🚨Death in Saigon as Bomb Rips U.S. Embassy

Mar. 30, 1965 - A 250-pound terrorist bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon today killed and wounded scores of Americans and Vietnamese. At least one American woman secretary in the embassy was killed.

The American dead also included at least two American Negro military policemen. The latter, guarding the embassy building, were reported to have seen the bomb being activated and were mowed down when they rushed the terrorists to forestall the blast. At least nine Vietnamese died in the blast.

Eyewitness accounts said the guards fired on the terrorists, hitting one, before the bomb went off. The bomb, located across the street in a café, exploded just as the terrorists fled, killing them and killing or wounding scores of bystanders.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson was in the embassy when the huge bomb let go. He was cut about the head and face from flying glass and debris, but he refused to leave the building until the last of the wounded had been taken to the hospital.

The bomb blew a gaping hole in the embassy’s wall and flattened other buildings in the area. It was believed the bomb had been brought to the café across the street from the embassy and dumped on the sidewalk moments before the explosion.

The attack was particularly murderous because the bomb exploded at 10:50 a.m. (9:50 p.m. yesterday New York time) when the area, just on the edge of the shopping district, was teeming with pedestrians. 

A medical officer at the U.S. naval hospital 10 blocks away said that 30 Americans were treated for injuries and that 10 were gravely wounded. One of the wounded was identified as Robert Miller, deputy chief of the embassy’s political section, but his condition was not immediately available.

President Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Maxwell Taylor, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, were informed of the explosion last night while they were attending a White House dinner for President Maurice Yaméogo of Upper Volta. Rusk left the dinner to keep in touch with the situation.

Later, President Johnson condemned the “terrorist outrage” and said it would “only reinforce” the Administration’s determination to give more help to South Vietnam.

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