NOW, TRYING TO PICK UP THE PIECES

This was not the way a war should end. At least it was not the way in which many Americans had hoped it would end--by somehow fading away. As South Viet Nam verged on collapse, the scenes of chaos inflamed anew America's frustration and horror over its most tragic foreign experience.

Even as President Ford pleaded for more military aid to South Viet Nam, Saigon's troops fled from the north in a frenzy, abandoning an estimated $700 million worth of military equipment. Said a Pentagon officer: "We might just as well send the stuff directly to Hanoi--then it wouldn't get damaged." The U.S. was appalled by the brutal way in which South Vietnamese marines, many trained by the U.S., stormed an American evacuation ship leaving Danang, looting, raping and killing refugees in a wild scramble to escape. Many Americans became preoccupied with helping refugees, especially children, though even here catastrophe seemed inescapable: a plane carrying South Vietnamese orphans crashed after takeoff from Saigon.

Practically speaking, South Viet Nam was lost. "It's really too late to do anything about it," declared Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, one of the few Washington officials to say publicly what others were conceding privately. "I guess a lot of Vietnamese are going to die." Somewhat bitterly, he added, "For us, we go on living." Later, Rockefeller insisted that his "too late" view applied only to the fate of the refugees. Yet, while the Saigon government might shake up its personnel, and perhaps even rally some effective defense of the city and the Mekong Delta, its long-range military fate appeared sealed. The Communists, now superior in both firepower and manpower, could take their time in striking the final blows.

At the Pentagon, some senior officers compared the South Vietnamese rout with other military disasters: Napoleon's debacle in Moscow in 1812, the fall of France in 1940, the Chinese Nationalist collapse in 1949. Yet the troops of President Nguyen Van Thieu were not retreating in the face of a massive Communist offensive; most were not in contact with the enemy at all. South Viet Nam's army had always performed unevenly, yet at its best it had given a good account of itself after so long and terrible a war. But now a full six South Vietnamese divisions had simply dissolved in a cascade of fright after Thieu abruptly ordered a massive retreat without giving his commanders a chance to lay the complex plans necessary to keep such a risky military maneuver from turning into a rout.

As bad as the shock was to the U.S., the Administration made it worse. It reacted in a schizophrenic mood, alternating between recrimination and caution. Behind the scenes, factions were vying to shape President Ford's public position. Officials close to Henry Kissinger felt that the Secretary of State's historic reputation was at stake and urged Ford to defend the Nixon-Kissinger Viet Nam policy that had produced the 1973 Paris accords, for which Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize. They wanted the major blame pinned on Congress for its alleged failure to live up to those accords by cutting back aid to Saigon. Others knew that the facts were not so simple. At any rate, Ford's closest White House advisers, including Counsellor Robert Hartmann, felt that nothing could be gained by dwelling on past mistakes or misguided policy, and they pleaded for a forward-looking presidential leadership that would stress the need for national unity.

Ford's indecision soon became apparent. He sympathized with the advice that seeking scapegoats would undermine his desire to rebuild a national consensus on foreign policy. He has bridled at the common belief that his Secretary of State runs U.S. foreign policy, and he has been concerned about Kissinger's often pessimistic moods and ample ego.

On the other hand, he is philosophically attuned to the Kissinger claim that the worldwide credibility of the U.S. was vitally at stake in Viet Nam.

At first, Ford literally dodged comment. In a bizarre scene, after he arrived in California for a Palm Springs golfing vacation, he laughingly ran away from reporters seeking to question him about Viet Nam. "Oh, ho, ho," he replied to the first question, as a panting press contingent chased after him. Later, in a speech to San Diego business and civic leaders, he termed the events in South Viet Nam "tragic," and called for "a new sense of national unity in these sad and troubled times." No one, Ford insisted, should "engage in recriminations or attempts to assess blame."

During a televised press conference, Ford avoided placing blame except on North Viet Nam, for violating the Paris accords, and on President Thieu, for his "unilateral decision" to abandon the northern provinces without first consulting or informing the U.S. But before the conference was over, and even while saying that he would not point an accusing finger, he clearly implied that the Democratic-controlled Congress was a major force behind the South Vietnamese collapse. Ford said he felt "frustrated by the action of Congress" in failing to approve the full amounts that he had requested for aid to South Viet Nam. Asked bluntly whether he thought the loss of 56,000 American lives in Viet Nam had been in vain, Ford suggested indirectly that it had. This would not have been true, he said, if the U.S. had "carried out the solemn commitments that were made in Paris at the time American fighting was stopped."

The President also reaffirmed his belief in the domino theory of nations falling to Communism, and needlessly insisted that the Viet Nam policies of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and himself had all been "aimed in the right direction" and constituted "sound policy."

While Ford exaggerated the strategic importance of South Viet Nam and overplayed U.S. responsibility for Saigon's debacle, there was no question that the American image was at least temporarily damaged and that some U.S. allies were jittery. The Japanese government announced that it was reappraising its pro-Saigon policy and that its Foreign Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, who will visit Washington this week, will ask Kissinger to reaffirm the U.S. nuclear protection of Japan. In South Korea, the nervous government of President Park Chung Hee seemed to accept the Kissinger linkage theory that events in one part of the world develop a momentum affecting events elsewhere. Park urged his nation to be more self-reliant. Said he: "Where adequate and independent means of self-defense are lacking, all agreements for collective security guarantee could prove only meaningless." But in Malaysia, government officials seemed unworried about future security, and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew insisted calmly: "I don't believe in the domino theory." Philippine leaders felt confident that the U.S. would intervene with naval forces in the unlikely event that Communists ever invaded across the South China Sea.

In Western Europe, too, reaction was more relaxed. TIME has learned that Britain's Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, has sent Kissinger a letter reassuring him that England understands America's feelings about Southeast Asia, but also pointing out that other nations did not expect the U.S. "to do the impossible." Callaghan proposed that a conference of NATO Foreign Ministers next month be elevated to a summit meeting of heads of state to re-examine common problems and reaffirm Western unity at the highest level. The U.S. is expected to endorse the idea. British officials seem relieved that America may be ending what one calls its "hypnotic preoccupation" with Viet Nam.

The French could not resist pronouncing America's decline. Gloated Le Monde in its headline: WHAT PEACE? WHAT HONOR? A Le Point editorial warned: "This is what has become of the American giant. Let Europe beware. His paralysis is contagious." But one French diplomat expressed the predominant view of officials there that "American power has not collapsed."

Actually, what was imperiled by America's performance in South Viet Nam was not so much the nation's credibility as its aura of competence. The U.S. looked especially ineffectual in not anticipating just how weak its ally was. The swift collapse surprised U.S. intelligence officials. One of them admitted that in evaluating South Vietnamese military capability, "we obviously deluded ourselves." Added another intelligence officer: "When we looked below the surface, we did not like what we saw, so we turned away."

Whatever the U.S.'s failing, President Ford will have a chance to fashion a new start in a major foreign policy address Thursday to a joint session of Congress. A strong, clear presidential reappraisal of the full range of American commitments and priorities abroad has become both urgently necessary and exceedingly difficult. Ford and Kissinger are caught in a foreseeable trap created by their own pronouncements on how crucial Southeast Asia is to America's foreign policy.

Ford plans a speech that is intended to reassure other allies that, as one of his senior advisers puts it, "Viet Nam is not the end of the world" for the U.S. Regardless of what happens in Indochina, the President will emphasize, America will remain faithful to its commitments elsewhere. He is also expected to outline precisely what, if anything, the U.S. can now do about the deteriorating situation in South Viet Nam, based on the mission to Saigon of Army Chief of Staff General Frederick C. Weyand and the resulting options prepared by the National Security Council. Briefing the press after meeting with Weyand, Kissinger gave no hint that the U.S. has any intention of abandoning President Thieu. Asked about Thieu's charge that Americans could be called "traitors" if they fail to help his government more, Kissinger dismissed such talk as that of "a desperate man, in some anguish."

The President also will have another chance in his speech to either harden or soften his attack on Congress. Even in political terms, blaming Congress makes little sense. The legislators are clearly reflecting their constituencies in questioning whether reduced U.S. military aid to Saigon had really made a decisive difference -- and in resisting more of it.

Congress is certain to respond readily to any Ford request for humanitarian aid to relieve the agony of the war's rapidly multiplying victims. Something more substantial should be possible than the laudable, if somewhat oversentimentalized, help for orphaned children. There were hints last week that the U.S. was planning an extensive airlift of American and Vietnamese civilians from South Viet Nam. Ford has a major opportunity to help America come to terms with Viet Nam, and move on to other international problems.

America's allies already must have been encouraged by the President's San Diego speech, which reaffirmed the determination of the U.S. to maintain a strong leadership in world politics. Said he: "No adversaries or potential enemies of the United States should imagine that America can be safely challenged; and no allies or time-tested friends of the United States should worry or fear that our commitments to them will not be honored because of the current confusion and changing situation in Southeast Asia. We stand ready to defend ourselves and support our allies as surely as we always have."

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