Of all the targets, the overriding importance of the U.S. Embassy could not be overstated. The $2.6 million compound had been completed just three months earlier, and its six-story chan-cery building loomed over Saigon like an impregnable fortress. It was a constant reminder of the American presence, prestige and power. Never mind that Nha Trang or Ban Me Thout or Bien Hoa would also be attacked that morning. Most Americans couldn't pronounce their names, let alone comprehend their importance. But the U.S. Embassy in Saigon? For many Americans, this would be the first battle of the Vietnam War they understood.

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En route to the American Embassy, the sappers were spotted driving without lights by a South Vietnamese civilian policeman. This member of the South Vietnamese National Police force, referred to as the white mice, chose to avoid problems and stepped back into the shadows as the truck and taxi passed by. The sappers had similar good fortune confronting the embassy's first line of defense. After turning onto Thong Nhut Boulevard, they encountered four police officers, but the policemen fled without firing a shot.

At 2:45 a.m., the sappers wheeled up to the front gate of the U.S. Embassy and opened fire with AK-47 machine guns and a B-40 rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Outside the embassy entrance, two American military police of the 716th Battalion — Spc. 4 Charles Daniel, 23, of Durham, N.C., and Pfc Bill Sebast, 20, of Albany, N.Y. — returned fire while backing through the heavy steel gate and locking it behind them. At 2:47 they radioed Signal 300 — the MP code for enemy attack. A tremendous explosion shook the compound as the sappers blew a 3-foot hole in the wall with a satchel charge. Daniel shouted into the MP radio, They're coming in — help me! and the radio went dead.

The first two soldiers of the C-10 Battalion who went through the hole are believed to have been the two senior members, Bay Tuyen and Ut Nho. They and the two American MPs were killed in a close and deadly exchange of gunfire. The remaining sappers had more than 40 pounds of C-4 plastic explosive, more than enough to blast their way into the chancery building. Without any clear orders since their leaders had been killed, they took positions behind big circular flower tubs on the embassy lawn and fired back at the growing force shooting at them from rooftops outside the embassy.

Just minutes later, at about 3, chief U.S. Embassy spokesman Barry Zorthian phoned news bureaus from his home a few blocks away to alert them. Zorthian had few details, but he told us what he knew: The embassy was being attacked and was under heavy fire.

ABC News Bureau chief Dick Rosenbaum called me after Zorthian had phoned him. The ABC bureau, located at the Caravelle Hotel, was only four blocks from the embassy. And as it turned out, cameraman Peter Leydon and I were in Saigon because of what we thought had been a stroke of bad luck at Khe Sanh the day before.

For months any journalist with decent sources was expecting something big at Tet. The ABC bureau and most other news agencies were on full alert, R&Rs were canceled and I had celebrated Christmas with my family in nearby Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on December 1 so I could be in Vietnam, ready for the big enemy push when it came sometime before, during or after Tet. Plenty of captured enemy documents circulating in the months before Tet indicated something big was afoot. One of the most respected and credible military sources at the time was Lt. Gen. Fred C. Weyand, commander of American forces in III Corps, the area around Saigon. In the weeks prior to Tet, General Weyand told many journalists what he was telling General William C. Westmoreland: The VC are maneuvering in large units with reinforcements of North Vietnamese and new weapons. Enemy documents and prisoners indicate that a major Communist offensive is coming soon, probably against Saigon. There were strict rules against reporting U.S. troop movements, but Weyand told us, off the record, that he was shifting 30 American battalions into better defensive positions around Saigon.

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