A Tale of Two Airports

Everything of consequence in South Viet Nam was up in the air. Out of Danang Airbase roared flight after flight of bomb-laden U.S. jets to strike at the increasingly aggressive Communist Viet Cong in the country's besieged northern reaches. Out of Saigon's airport far to the south soared Lieut. General Nguyen Khanh, bound for exile with his family, carrying two plastic bags full of Vietnamese earth, the Grand Cross of the National Order, and the ruins of a year in power.

Street Without Joy. The U.S. jet flights from Danang marked a break with earlier U.S. practice, in which American flyers and gunners served merely as "advisers" to the South Vietnamese military. For the first time, Americans were flying and fighting on their own, and, as one U.S. navigator-bombardier said, "now we've shown them what we can do."

It may not be enough just yet, but it was a considerable improvement. In eight strikes last week, U.S. F-100 Super Sabres, B57 Canberras and prop-driven Skyraiders plastered Viet Cong concentrations, leaving scores of guerrillas dead in their wakes. The planes dropped tons of newly developed anti-personnel bombs, including an aerial version of the artilleryman's cannister: a big bomb casing that opens after release to pour out a string of smaller bombs on a 100-ft. line.

Increased U.S. participation was in order, for the Viet Cong last week threatened to cut South Viet Nam in half (see map). Operating in battalion-strength units, the Communists hacked away at two important highways: Route 1, the embattled north-south road that the French called La Rue sans Joie (Street Without Joy), and Route 19, which links Pleiku in the central plateau with the seaport staging base of Quinhon. Controlling all of Route 19 from Pleiku to within 20 miles of Quinhon, the Viet Cong pinned down a company of South Vietnamese Rangers and U.S. Special Forces advisers at Mangyang Pass. The Rangers were rescued by helicopter only after two U.S. jet strikes had scraped the Communist attackers off the surrounding cliffs.

Hardware in the Sky. Even with the added punch of the U.S. jets, things looked grim in the six northernmost provinces. Steady infiltration from North Viet Nam (see following story) gave the Viet Cong parity in both arms and men with the government's 20,000-man I Corps.

At week's end, the government prepared for a three-pronged offensive aimed at clearing Route 19. Unless the road is regained, the entire central highlands could fall to the Viet Cong, leaving only thin strips of government control through the northern half of the country. To relieve some of the pressure, South Korea last week sent the first 600 troops of a 2,000-man engineer contingent to rebuild bridges in central Viet Nam.

At the same time, other U.S. jets and Skyraider attack bombers flew 47 sorties from Bienhoa Airbase near Saigon, hitting hard with bombs and rockets at units of Viet Cong in the jungles east of the capital. With all the U.S. hardware in the sky, the Viet Cong began lying low for the moment.

Out of Gas. A lull in Saigon's frenetic politics was also in order. Few believed that this would be brought about by Nguyen Khanh's hectic last stand against the "Young Turk" generals, who had decided to get rid of him just after saving him from a coup by another clique (TIME, Feb. 26). Khanh had received word of the Turks' own coup in time to fly off to his resort headquarters in Cap St.-Jacques aboard his personal Beaver. There followed a mad, mad chase. From Cap St.-Jacques, Khanh scooted back over Saigon to Cantho, near the sprawling Mekong Delta, then after a brief stop buzzed south to Soctrang.

Somewhere along the way, he phoned the headquarters of I Corps and, through an intermediary, tried to fire one of the coup leaders, Brigadier General Nguyen Chanh Thi, an old personal enemy. On the phone, Thi argued with the intermediary, finally bellowed Khanh's order into oblivion. Only slightly daunted, Khanh boarded his Beaver and flew to Dalat--but the plane, upon landing, was low on gasoline. Khanh phoned Saigon hoping to get refueled. His request was refused, and both Khanh and his Beaver were finally out of gas.

The coup leaders complained that Khanh was a "troublemaker," did not push the war hard enough, was hungry for power. But the new boys were no less hungry. Last week at Saigon Airport, General Thi, Air Force Chief Nguyen Cao Ky and General Tran Van Minh ("Little Minh"), who took over as acting commander in chief of the armed forces, gathered to see Khanh off. Ostensibly he was cutting out as an "Ambassador at Large" to tour the U.S. and Europe. He managed smiles and handshakes, and his parting words were: "I shall return to Viet Nam."

Between Heaven & Earth. The men who had displaced Khanh had yet to sort out their own differences, as well as their relations with the new civilian government and with the Buddhists, some of whom last week loudly demanded "peace at any price."

Khanh's departure once more raised the question as to just how wise the U.S. had been in encouraging President Ngo Dinh Diem's overthrow. On that point, Red China's Mao Tse-tung, in a recent interview with U.S. Journalist Edgar Snow, provided an ironic commentary. "Mao thought that Diem was not so bad," Snow reported. "He had expected the Americans to maintain Diem for several more years. After all, following his assassination, was everything between heaven and earth more peaceful?"

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