SAIGON UNDER SIEGE

Saigon has often known danger but never as acutely as now. There have been times of great peril--such as the 1968 Tet offensive that brought savage street fighting into the heart of the city--but Saigon managed swiftly to regain its calm, almost nonchalant air. This time the pressure is building slowly but surely, and the old insouciance is fast disappearing.

There is no overt panic, but Saigon's 3 million residents, and the countless refugees streaming into the already overcrowded city, are shaken, afraid, even desperate. "We have nowhere to go!" cried a Saigon bar girl. "I am frightened, but what can I do? I have bought rice and dried fish. When the Viet Cong come, I will lock the door and wait."

In the past, the Saigonese could draw a feeling of security from the presence of foreign troops, no matter how much they may have despised and exploited them. There were white-hatted legionnaires, French paratroopers in red berets, then Americans in khaki and olive drab. After 3 p.m. there was never an empty seat on "the Continental Shelf," the raised veranda of the Continental Palace Hotel. Now there are many. The realization is only beginning to sink in on the Saigonese that the Americans are not coming back after all.

In some respects, Saigon retains an aura of almost unreal normality. In the markets it is business as usual. The streets, filled with Hondas, pushcarts, hookers, shine boys, beggars and wounded war veterans, are as noisy and chaotic as ever. Food is still plentiful because the roads to the Mekong Delta remain open. But tea and coffee from the Highlands, avocados and lettuce from Dalat and lobsters from Nha Trang are all bound to run out before long. Many dance halls and teahouses have been closed, and the curfew has been moved back to 9 p.m. so that diners in the fine old French restaurants such as Aterbea and Auberge Ramuntcho must wolf down their meals by 8:30.

Fearful that the enemy is infiltrating along with the refugees, the government is setting up guard posts on the roads leading into Saigon to keep out any additional outsiders. Cyclos (pedicabs) have been banned because the government fears that Communist sappers might use them to transport satchel charges into the city. In an effort to prevent riots or a possible coup attempt, new army orders forbid civilians to congregate in groups on the streets or off-duty soldiers to carry their weapons in the capital. Many Saigonese fear rape and rampage by their own troops as much as they dread an invasion by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. There have already been reports from the outskirts of marauding soldiers demanding money and bullying residents.

On the city's streets, many people are selling precious heirlooms to raise money for tickets abroad. The Chinese of Cholon, long the city's most sagacious businessmen, are shuttering their shops and slipping away to the coast, where they hope to find ships that will take them to Malaysia. The scenes at Saigon's banks are reminiscent of the financial panic that gripped Shanghai shortly before it fell to the Chinese Communists a quarter-century ago. Each morning hordes of Saigonese besiege the banks to withdraw their life savings. Almost to a man, Saigon's Indian haberdashers have switched to money changing. At one point the piaster fell to 2,000 to $1; the rate was 800 to $1 only a few days earlier.

At dinner parties, conversation tends to turn to questions about how to get out of the country. Should one try to fly or go by ship? How much will a visa cost? Some government ministers are said to be already packing. Mrs. Thieu, the wife of the President, has already left.

Hoping to avert a mass exodus, the government has banned travel abroad, and passports are issued only for "special cases." To qualify for that category, a bribe of $2,000 or more is needed. Even so, the passport office is crammed with applicants. When a rumor swept the city that Australia was granting unlimited visas to South Vietnamese, a massive crowd snarled traffic in front of the Australian embassy. After the 1954 truce, as many as 50,000 Vietnamese settled in France, which many Vietnamese regard as a cultural mother country. Last week the French embassy was again besieged.

Officials at the U.S. embassy have literally been overwhelmed by the number of applications. "How many?" pondered a weary consular officer. "Don't ask. I haven't had time to count them." Many Americans in Saigon are marrying their girl friends so that the Vietnamese girls will qualify for the preferential treatment accorded spouses of American citizens.

The threat of attack has caused some Vietnamese in Saigon to turn for solace to sorcery or religion. On Easter Sunday, only a few people attended services at St. Christopher's, the little Protestant church next to the U.S. embassy, and those who did were tense and anxious. In one pew, a young Vietnamese girl and her brother, both refugees and no older than 14, sat alone. She wept openly, and the boy held her hand throughout the service. "Amid great stress and suffering," intoned the Anglican priest, "we come to a celebration of life--baptism." Then he sprinkled holy water on an adult Vietnamese convert and christened him Michael.

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