Security· Vietnam War
VC Truck Bomb at US Embassy Saigon
The Viet Cong bombing of the United States Embassy in Saigon was a striking act of urban terrorism in the South Vietnamese capital, carried out when explosives concealed in a vehicle were detonated outside the embassy building in the heart of the city.
The blast killed and wounded numbers of people, among them Americans, Vietnamese, and passers-by, and caused heavy damage to the building, a deliberate strike at the most visible symbol of the American presence in Vietnam. The attack demonstrated that the war was not confined to the jungles and paddies but could reach into the supposedly secure capital itself, and it underscored the vulnerability of American installations to the kind of clandestine attack the enemy could mount in the cities. For the Marines, who provided embassy security guards, such attacks highlighted the dangers of protecting fixed installations against an enemy who could strike without warning.
Record no. 722