THE U.S. MOOD: NOT ANOTHER BULLET

To gauge the reaction of Americans to the debacle in Viet Nam and President Ford's call for more military aid, TIME'S regional bureau chiefs last week sampled public and editorial opinion in their areas. Their reports:

New England's SANDRA BURTON

As the opening shots of the Bicentennial echo across New England, the news from Indochina seems almost as much a part of past history as the rout of the redcoats at Lexington and Concord. The decision to remove American influence as well as troops from Viet Nam was made in the minds of many New Englanders long ago and confirmed time and again by campus protests, state primaries and town meetings.

"When I watch TV now," says Hugh Saunders, president of a dowel-making firm in Westbrook, Me., "I feel angry to think that this country took so long to realize that it was destroying itself and the Vietnamese by being there." Complains Lawrence Sullivan, an official of the Greater Boston Labor Council: "I hear Schlesinger and Kissinger, and I say, 'Hey, you're not speaking for me!' "

The arrival of the orphans did stir emotion, but many question the wisdom of any wholesale removal of children from their own culture. The Bangor Daily News suggests bringing 56,000 Vietnamese orphans to the U.S.--one for every American who died there.

Middle Atlantic's LAURENCE I. BARRETT

Tens of thousands turn out for a Manhattan rally to show "solidarity with Soviet Jews." In Pittsburgh, Greek Americans and their supporters gather to protest U.S. policy toward Cyprus.

But despite the televised disaster in Southeast Asia and despite the debate in Washington about the question of aid, no one seems to be picketing or petitioning about Viet Nam. Most hawks and doves are watching the tragedy with numb resignation.

There is some feeling that Congress should grant the President's request to evacuate those Vietnamese who were closely identified with the U.S. "We have a very strong obligation to get them the hell out of there," says Dan Gaby, a New Jersey executive who was a leader in the state's antiwar movement.

Most editorial writers generally agree that there is nothing left to do now but cut losses and save lives. Though the New York Daily News and the Wall Street Journal give qualified support to President Ford's position, the Baltimore Sun speaks for the mainstream of opinion when it says: "What is gone cannot be rebuilt, and what remains has no prospect of survival."

The South's JAMES BELL

This region, where Presidents from Eisenhower through Nixon received their strongest and most lasting support for the war in Viet Nam, has had it. As far as the South goes, the long and painful episode ended with the return of the last American prisoner of war. So Southerners generally say no to further military aid for Viet Nam or the involvement there of the U.S. Army, Air Force or Navy. They are, of course, for the evacuation of Americans but are nervous about the deployment of Marines for that purpose and ambivalent about the evacuation of large numbers of Vietnamese.

"I can just see us creeping back into it," says Kathleen Wells, a Houston nurse who cannot watch the TV reports without tears. "I see all those people, and I think yes to aid. But then in my mind's eye, I see our men, and maybe some day my son, going back, and I think no. If we send nothing, maybe it will all be resolved sooner."

At Miami's Veterans Administration Hospital, Tom Myer, a former Air Force medic who served in Viet Nam, was sore. "I was angry then, and I'm angry now," he says. "A lot of people got killed for nothing." A badly wounded Marine, who is Myer's wardmate, looks at him and says quietly, "For the American public this will be forgotten. Just like a bad dream."

Midwest's BENJAMIN W. CATE

In Oklahoma, Charlie Connor, 82, has just won his fifth straight annual rattlesnake roundup with a catch of 104 rattlers. In Minneapolis, spring has arrived, or so it seems. The year's 64-in. snowfall began melting last week. Insignificant as these events may be, they are welcome diversions in Middle America, where millions see, read and hear about Viet Nam from dawn to dusk. They could do without any of it. Viet Nam? Forget it.

The prevailing mood throughout the region is humanitarian aid yes, military aid no. Even the President's home-town paper, the Grand Rapids Press, accuses Ford of "perpetuating the frauds [of the past]" by asking for military aid. Just about the sole voice supporting the President is the conservative Omaha World-Herald, which says that Congress "should not turn its back on the request [for aid]." But Nebraska's two-term Democratic Governor J. James Exon says it for the vast majority: "Not one more bullet should go to Southeast Asia."

The West's JESS COOK

This side of the Rockies, most people make it clear that they have heard it all, viewed it all and read it all before. They listen to the President out of residual respect for the office, eye the distant drama on the TV tube and the front pages out of habit and a certain morbid curiosity. The emotions are long since spent. "Three or four years ago, Viet Nam was part of the national consciousness," notes Los Angeles Psychiatrist Ernest White. "Today it isn't affecting my patients at all."

To be sure, there are still a few who feel strongly enough to write letters to the papers blaming the debacle on Jane Fonda or lamenting the lost American resolve, but the whole subject turns most people off. There is little enthusiasm for giving even humanitarian aid. "I can understand giving a small amount," says Mrs. Jessie Hall, a Beverly Hills clerk. "But beyond that, well, you sympathize with tragedy, but enough is enough."

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