Home»History and Legacy»Timeline»1965: Stemming the Tide»Viet Cong Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon

Viet Cong Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon

March 30, 1965

1965-03-30_Viet_Cong_terrorist_bombing_Saigon_1965
1965-03-30_Viet_Cong_terrorist_bombing_Saigon_1965
Scene of the Viet Cong bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, 1965. (National Archives)

Viet Cong agents detonate a car bomb outside the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, killing CIA stenographer Barbara A. Robbins, Navy Storekeeper Second Class Manolito W. Castillo, and as many as 19 others. Robbins is the first woman CIA officer to die in the line of duty. The bomb also wounds over 200 other Vietnamese and Americans. These include CIA Saigon Station Chief Peer de Silva and Deputy U.S. Ambassador Ural Alexis Johnson.1

1“Remembering CIA’s Heroes: Barbara A. Robbins,” https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2013-featured-story-archive/remembering-barbara-robbins.html (link is external) (accessed 3/24/14); Peter Dorland and James Nanney, Dust Off: Army Aeromedical Evacuation in Vietnam (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 2008), 43. For Manolito Castillo see Bob Dietrich, “Rescue Units in Vietnamese Bombing Earn ‘Well Done,’” in All Hands: The Bureau of Naval Personnel Career Publication, 581 (June 1965), 38 (http://www.navy.mil/ah_online/archpdf/ah196506.pdf). For Peer de Silva see Thomas L. Ahern, Jr., Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky), 163. For U. Alexis Johnson, see David C. Humphrey, Ronald D. Landa, Louis J. Smith, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1972, Volume II, Vietnam, January–June 1965,  (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1996), Documents 21, 95, 263. Multiple sources disagree regarding how many people were killed and wounded, as is usually the case for such incidents.