The final U.S. act in the Viet Nam drama threatened to divide Americans deeply. For the most part, they applauded their Government's efforts to save refugees' lives. But they reacted warily and skeptically, blending legitimate economic concerns with ugly racist and xenophobic fears, to news that thousands of refugees would be brought to the U.S. Of 1,491 adults questioned recently by the Gallup poll, only 36% thought that the refugees should be permitted to live in the U.S.; 54% said that they should be kept out.
The public hostility stemmed in part from confusion over how many refugees there were (estimate at week's end: about 120,000) and what would happen to them. The situation was further complicated by a vitriolic fight between Congress and the White House over a bill to aid the refugees. President Gerald Ford urged the House to rush through a $327 million aid package that had cleared the Senate a week earlier. The bill had originally been intended to authorize the use of U.S. troops in removing Americans and some endangered Vietnamese from South Viet Nam, as well as pay for the evacuation and provide aid for the refugees. The troop provision, of course, had been outdated by events, and Ford assured Congress that it would never be used.
A largely Democratic majority of House members, however, was reluctant to set an unnecessary precedent that might extend presidential warmaking powers; the bill was defeated by a vote of 246 to 162. Ford was outraged and declared that the vote reflected "fear and misunderstanding, rather than charity and compassion." He demanded that Congress act quickly on a new aid bill, arguing that "to do otherwise would be a repudiation of the finest principles and traditions of America."
There was little doubt that Congress would eventually appropriate money for the refugees, possibly even the $500 million that State Department officials estimate will be needed over the next year. But the fight between Ford and Congress helped fuel a growing controversy across the nation over how far the U.S. obligation to the Vietnamese refugees extended. As the first planeloads of refugees reached resettlement centers in the U.S. (see box next page), TIME correspondents found that most Americans were torn between a natural desire to help the war victims and fears, often greatly exaggerated, that they would add to U.S. economic and social problems. The dilemma of Mark Romagnoli of
Manchester, N.H., a researcher for the state legislature, was typical. Said he: "I can't make up my mind. There are so many people here at home who need aid, and we've given so much away to outsiders. But then I also feel that we're responsible for what happened to the refugees, so we ought to help them."