WHERE THEY GO

While you close your mind to the external causes of our military setbacks, while you close your conscience to collective responsibility, while you close your eyes to facts and reality, while you close your ears to cries for help from those who fought with you for our common ideals, please, for God's sake, don't close your heart to the human tragedy of Viet Nam. As human beings, please help, please.

The impassioned plea was issued last week as an "Appeal to the American People" by Ambassador Nguyen Huu Chi, South Viet Nam's permanent observer at the United Nations. The plea has certainly not gone unheeded. In the U.S. and elsewhere, governments and private citizens have begun to extend a hand to the South Vietnamese, particularly by adopting some of its orphans.

None of the children orphaned by the Communists' latest drive were being adopted--yet. They were still pushing on to Saigon or, in a very few cases, just beginning to be brought into the capital's crowded orphanages. There are, however, some 1.5 million other orphans already in the South, the products of years of war. The great majority are cared for by relatives or neighbors. But some 40,000 children--many of them outcasts because they are racially mixed offspring of long-departed G.I. fathers--have not even informal families or much of a future in Viet Nam. Even before the current crisis, some 2,000 of these war waifs had been assigned to adoptive parents--mostly in the U.S.--but could not leave until the South Vietnamese and U.S. governments cleared much paper work and transport became available.

With South Viet Nam's future so shaky, the seven church-related and other private U.S. adoption agencies in the country tried to speed the emigration process. A breakthrough came when Edward Daly, the bluff president of World Airways (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS) arranged with the U.S.'s Friends of All Children agency in Saigon to fly 450 orphans to the U.S. Daly has long been a benefactor of Vietnamese orphanages and offered to pay for the flight himself. But Saigon-based officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development told Friends of All Children that Daly's DC-8 would be unsafe. On the shortest notice, Daly turned to two other orphan agencies, which quickly produced 60 children for the trip. Without clearance from either Saigon or Washington, Daly's planeload took off for Oakland; by week's end most of the children were in their new American homes.

As Daly groused about the bureaucratic bad-mouthing he had endured, AID announced its own plan: the U.S. Government would bring all 2,000 children--minus those transported by Daly--to their new parents within days. Travis Air Force Base in California and other West Coast installations prepared to serve as way stations.

The Air Force hastily dispatched a C-5A Galaxy cargo plane--and it crashed (see page 8). The tragedy only intensified the fever pitch of rescue plans, and the Government pledged to carry on its airlift. Tens of thousands of Americans deluged adoption agencies with calls. The State Department set up a toll-free number (800-368-1180) for would-be adopters. At one point, more than 1,000 callers a minute were being turned away by busy signals.

Nine hundred children were flown out of Viet Nam for the West Coast at week's end under the auspices of several agencies; the Holt International Children's Service planned to evacuate hundreds more this week. Mrs. Betty Tisdale of Columbus, Ga., a former associate of the legendary Dr. Thomas Dooley and mother of five adopted Vietnamese girls, left for Saigon to bring back 400 children from the orphanage she had helped found. Mrs. Tisdale received permission from Army Secretary Howard Callaway to house them temporarily at Fort Benning, Ga.

Outside the U.S., the London Daily Mail chartered a Boeing 707 to transport 150 orphans from Saigon. The Australian air force ferried out 212 more, who headed to Sydney, and 63 children were sent to adoption in Canada. At week's end a West German agency was still negotiating with the Saigon government to take out 50 orphans.

The British and Australian governments waived their usual immigration regulations for the orphans. U.S. federal law limits the total of Vietnamese immigrants to 20,000 annually, and it is not known how much that will be enlarged. But President Ford declared that red tape would be cut to ease the entry of orphans. To do that, said Attorney General Edward Levi, he would invoke his statutory "parole power" to admit 1,500 orphans right away; more will undoubtedly be let in later. Under the Attorney General's parole power, 31,000 Hungarian refugees entered the U.S. in the 1950s, and some 600,000 Cubans were absorbed after the Castro revolution.

Amid the outpouring of genuine concern for the children, many Vietnamese adults who have good reason to flee their country seem to have been lost in the shuffle. The South Vietnamese government is not issuing passports except in "special cases"--such as the orphans. Saigon officials are worried that a mass exodus would touch off panic among those left behind. Clearly, however, people who were connected with the Thieu regime or with American organizations could be the victims of reprisal if the red flag goes up over Saigon. The U.S. recognizes that as many as 1 million people might have to look to its shores for refuge, but so far has concentrated on children, who are unlikely to be harmed by Communists.

The International Red Cross and other humanitarian groups geared up to assist refugees--young and old--who are not likely to be leaving Viet Nam. But U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim drew sharp criticism from U.S. and other officials for insisting that the evacuation of refugees from Communist-controlled territory was a "very controversial political problem" with which the U.N. should not get involved.

There is some question whether the large-scale adoption of war waifs is a wholesome proposition. In the weeks ahead, speedy removal of children who were separated from their families in the latest mass retreat might mean, in some cases, spiriting away tots whose parents are still alive. In addition, many Vietnamese view rather dimly the Western concept of adoption. They have a strong sense of cultural identity and do not often accept the common (and chauvinistic) American view that a Vietnamese orphan can do no better than come to the U.S. to be raised as an American.

For many Americans, compassion for the children serves a special purgative purpose. Said William Taylor, executive director of the Travelers Aid International Service: "I think people are responding to the feeling of responsibility that our participation in the war helped make these children orphans. Some would call it guilt." President Ford put the matter in the simplest, starkest terms. "This is the least we can do," he said. "And we will do much, much more."

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