The ramshackle South Vietnamese government simply could not cope with the influx. Garbage was piling up, potholes were not being repaired, bus service was becoming unpredictable. Surveying the scene, the USIA’s Howard Simpson concluded, “The sleepy colonial capital had become a crowded, dirty wartime metropolis.”10 Lansdale thought that “Saigon looks a bit run-down and war-weary right now but maybe,” he added, with typical optimism, “we can put some spark back in.”
