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Ford's public rationale for the military aid was that it "might enable the South Vietnamese to stem the onrushing aggression, to stabilize the military situation, permit the chance of a negotiated political settlement between the North and South Vietnamese, and, if the very worst were to happen, at least allow the orderly evacuation of Americans and endangered South Vietnamese to places of safety." Prudently, he did not promise that any of those things would happen if the funds were provided.
Privately, high Administration officials explained that Ford simply felt that he had to seek the military aid or else see the safety of the Americans imperiled. They were, in effect, hostages in South Viet Nam, and the aid money was meant as ransom to get them out. The requested funds were not to be ransom to the government of President Thieu but a stimulant to the confidence of the South Vietnamese that they might still hold out. As these Washington officials depicted it, if Ford had made his speech without asking for the $722 million in arms, Saigon and its people would have felt finally jettisoned by the U.S. with immediate, unpredictable and perhaps fearful consequences for the Americans still in Viet Nam.
Private Briefings. Ford's public plea and the accompanying private but official explanations in briefings raised some puzzling questions: Was Ford seeking the aid without either expecting Congress to approve it or assuming that it would do any practical good in "stabilizing" the sagging military situation in South Viet Nam? If so, did not the private briefings by his officials defeat his real purpose? Or was the combined effort, public and private, an astute attempt to pressure Congress into providing the money, or at least some of it? Or, despite his protestations to the contrary, was Ford setting up Congress to be the scapegoat if it did not provide the funds and South Viet Nam fell? Whatever the answers, the episode was one of the most extraordinary gambits in the tortuous history of a wretched and confusing war.
While an unusually tense and nervous Ford labored through the Indochina portion of his speech, members of Congress sat in a chilly near-silence. There were an embarrassing number of empty seats. At one point, a number of freshmen Democratic Congressmen committed the ultimate breach of legislative etiquette: they walked out on the President. One Congressman even booed.
Ford nevertheless had other things to say about Indochina. He rightly deplored the "vast human tragedy that has befallen our friends in Viet Nam and Cambodia." He insisted that this was no time "to point the finger of blame." Rather, "history is testing us." America should "put an end to self-inflicted wounds" and "start afresh" in a new spirit of cooperation between the President and Congress.