1.
GV Street scene with banners and balloons PAN DOWN TO City Hall (3 shots)
0.18

2.
SV Delegates entering City Hall
0.26

3.
SV INTERIOR Delegates applauding
0.29

4.
GV Assembly in session
0.34

5.
CU Delegate speaking
0.38

6.
SV PAN Delegates and audience (3 shots)
1.02

7.
CU Delegate continues speaking
1.18

8.
CU Audience listening and applauding (3 shots)
1.34



Initials CL/1631



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The new Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam convened the first meeting of People's Representatives to be held in South Vietnam's capital, Ho Chi Minh City, since the Communist Government took over. The Assembly was held in the City Hall on Sunday, 27 July.

The PRG had ??? two earlier People's Assemblies in 1961 and 1963, but they were held somewhere in the jungles of South Vietnam during the fighting.

This time the meeting was attended by 142 delegates, 90 of them from Ho Chi Minh City itself, and the remainder from the surrounding countryside and provincial capitals. Among the Government leaders who attended the meeting was mr. Nguyen Huu Tho, the Chairman of the PRG's Advisory Council. He asked the delegates to help solve the country's "serious economic and labour problems". Another speaker, Mr. Nguyen Van Chi, said he hoped the renaming of Saigon as Ho Chi Minh City would bring the population luck and success.

Also present at the assembly were mr. Huynh Tan Phat, the President of the PRG, Mr. Trinh Dinh Thao, the Vice-President of the National Liberation Front's elders council - the PRG's Advisory Council - and Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu from Hanoi.

On Friday (1 August) Mr. Nguyen Huu Tho announced that South Vietnam would eventually move from military to civilian rule through "people's revolutionary committees" and eventually merge with the north. But he declined to set dates for these developments.