751G.00/7–2854: Telegram
The Ambassador at Saigon ( Heath ) to the Department of State
priority
352. Repeated information Paris 136, Hanoi 104, priority Tokyo 7. Limit distribution. Vietnamese Government must have a minimum of 2,000 twenty-man tents within next few days or its whole program of evacuating anti-Communist refugees from north will fail, since without them it will be impossible to provide adequate emergency housing. If refugees arrive here and no accommodation is provided, that will be known immediately in north. Due to fact that adequate accommodations were not immediately provided in staging area at [Page 1886] Hanoi when southern Tonkin delta provinces were evacuated, hundreds of refugees returned to their villages. Department should intervene with FOA headquarters and Far Eastern command to ship immediately 2,000 tents already requested. Negotiation seems to be proceeding on somewhat routine basis, whereas this is a disaster emergency.
New subject: It may be necessary for our Navy, and possibly Air Force, to assist in transport of refugees and such action would have most helpful morale effect. However, no request is made at this time pending discussions with French.