agent had been living with his sister, sleeping fitfully at night on a couch. He claimed that for five years he had worked for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program, which sought to infiltrate the Viet Cong and wiped out thousands of Communist agents. In September his wife and children went to France, where she has been studying. But he was trapped in Saigon and was certain that the Communists would execute him.
He said that he waited five days in line at the U.S. consulate, only to be told that he fit no category of Vietnamese who could be evacuated. Said he: "My American advisers went home, so now I have no contacts. From Danang to Saigon was easy. But how do I cross an ocean?" Gradually the suspicion has grown that he was not left behind by mistake. With a smile intended to mask his feelings, he explained: "It's very possible that I was abandoned." -
The architect was convinced that his family was in no danger from the Communists. Like many of Saigon's intellectuals and professionals, he had long and still-existing ties to leaders of the National Liberation Front. Yet his wife and five children were uneasy. They traveled with relatives 40 miles to the seaport of Vung Tau but were unable to find a boat to carry them to safety. Then they returned home.
"I love Viet Nam," said the architect. "I love the Vietnamese. The V.C. are our friends, not our enemies. I tried to tell my wife that she had to listen to me or I would disown them all forever. I am not afraid. We are innocent people. We are not corrupt. We have not cooperated with this government. If we die, we die."
At Tan Son Nhut airbase, the South Vietnamese pilot studied maps of Southeast Asia, looking for an airbase in a friendly or neutral country to which he could fly his family. His airplane was an L19 light observation plane, a two-seater; with a range of about 300 miles, it could not reach Hong Kong, Bangkok, one of the U.S. bases in Thailand or any other haven. But still the pilot pored over the maps. His friends were convinced that he had gone crazy.
In Phu Lam, west of Saigon, three Communist rockets struck a cluster of stucco villas and dirt paths. After that, the 72-year-old hatmaker began building a steel bunker, as did others on his street; at night, he worked on his personal stock of beer and Suntory whisky. Said he: "We are staying. Where else is there to go? Now there's nothing to do. They are stronger. You must obey. If you resist, they cut off your head."