(MUSIC)
Then came Tet -- the Vietnamese lunar new year -- in January nineteen sixty-eight.
(VIETNAM BATTLE SOUNDS)
The communists launched a major military campaign. They attacked thirty-one of the forty-four provinces of South Vietnam. They also struck at the American embassy in the capital, Saigon.
CBS REPORTER GEORGE SYVERTSEN: “Military Police got back into the compound of the two-and-a-half million dollar embassy complex at dawn. Before that, a platoon of Viet Cong were in control. The communist raiders never got inside the main chancery building. A handful of Marines had it locked and kept them out. But the raiders were everywhere else.”
CBS News reporter George Syvertsen described more of the fighting in Saigon and how it affected civilians in a poor part of the city.
SYVERTSEN: [Gunfire] “This neighborhood is called ‘the chessboard’ because of the maze of alleys and passageways. Its residents are mostly poor working people, and its slums are a refuge for Saigon’s hoodlum and criminal elements. Vietnamese Rangers and Marines move carefully, blasting buildings and possible Viet Cong hiding places before moving ahead. This was the first time heavy fighting has taken place in Saigon proper. Until now, most of it has been in the Chinese section of Cho Lon and in the suburbs. [Gunfire]
“The V-C [Viet Cong] were difficult to dislodge. They obviously knew the section well and had built barricades in key spots. The Rangers and Marines took casualties, [Gunfire] mostly from hidden snipers. As soon as a section had been cleared, more terror-stricken civilians scurried out of their homes, thousands of them fleeing from the bullets and explosives, and, even more dangerous, a fire that began to rage out of control.
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