South Viet Nam: Incident at the Pagoda

It was early evening in Danang, a city blasted and weary of civil war. For eight days the six battalions of loyal Vietnamese troops dispatched from Saigon by Premier Nguyen Cao Ky had been closing the vise, block by block, street by street, on 800 rebellious soldiers in the military capital. Shattered trees, some completely sawed off by gunfire, lined Danang's bullet-spattered boulevards. Pocked walls, splintered doors and decapitated houses testified to the city's agony, in which over 80 had died and more than 400 were wounded.

But now the government cordon was nearly closed. Ky's marines, backed by tanks...