the third indochina war g
TRANSCRIPT
XIX. "A PRESIDENTIAL ORDER"
A grim-faced t1arine security guard admitted our small
convoy to the Embassy Compound. Word of the two dead marines
at Tan Son Nhut had already reached the Embassy. Outside
the gate, a small group of anxious Vietnamese had already
gathered. The drone of a chain saw pierced the air as
several people felled a large tree in the parking lot. Some
one was obviously anticipating use of the lot as a helicopter
landing zone. Inside the Embasssy building, tight-lipped
American civilians were preparing to depart. Many walked
around in a daze, their faces registering disbelief at what
was happening. In the Political-Military Affairs office,
Colonel Madison received new orders. The "highest authority"
had decreed that all Americans must evacuate,including our
team and the Ambassador himself. There would be no official
American presence in Saigon at the conclusion of "Operation
Frequent Wind," the code name for the impending evacuation.
We also learned that Washington had finally directed the
implementation of "Option IV," a helicopter extraction. The
335
Ambassador had resisted this step throughout the morning.
Deeply conscious of his personal commitment to the thousands
of Vietnamese who desired to flee the Communists, he knew
that the C-130 fixed-wing shuttle was the best way to move
large numbers of people, The difficulty was that the condi
tion of the runways at Tan Son Nhut rendered them unsafe for
fixed-wing operations. General Smith had recommended dis
continuance of the C-130 shuttle when he learned that the run
ways were cluttered with jettisoned VNAF ordnance. Only after
satisfying himself by a personal inspection that Tan Son Nhut
was too risky for continued operations did Ambassador Martin
accept General Smith's recommendation and call for Option IV.
Relieved of the burden of planning for a "last redoubt,"
we conducted a reconnaissance of the Embassy Compound. What
we saw convinced us that we faced a complex and dangerous
situation. To begin with, both the Embassy and the adjacent
combined recreation compound (CRA) were already packed with
people. Virtually every building in the CRA area was jammed
with humanity. Looting was in progress in the CRA restaurant,
where employees had surrendered to the mob. Several American
civilians had pulled slabs of beef out of the locker and were
hacking off pieces to cook over the kitchen burners. More
336
disturbing was the problem of the club's abundant stock of
unsecured liquor. The drinks were on the house, and the crowd
was taking full advantage of the situation. Colonel Summers
and I risked our popularity when we located the padlocks on
a nearby shelf and locked up the liquor cabinets. The last
thing we needed was a drunken mob.
Silver Air America Hueys began landing on the Embassy
roof to deposit Vietnamese and Americans who had been picked
up at various locations throughout the city. As the choppers
landed, the occupants of the numerous small buildings gathered
in the courtyard by the swimming pool, their eyes on the roof
top pad. Only then did we realize the magnitude of our pro
blem. At least 1,000 persons were camped within the walls of
the compound. The crowd was a mixture of Americans, Vietnamese,
Korean diplomats, and a sprinkling of other "Third Country
nationals. " Most of them seemed in good spirits considering
the circumstances, but, when they saw the helicopters, the smarter
ones began to stake out their claims to places near the gate.
Beyond the narrow gate, the Marines had almost completed the
preparation of the landing zone. Two Americans voluntarily
gave me their pistols, which was not a bad idea. We located
a cardboard box and circulated through the crowd to collect
337
weapons.
Our reconnaissance completed, we returned to the PoLMil
office, where tensions had escalated. Phones were ringing
off the hook as Americans and Vietnamese alike called to re
port that they had assembled at the various staging areas.
All wanted to know where the buses or helicopters were. Down
in the CRA parking lot sat several buses. Someone began a
vain search for the drivers and then for any volunteers who
knew how to drive a bus. A bitter telephone exchange was under
way between one agency chief and an employee in a safe site.
The employee had reported as instructed to a villa, along
with dozens of Vietnamese employees. Now he was demanding
pick up. "You'll have to make your way to the Embassy _
that's all I can tell you," shouted the frustrated American
as he hung up. Moments later, after a frantic and unsuccessful
search for a way to have his people picked up, he solved his
dilemma by boarding a helicopter for a flight to the safety
of the fleet. The haunting phone calls from Embassy employees
stranded throughout the city continued all day. long past
the point where it was possible to send anyone to pick up the
callers.
The plan to evacuate the Embassy called for the movement
338
of most employees by bus to Tan Son Nhut. This was the reason
for the pre-positioned buses in the CRA parking lot. Only
key America~ _affers were supposed to depart by helicopter
off the Embassy roof. Overall, the plan envisioned that
not more than 300 persons would require evacuation from the
Embassy. No one anticipated that the Embassy would be occu
pied by more than 2,000 persons demanding evacuation. By the
time our team arrived, Embassy staffers clearly needed assist
ance in what had unexpectedly turned into a major military
evacuation. We monitored disturbing radio transmissions from
buses that were attempting to make the rounds of the safe
sites. One terrified voice reported that mobs of desperate
and angry Saigonese were beating on the doors of his stranded
bus. Even if we had had buses to move everyone to Tan Son Nhut
and the safety of the DAD's landing zones, it had become clear
that the convoys would probably be intercepted before they
could complete their run. The surface movement plan was in
trouble almost from the beginning. The only way to evacuate
the growing crowd in the courtyard was by a heavy-lift heli
copter extraction. Sensing this dilemma, Colonel Madison
placed the services of our small team at the disposal of
Deputy Chief of Mission Wolfgang Lehmann. Lehmann promptly
339
LTC Harry Summers, who made a trip to Hanoi on 25 April 1975 as the North Vietnamese Army completed its encirclement of Saigon. Photo taken in the US Embassy parking lot on 29 April.
The main gate of the US Embassy at noon on 29 April. The press reported that the Embassy was surrounded by "thousands of panicky Vietnamese."
340
asked the colonel to take charge of the evacuation. The
senior Marine officer in the compound, Major Kean, would con
trol his security guards and direct the landing of the heli
copters. Our group would organize and marshall the evacuees
and load them on the helicopters.
We had a formidable task. By late afternoon, the crowd
had grown to well over 2,000, and people were still arriving.
During the day, eight busloads of evacuees abandoned attempts
to reach the DAO after encountering impassable conditions
near Tan Son Nhut. The entire city of Saigon appeared to be
disintegrating into anarchy. The buses finally disgorged
their people at the Embassy after a long and traumatic ride,
and their shaken passengers became our responsibility. Until
early afternoon, Air America helicopters continued to shuttle
passengers to the Embassy, all of whom would ultimately re
quire transportation to the carriers off the coast of Vung
Tau. Throughout the day, a steady flow of Americans, allied
diplomats, and Vietnamese desiring evacuation converged on
the Embassy gates. Some carried luggage; others children,
and even pets. The Vietnamese among them waved papers to
support their claims for evacuation. The overwhelmed Marines
did their best to admit the Americans. They admitted very
341
few Vietnamese. There were numerous incidents of rough
treatment as people were hoisted over the wall -.- or forced
off.
The Marine guards were under strict orders to secure
the landing zone. This meant above all that they had to
prevent the Embassy from being overrun by panicky mobs
a condition that would have forced the shutdown of the
landing zone. We could not afford to have the Embassy
evacuation deteriorate into a repeat of the Danang or Nha
Trang debacles. The potential for such a loss of control
was ever-present during those last hours. In their efforts
to comply with these orders, our young and frightened Marines
resorted to the use of force to secure the walls, as several
historic photographs graphically testify. The use of force
was regrettable, but the Marines' determined performance of
duty prevented the Embassy landing zone from being overrun
by panicky Saigonese. Had this happened, no one would have
escaped. Until late afternoon, when we received three
platoons of reinforcements from the DAO area, a number of
wall-jumpers had joined the anxious crowds in the compound.
After the arrival of the marine reinforcements, the walls
were secure. We were then able to concentrate on preparing
342
the landing zone, reassuring the restless crowd, and marshall
ing them into groups for loading when the helicopter flow
commenced.
One of Colonel Madison's first problems was with Embassy
staffers who balked at his order to remove several antenna
guy wires that were obstructing the flyaway at the head of
the landing zone. Although helicopters were en route,
Embassy personnel insisted that such alterations would
require permission. Aware that the wires posed dangerous
obstructions to safe operations, the Colonel brushed aside
their objections and ordered a marine to climb the towers and
cut the offending wires. If one helicopter had hit an obstacle
and crashed, our tight landing zone would have been permanently
closed.
The chain-link fence between the CRA compound and the park
ing lot enabled us to control access to the main landing zone,
but it also posed problems. The fence and the firehouse effec
tively isolated the waiting crowd from events in the Embassy
courtyard and parking lot. They could not see that we had
removed trees, parked sedans on the perimeter (their headlights
to be used to illuminate the LZ),and painted a large "Htl on
the asphalt. But they could see the continuous arrivals and
departures of the Air America Hueys on the rooftop pad, and
this sight produced mounting fear. R umors swept the crowd
that the Ambassador and his staff were leaving and that the
remaining evacuees were being abandoned. By mid-afternoon,
conditions in the compound had begun to deteriorate as our
impatient charges concluded that they were being left behind.
The marines experienced growing difficulties with the unruly
mob, many of whom were angry American contractors demanding
their "right" to evacuation. Colonel Summers observed the
increasingly volatile situation and entered the compound.
Assisted by Reverend Tom Stebbins, a local missionary
who spoke Vietnamese, the colonel circulated through the CRA
compound in an effort to control the grOWing fear. His mes
sage was that everyone would be evacuated and that the order
of priority was Americans and their dependents first, followed
by Third Country nationals and Vietnamese. Once the crowds
received these assurances from an h' aut or~tative source, the
tension relaxed and the situation became manageable. In the
Embassy compound proper, Bill Herron and I repeated the same
message to the groups of evacuees that we had marshalled in
a courtyard next to the makeshift landing zone.
Our major problem from the beginning was the restraint
of the mounting panic caused by the painfully slow arrival
of the evacuation helicopters into our tight landing zone.
This difficulty was not shared by our colleagues at the DAO,
where almost 5,000 persons were evacuated in a smoothly
h I di zones that General executed extraction from t e an ng
Smith's planners had prepared during the month. The first
h d I d d a t Tan Son Nhut at 3:00 pm, and big Marine chopper a an e
the evacuation had proceeded like a "piece of cake" to use
General Smith's words. l Prior planning had paid off at the
Defense Attache Office. This was not so at the Embassy, where
h decl ining morale of the nearly 3,000 we struggled against t e
souls who were depending on us to get them to the fleet.
of the early lifts that did land in the Embassy were the
Most
CH-46
type, into which we could onLY cram fifty persons, and then
only if they abandoned their luggage. When a pair of Huey
h · and several Navy fighters appeared Cobra helicopter guns ~ps
overhead, a cheer went up from the crowd. In the "on-deck
circle," some evacuees knelt and prayed before boarding the
helicopters. To speed up the departures, we decided to operate
two landing zones simultaneously. Even though the Embassy
warned t hat the rooftop pad was not designed to engineer
l ·f helicopters, we had to take this risk, accommodate heavy- ~ t
Reinforcements arrive. Marines scramble from a CH-53 that landed in the Embassy compound late in the afternoon of the 29th of April.
Tension in the Embassy. Some eva-'>.1.le.es .knelt and prayed before boarding the helicopters.
346
Aerial view of the US Embassy Compound, Saigon, 1975.
A CH-1t6 inches ing zone in the
its US
way downward into the Embassy parking lot.
tight land-
Evacuees rush to board the waiting helicopter. No one had to be urged a second time to board.
and Colonel Madison therefore directed that we admit a large
number of persons from the CRA holding area and usher them
into the six-story Embassy stairwell. As the CH-46 choppers
alighted on the rooftop pad, these people were funneled up
the final flight of stairs to the roof and extracted. At
the same time, we continued to use the landing zone in the
parking lot below. It was an efficient system, marred only
by the interminable delays between aircraft. It seemed that
hours would pass with no action, and then suddenly we would
be swamped with aircraft allarriving at the same time.
As darkness approached, we heard rumors from the fleet
that the evacuation might be discontinued until the following
morning. A light rain had begun to fall and flying conditions
had deteriorated. Fortunately, someone made the wise decision
to keep on flying in spite of the heightened risk. It would
have been difficult, if not impossible, to control the situa
tion had we been faced with such a delay. An alert Embassy
staffer produced a 35 mm slide projector, which we mounted on
the roof overlooking the landing zone. As the big birds began
their harrowing vertical descents, a marine turned on the pro
jector and bathed the LZ in a rectangle of white light.
Some of the marine pilots had experienced difficulties
in locating the Embassy during the day. To guide them,
349
Major Kean and his men had been forced to pop colored smoke
grenades on several occasions. Since Kean and his small
command group had a radio, we assumed that he was in contact
with the pilots. Only after nightfall did we learn that this
assumption was incorrect. Kean had neither the frequency
nor the call signs to communicate with the pilots. Incredu
lous, I hustled inside and sought out George Hanushevsky, a
former DAO communications technician who worked in the Embassy
Communications Center. George used the capabilities of his
console to get us the frequency and call sign of theDAO
Evacuation Control Center, which was controlling the aircraft.
Back in the parking lot, I set up a radio and established
contact with the DAO. Only then did we learn the reason
for the sputtering flow of helicopters to the Embassy. I
passed the word that the DAO expected to complete evacuation
by midnight. after which we would receive priority for the
lift helicopters. Until then, we could only sit tight and
use the time to insure that all evacuees abandoned their
luggage. The voice from Tan Son Nhut had emphasized that
the lifts would take people only M- no suitcases.
Fortunately. conditions outside the'Embassy had settled
down considerably as darkness descended on the city. Apart
350
from occasional gunfire from undisciplined ARVN troops around
the city (not directed at us), downtown Saigon was relatively
quiet and the streets around the Embassy had begun to return
to normal. We were not besieged by thousands of panic~stricken
Saigonese as some journalistic accounts have suggested. The
North Vietnamese armored thrust that ended at the Presidential
Palace a few blocks away did not commence until midnight.
Nonetheless, in the minds of those controlling the evacuation,
the impression had taken hold that we did not have control of
Us situation. Ultimately, this erroneous impression would
contribute to a tragic development.
We began to encounter serious difficulties around midnight.
For almost an hour, no helicopters arrived. The giant CH-53s
were refueling at sea after emptying out the DAD More than
1,000 people were still penned up in the CRA compound behind
the chain-link fence. Interpreting the long lull in the
arrival of choppers as proof that they were being abandoned,
the crowd began to panic. Pressure mounted against the fence.
At the gate, two young marines held their own, but tempers
were getting short. If the gate gave, controlled admission
of the evacuees to the landing zone would have been impossible.
The marine guards began fending the desperate people away from
the gate with their rifle butts, which didn't help a bit.
:;52
The situation quickly went from bad to worse as rumors again
swept through the apprehensive crowd. "The North Vietnamese
have given us until midnight to get out, then they are going
to start shooting at the evacuation ships." Hence the panic.
Everyone tried to be among the first fifty through the tiny,
four-foot gate.
"Open the gate and let me in." I ordered one of the
marines.
"Sir, you can't go in there," he replied, still fending
off the people who were pushing at the overloaded gate.
"Just open the gate. We've got to get them under control
or no one else will get out."
The marine cracked the gate and cursed at the frightened
crowd to back off. With a battery-powered bullhorn, I forced
my way into the crowd.
"Xin quy vi, im lang lai! 1m lang Lai dil" (Ladies and
gentlemen, please be quietI Be quietI) I repeated these
words over and over, urging them to "Xep hang hai di. i,
(Form a double file line!) No response. No one wanted any
thing to do with it.
"Don't worry. You will all be evacuated. Dung 10. I'm
in here with you, and I'll be on the last helicopter. No one
:;5:;
is abandoning you. In a little while, the helicopters will
begin arriving again. But you must cooperate. Throwaway all
suitcases and form a double line. You people right here back
away from the gate so we can open it."
No one listened. More shoving and maneuvering towards
the gate followed. Those in front began to use their suit
cases as battering rams. I could feel the panic spreading,
and the sinking sensation that we were about to see a replay
of Danang swept over me. A few meters away, an American with
a Vietnamese wife collapsed of a heart attack. Someone carried
him to the main compound for departure on the next lift, and
I tried again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please be quietI If you don't listen
to me, no one will go, including me. You must listen! All of
you will get to go. Please! Form a double line and throwaway
your suitcases. Line up in family groups. The helicopters will
take only people -- not suitcases. Khong ai se be bo lai!" (No
one will be left behindl).
Still no results. Everyone wanted the real estate next to
the gate. A diminutive Vietnamese in a white shirt tugged on
my arm.
"Excuse me, sir, I am interpreter here in the Embassy. The
Vietnamese all want to cooperate, but these people (he gestured
toward the crowd closest to the gate) are Koreans and have
pushed our p~ople out of the way. I will try to help you
with our people, but you must do something about the Koreans."
Sheepishly, I realized he was right. The gate was "held" by
a phalanx of taller, flat-faced Koreans. "God I Almost four
years over here and they still all look alike!" I tried
English.
"Is there a Korean officer here please?"
In a moment, a Korean naval officer shoved his way to the
front.
"Look, sir, you've got to discipline your people. No shov
ing - back off from the gate, and get them in a double linel
Please I They don't understand me. You may use the bullhorn
if you wish. Tell them that I'm in here and wouldn't be here
if the evacuation were really over. No one will leave me
behind I But they must cooperatel"
The Korean nodded, "Our people have disciplined themselves,
but the Vietnamese began pushing. We will cooperate with you
now." He rejected the offer of the bullhorn and faded away.
Reinforcements finally arrived. Colonel Summers and Bill
Herron, observing my plight, waded into the crowd and bailed
~55
me out. We linked arms at the gate and physicalJ;y assaulted
the closest people into retreating. Then, magically, the
Koreans formed a double line on the left, followed promptly
by the Vietnamese on the right. My arms ached (Later, I
discovered that my legs were black and blue from being
battered by suitcases.). But, for the first time, the
crowds were quiet and the situation was under control. We
moved everyone through the gate into the main Embassy compound
and directed them up the stairway that led to the roof of
the fire station overlooking the parking lot. Now they
could see the ongoing departures if we would only get some
helicopters. We also got an accurate count; 1,100 souls
remained. When the last family had passed through the gate,
I spotted several people picking through the debris on the
far side of the pool.
"Di khong?" (Are you going?)
"Da khong. 0 la;." (No' I t i ) On f 4 , Sl-r. we re s ay ng. e amily.
Tempted by the chance to loot the mountain of abandoned suit-
cases perhaps? Or more frightened of leaving Vietnam than of
the advancing Communists? No time for discussion. We sealed
the gate and thereby reduced the size of the remaining American
held real estate in Vietnam by fifty percent. Now the marines
356
had only the Embassy wall proper to guard. It was almost
2:00 am.
Once inside the Embassy compound, the evacuees cooperated
fully. even when we directed them to discard their remaining
luggage. We continued to reassure them that we would leave
last and that Ambassador Martin himself had stated his inten-
tion to remain until all Vietnamese employees were safely
evacuated.
As the chopper flow resumed, several groups moved into
the Embassy stairwell and departed on CH-46 "Sea Knight"
choppers from the rooftop pad. In the parking lot, other
groups boarded giant CH-53s for their ride to the carriers
of "Task Force 75," on station thirty minutes away on the
South China Sea.
By 3:00 am, the chopper flow had become a near traffic
jam. We worked frantically to hustle the evacuees onto
the CH-53s, which had begun landing and departing almost
f th A German Priest who spoke Vietnamese on top 0 one ano er.
joined the Embassy firemen in volunteering to remain until
the last lift. "I'll go when you go," he insisted as he
circulated among the refugees, repeating our assurances
that no one would be left behind. Six lifts cleared out all
357
but 420 of our charges. No more Americans remained.
Ambassador Martin appeared in the parking lot, accom
panied by his marine bodyguard. He looked completely exhausted
as he surveyed our situation. Before disappearing into the
Embassy, he directed Colonel Madison to assemble all remain
ing evacuees in the parking lot and obtain an accurate head
count.
At 4:15 am, Colonel Madison informed Mr. Lehmann that
six more lifts would complete the evacuation. Lehmann replied
that there would be no more heavy-lift birds. The evacuation
was over. Colonel Madison stood on our promise and insisted
that we would leave on the final lift only after all evacuees
under our care had been extracted. Lehmann relented. The
birds would be provided. Colonel Madison relayed tre word to
us, and we once again reassured the remaining evacuees that
we would depart together. A few minutes later, we received
further reassurance from Ambassador Martin's Special Assistant,
Brunson MCKinley, who came out of the Embassy to tell Colonel
Summers that the necessary lifts would be provided.
Shortly thereafter, Major Kean appeared and informed
Colonel Madison that no additional helicopters would be avail
able except for the lifts required to extract us and the
358
marine guards. Nearby, the 420 remaining evacuees sat in
eight disciplined groups, their eyes searching the sky for
the helicopters that we had promised them over and over.
Colonel Madison reacted angrily. "We were promised the six
birds to get these people out. I'll take this up with the
Ambassador or his deputy."
Pointing to a CH-46 that had just lifted off the Embassy
roof, the marine replied, "You can't sir, they just left."
Colonel Madison calmly announced our intention to remain
until everyone was evacuated as promised. The marine coun
tered: the cancellation of all further lifts was by presidential
order. He would not "risk the safety" of his men any longer.
With this announcement, we realized that we were finished.
A quick conference followed. No one wanted to abandon the
remaining Vietnamese, but a presidential order? Maybe the
North Vietnamese have entered the city, or perhaps they've
begun to shoot at the evacuation helicopters. One thing was
certain. No marines, no more helicopters. No US helicopter
would land on an unsecured landing zone. Colonel Madison
then made the most painful decision of his career. We must
leave in spite of our repeated assurances to the remaining
Vietnamese that we would depart only after they were safe.
359
The colonel ordered me to remain with the refugees While
the others made discreet preparations to transfer our gear
to the roof. Sitting on the trunk deck of a sedan, I manned
the radio and glanced skyward -- sick inside at the impending
betrayal. I contemplated staying but rejected this course
as fruitless. (You won't get them out anyway, and you'll be
branded as a defector -- or at best as one who disobeyed a
presidential order.)
A CH-46 alighted on the roof and quickly departed, and I
wondered whether I was supposed to be on board. The refugees
squatting closest to me glanced anxiously up at the departing
bird. I reassured them that a "big helicopter" was on its
way to pick them up. I gazed skyward, looking for a heli
copter that I knew would never come. Minutes later, I excused
myself to go to the bathroom and slipped into the back door of
the Embassy.
In the foyer, my glance fell on the bronze plaque dedicated
to the marines and military policemen who died defending the
Embassy during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Earlier inthe day, I
had received permission to take it with us ratherthan leave it
for the Communists or the looters. I had even removed it from
the wall with a crowbar. Now, the heavy plaque lay on the
:;60
floor, almost obscured by a carpet of rubble. Books, Viet
namese piaster notes, abandoned pistol belts, canteens, holsters,
attache cases, and mountains of shredded documents-- the debris
was strewn everywhere, all materialized in the brief twenty
four hours since Communist rockets and artillery had set the
final drama in motion. Disgusted at what I was about to do ,
I cancelled my plans to rescue the plaque. ("Those guys would
rollover in their graves if they could see what's happening
now! ")
I made a quick dash up the stairs and glanced into the
political-military affairs office, but the others were gone.
The Embassy was still and empty. I ran up the roof, stumbling
on the litter in the stairwell that had just corridored hun
dreds to freedom. A CH-4b had just landed, and I encountered
two of our NCOs at the head of the stairs. The others had all
left on the previous lift. We were it. Gunnery Sergeant Ernie
Pace boarded the helicopter, followed by Specialist Bill Bell.
Bell was so exhausted from fighting the crowds that he crawled
up the ramp of Ehe helicopter. I scrambled aboard, and the
aircraft lifted off a minute later carrying only the three of
us and one stray marine guard.
As the chopper banked, I caught a final glimpse of the
:;61
illuminated parking lot. The remaining refugees were still
squatting in disciplined groups and I spotted the Embassy
firemen. still in their yellow coats and helmets; their
families were waiting for them on one of the carriers. Al
though I couldn't see him, I knew that the German priest was
down there too, probably continuing to relay our reassurances
to the trusting evacuees. Also seated among the unlucky
group were more than a dozen diplomats of the South Korean
Embassy. It had not yet dawned on anyone that they were
among the victims of the final betrayal. It was 5:30 am,
30 April, and outside the Embassy walls, the streets of
Saigon were quiet and empty.
We sat silently. The helicopter's turbines were deafening
with the ramp partly open, but it was a blessing. If I had
tried to talk, I would have cried. I know of no word in any
language that can describe the sense of shame that swept over
me during that flight.
"Light at the end of the tunnel" The USS Coral Sea picked up hundreds of refugees.
A Marine CH-53 lands on the USS Okinawa on the morning of 30 April 1975.
363
Colonel Jack Madison talks with Marine Sergeant Ken Maloney on the hangar deck of the Okinawa •
." ¢
With Colonel Madison and LTC Summers On the Okinawa, 30 April 1975. No smiles.
XX. "THE RICE OF THE US NAVY"
Aboard the U.S.S. Okinawa, an angry Colonel Madison sought
out the helicopter squadron commander to learn why the evacu
ation had suddenly ended. The marine officer, Lieutenant
Colonel J~ Bolton, confessed that he and his fellow heavy
lift commanders had been completely unaware that six more
CH-53 sorties would have completed the Embassy extraction.
Colonel Bolton explained apologetically that the heavy-lift
commanders had believed that they were dealing with a "bottom
less pit" at the Embassy. Because of this conviction, they
had generated pressure to terminate the evacuation. Bolton
explained that some of the marine aviators had already flown
more than eighteen hours without a break. The impression
had spread throughout the fleet that the headstrong Ambassador
Martin was trying to evacuate the entire population of Saigon
through the Embassy conduit. Heartsick at the news of the
abandoned Vietnamese, Colonel Bolton told Colonel Madison
that he and the other commanders would never have pressured
for termination if they had known the true situation. The
365
news that they had failed to make a clean sweep of the Em
bassy was not well-received by the aviators, who had performed
heroically only to be robbed of complete success by a communi-
cations breakdown.
Much later, at Subic Bay, Ge~eral Carey explained to me
that he had the same impression of the Embassy situation as
the marine aViators.* At the time of the critical decision
to halt the Embassy evacuations, he believed that "We had
to shut off that flow or we'd probably still be there."
He, too, had been deeply disappointed when he learned how
close we had come to a flawless extraction from the Embassy.
Air Force Lieutenant Colonels Art Laehr and Jack Hilgen-
berg manned the Evacuation Control Center at the DAO. From
their account of the Embassy situation, one can reconstruct
at least part of President Ford's reason for ordering the
untimely halt to the Embassy operation:
One of the things that kept the Evacuation Con~rol Center busy was the situation at the Embassy. There were approximately 1,000 persons at the Embassy on the morning of the 29th. During the day, an additional 1,000 plus would come aboard. It was ironic that no matter how many people the helicopters hauled out of the Embassy, the estimate of evacuees was always 2,000. How long that would have continued is anyone's guess. The Commander-in-Chief, Pacific and Nakhon Phanom kept calling for updates on the Embassy situa tion, and it was always the. same - - 2,000 to go.
* BG Richard Carey, commander of the Marine Ground Security Force during the evacuation.
This caused considerable concern with the evacuation control personnel outside the country, but the Defense AttacheOffice had no way to verify the figure. At 19:30 that evening, the US Embassy was still reporting 2,000 to go. Everyone in the Evacuation Control Center believed that if the evacuation had continyed for days, the estimate would have remained 2,000.
-------------------------------------------------------------On board the Okinawa, our reunited team was understandably
bitter at what we had just been forced to do. Near the end
of our emotional and physical endurance, we blamed Ambassador
Martin, Minister Lehmann, President Ford, and several other
actors in the drama for the unconscionable breach of faith
in the Embassy courtyard. In the emotion of the moment, it
was small comfort that we had successfully evacuated more
than 2,000 persons scant hours before NVA tanks had entered
Saigon. We could not -_ and still cannot -- fully understand
why accurate reports of conditions in the Embassy parking lot
did not make it out of the Embassy. Both the Ambassador and
Minister Lehmann had toured the landing ~one as late as 4:00 am
and observed the empty staging areas as well as the remaining
refugees we had marshalled in the parking lot. In fact,
Ambassador Martin made his surprise appearance in the parking
lot at that time because of his sincere concern that no one
would be left behind. It was he who had directed us to
assemble the remaining evacuees in the parking lot and obtain
a firm head count. In retrospect, I have little doubt that
the Ambassador strained himself almost to the breaking point
in his efforts to fulfill his personal commitment to his
Vietnamese employees. Why then did he suddenly depart and
leave us no choice but to abandon our unfortunate charges?
The answer lies in the presidential order that directed him
to board the helicopter "Lady Ace 09" and depart the Embassy.
That order was based on an inaccurate impression of the situa-
tion at the Embassy -- the apparent result of vague and
confused reporting by persons inside the Embassy building
during the actual helilift operations. Once Ambassador Martin
had departed the Embassy, no one else remained who shared his
firm commitment to a complete evacuation of everyone in the
compound. No one, that is, except Colonel Madison and the
rest of our small group, and we had no way to communicate
with the fleet. (Even if we had established communications,
it is doubtful whether anyone would have believed our situa-
tion report.) We had been victimized by a tragic communicaI
tions bre4kdown,the cost of which was the fate of 420 human
beings.
--------------------------------------------------------------
368
The Navy billeted us in the sick bay of the Okinawa,
where we shared cramped accommodations with several hundred
refugees, most of whom we had rushed onto helicopters only
hours earlier. I spotted several familiar faces and sensed
that we were welcome emong this group of Vietnamese. The
bunks were three tiers high; there was no privacy. On one
side of me, a Vietnamese woman nursed her child, and across the
bay, a gaggle of Vietnamese adults and children were spell-
bound by their first look at color television on the ship's
closed circuit system.
The PA system crackled. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is
Captain Moore speaking. I would like to welcome you aboard
the U.S.S. Okinawa, and assure you that my crew and I will do
everything possible to make your brief stay on the Okinawa
as pleasant as possible under the circumstances. I'm sorry
for the cramped accommodations, but we will do our best to
take care of you."
A hastily recruited interpreter assisted the captain, who
then continued, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received
word that the North Vietnamese have entered Saigon. President
Minh has broadcast an appeal to all Republic of Vietnam armed
forces to lay down their arms. I am sorry to bring you this
bad news; but I feel you want to keep track of events as
they occur. We will keep you posted of any further develop
ments. Only a few of the refugees understood the surrender
bulletin. The interpreter spoke for a moment and told every
one that the ordeal was finally over.
The Vietnamese wept quietly. Some held one another,
while others tearfully repeated the news to the elderly who
hadn't heard the announcement. Almost all of them had lost
immediate relatives in the panic and confusion of the last
days. A middle-aged woman grabbed my arm. Her husband sat
on a bunk, sobbing uncontrollably. "This is the second time
the US Navy has rescued us from the Communists," she began
in a pronounced North Vietnamese accent. "In 1954, we were
students in Hanoi. When the French withdrew and the Communists
took over, an American ship took us from Haiphong to Saigon.
We took nothing but the shirts on our backs. My husband and
I worked as common laborers at first. We saved our money and
put him through the university. He became alawyer in Saigon.
Now it's all lost. All we have is our clothes, and now we
must again eat the rice of the US Navy~ She broke down as
her husband held up an Air Vietnam shoulder bag the results
of twenty years' work. The sense of pathos and tragedy aboard
370
the Okinawa that morning was overwhelming.
Still angry and frustrated at our role in the abandonment
of the Vietnamese in the Embassy courtyard, Colonel Summers
and I gave an interview to a Scripps~Howard journalist.
Sitting on the edge of our bunks in the sick bay, we des
cribed how we were promised the helicopters to complete the
evacuation and then ordered to abandon the very people to
whom we had repeatedly promised evacuation. As I described
the last few minutes, tears of shame welled out of my eyes.
371
XXI. WHO LOST VIETNAM?
Americans tend to be poor losers, and this American is
no exception. Several years elapsed before I could look
objectively at the events described in these chapters.
During that time, I wasted considerable emotion in a pOint-
less vendetta to fix the blame for what we had done
as instruments of our Government. It was impossible to
purge my mind of ,that final betrayal in the Embassy court-
yard, We had given our word to those people, just as our
country had pledged to assist their government; and, like
our Government, we had failed to keep a solemn commitment,
I had spent almost four years of my life in an endeavor that
ended in the shabbiest of political sellouts and a humiliat-
ing retreat under fire, and I needed someone to hold respon-
sible for my frustration. Chief among the targets of my
wrath was Henry Kissinger, who, after all, had negotiated
the Paris Agreement that had led us to the roof of the Embassy
and South Vietnam to unconditional surrender and subjugation,
Next came the US Congress, particularly the coalition of
372
liberal "doves" whose hands had thrust the fiscal dagger
into South Vietnam's back. President Thieu appeared high
on my list for his failure to institute domestic reforms
that might have made his government more acceptable to the
Vietnamese and to the American people. Finally, I held
Ambassador Graham Martin responsible for what I perceived
as his contributions to the alienation of both the press and
the Congress and his rigid control over reporting from the
US mission in Saigon. Ironically, I seemed to blame almost
he most ,obv1'ous villains, the North Vieteveryone except t
namese themselves.
As time passed, I began to realize that nothing could be
gained from emotional finger-pointing, and I embarked on a
reassessment of the entire drama. Not surprisingly the main
actors in the drama did not emerge from this inquiry as either
clear-cut heroes or villains. Dr, Kissinger, for example,
grappled with the difficult art of the possible when he nego-
The f lawed results of his efforts tiated the Paris Agreement.
reflected our eternal dilemma in Vietnam -- if the Communists
One can argue ad infinitum whether didn't lose, they won,
. gu1'lty of naivete or cynicism in Paris, Dr, Kiss1nger was
I ' h h t Pres1'dent Nixon and the American but he did accomp 1S w a
373
people demanded of him. I personally do not believe that
he extracted the best possible agreement from the North
Vietnamese,even considering the political constraints of
1972. But, if it is true that the terms of the Paris Agree
ment were advantageous to Hanoi, it is equally true that
the newly elected US Congress was fully prepared to vote
for a unilateral end to American involvement in Vietnam in
1973. It was frustrating to live in Saigon and observe the
gradual undoing of the South Vietnamese under the aegis of
a stillborn cease-fire, but the congressional alternative
was a unilateral American withdrawal with no cease-fire --
a guaranteed prescription for a South Vietnamese defeat.
Dr. Kissinger's dilemma in Paris was how to reach a negotiat
ed settlement before Congress served up South Vietnam to
Hanoi on a silver platter. At least, the Paris Agreement
offered a slim possibility for the survival of our ally.
It is considerably more difficult to rationalize the
congressional role in the loss of Vietnam. The reductions in
military assistance dealt a devastating blow to ARVN morale
and operation capabilities and unquestionably contributed to
President Thieu's political bankruptcy. Overt congressional
hostility to South Vietnam most certainly encouraged Hanoi to
pursue final victory with greater confidence. As one commen
tator aptly observed in December 1974: "For all its political
defects, South Vietnam will not be overcome by political means.
If North Vietnam wins in the end, it will be thanks to its
military strength and, above all, the constancy of its foreign
backers. ,,1 Still, one wonders what would have happened if
Congress had continued to underwrite the South Vietnamese
cause. Even if the Saigon government had been blessed with
adequate aid, how much longer could it have withstood Hanoi's
relentless attacks? My feeling is that North Vietnam had the
capability to outlast Saigon just as it had outlasted Washing
ton from 1965 to 1972. Hence, as shameful as the abandonment
of our ally was, I believe that continued aid would have merely
delayed the inevitable at a great cost in human lives. Both
militarily and politically, Saigon was on the short end of
a losing equation. Militarily, the war-weary ARVN had to
defend South Vietnam's vast territory and its long lines of
communication against an enemy that could achieve local
superiority at virtually any place of his choosing. Politi
cally, the leaders in Hanoi had undisputed control of a popu-
lation that believed in a nationalistic cause, whereas
President Thieu's government suffered from internal contra-
375
,
dictions and the traditional distrust of the South Vietnamese
peasantry of any central government.
Presiden t Thieu unquestionably failed his people by his
unwillingness to move forcefully against corruption and by
his ill-timed decision to evacuate the Central High.lands
under North Vietnamese military pressure. Curiously enough,
this latter failure caused most South Vietnamese military
men to turn against Thieu. As one former officer explained
to me, "The idea of red 1 . ep oy~ng our army had merit, but only
if it had been done on our own initiative, not as a reaction
to an NVA offensive. President Thieu's poor timing communi
cated the wrong message to many of our soldiers and thereby
contributed to the panic." Another former officer's comments
testify to the bitterness that has survived the passage of
time:
You have asked me about Mr. Thieu. At this time four years and a half after the fall of South Vi~t~ nam, we would be wise to forget him. Moreover, I am not really qualified to answer this question. The only thought the Vietnamese had in mind all their life was that Mr. Thieu had been an efficient and obedient collaborator of the US Government, he had done a good job fo r the US and a very poor one for his country and countrymen. He used all means, good and bad, to maintain his throne, with the total support of the US Government, so, as a President, he should recognize his responsibility in the loss of South Vietnam and should ~ot blame it on anyone: the American "imperialists"? His collaborators? His soldiers
376
and countrymen? He should remember what happened under his reign, be aware of the misery and humiliation that his countrymen, soldiers, comrades and collaborators are suffering under the communist regime; and if he is a man of honor and conscience, having the dignity of a General and Chief of State, he should commit suicide or at least become mad. The Vietnamese people don't have any means to remind him about that, and I hope that these lines, written by one of his soldiers, will be printed in your book so that bYzchance, he can have the opportunity to read them.
I am no apologist for President Thieu's performance as
the leader of his people, but I believe the United States over-
reacted to the corruption and the authoritarian character of his
government. Furthermore, I still have difficulty in accepting
the fact that we condemned Thieu and the South Vietnamese for
crimes of which other American allies were guilty. In some
cases, dramatically confirmed by Watergate and subsequent
events, the hand that pointed the accusing finger was not clean.
I recall a front-page editorial in one of Saigon's sixteen
daily newspapers during mid-1974. The writer boldly attacked
President Thieu as a dictator and accused him of denying freedom
of the pressl The story was one of a series in a vitriolic
public debate over Thieu's dictatorial policies, a debate that
could never have transpired if Thieu had been a full-blown
dictator. Political life in Saigon may not have been as
open as ,life in Washington and London,.but it was certainly
377
preferable to Hanoi-style communism. Colonel Harry Summers
said it better than anyone: "If the American people insisted
that South Vietnam be a liberal democracy as a precondition
for aid, then what we should have done was declare a Viet-
namese Magna Charta and wait 750 years. That's how long it
took us." Regrettably, the American people never grasped
the wisdom of these words. In its search for reasons to end
American involvement in an unpopular war, Congress demanded
of the South Vietnamese something that the United States had
been unable to accomplish. South Vietnam thus suffered what
one commentator has called "death by a thousand cuts ... 3 The
citizens of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) now read only a single,
government-controlled newspaper; Chi Hoa prison is filled with
political prisoners: and corrupt Communist cadre demand $2,000
in gold for an exit visa from Vietnamese who desire to join
their relatives overseas. Ironically, South Vietnam under the
Communists would be fertile hunting ground for the Ramsey
Clarks, the Jane Fondas, and the Bella Abzugs.
Finally, it is difficult to imagine any time in the history
of our country when an American ambassador faced difficulties
of the magnitude inherited by Graham Martin in Saigon. His
was a classic "mission impossible." Tasked to oversee the
378
completion of his country's extrication from Vietnam with
dignity without jeopardizing South Vietnam's security, Am
bassador Martin did not have the means to accomplish what was
expected of him. Instead, he confronted an increasingly hos
tile US Congress, a largely cynical press corps, and a dis-
integrating South Vietnamese economy. The South Vietnamese
military faced a determined North Vietnamese Army that had
been given a badly needed breather and the strategic advan-
tage by the imperfect Paris Agreement. Under these circum-
stances, Ambassador Martin's influence on the outcome could
only have been marginal at best. His strident exchanges
with Congress and the press probably did little to help South
Vietnam's cause, but Congress and the media would probably
have seen things no differently had he taken a less dogmatic
stance.
The tight control over public relations exercised by the
Martin Embassy and its sensitivity to any reporting that con
flicted with the "official" version of events must be seen in
the context of the struggle for continued military assistance
for the South Vietnamese. Support for our efforts in Vietnam
was so shaky in Washington that the Embassy lived in daily
fear of providing the oPPosition (Congress and the liberal press,
379
not the North Vietnamese) with any ammunition that might be
used against its cause. The Embassy thus preferred to for-
ward or release a single, "authoritative" version of the situa
tion in the belief that multiple interpretations of events
could only work to Saigon's disadvantage by creating confusion
in Washington. I recall one occasion when the Consul General
in Military Region IV severely criticized the DAO Weekly
Wrap-Up report because it had predicted hostilities in an
area where the Embassy's official assessment had forecast no
activity. The thrust of the Consul General's objection was
that such conflicting reporting only created confusion. His
suggestion to resolve the problem was that all future DAO pre
dictions should be cleared with him to insure accuracy.
This solution would have eliminated the problem of conflict
ing5sessments, but it would have subjected the conclusions
of a trained intelligence analyst to the veto of a foreign
service officer. It was not implemented, and DAO intelligence
reporting remained independent and uncensored throughout the
cease-fire.
Although the single-minded approach of the Martin Em
bassy caused some bitterness and controversy, I do not believe
a different atmosphere would have altered the outcome of the
:s80
war. A more disturbing matter, it seems to me, was the
political impasse in Washington and the defensive mentality
in the Saigon Embassy that resulted from this impasse. When
an American Ambassador charged with executing his country's
policy finds himself caught in a cross-fire between the Presi-
dent and the Congress, and Congress holds the trump card in
the form of appropriations, then the policy process has broken
down. One could argue convincingly that South Vietnam was a
victim of the constitutional battle between a resurgent Con-
gress and the "Imperial Presidency."
My experience in Saigon indicated that a serious weakness
of the US mission was its overall failure to understand the
friendly situation. Ironically, we understood the enemy
better than we understood our own ally during the period of
the cease-fire and collapse. An effective military operations
plan must be grounded in a comprehension of both the friendly
and the enemy situation. Our mission in Saigon had a firmer
grasp of North Vietnamese capabilities and intentions than
of the South Vietnamese capacity to sustain the battle. In
describing the state of the South Vietnamese body politic
during this period, General Cao Van Vien used these terms:
Finally, after many years of continuous war, South Vietnam had edged toward political and
economic bankruptcy. National unity no longer existed. No one was able to rally the people behind the national cause, which, because of bad and selfserving leadership, became increasingly dubious. Riddled by corruption, and sometimes ineptitude and dereliction, the government hardly responded to the needs of a public who had gradually lost confidence in it. Despite rosy plans and projects, the national economy continued its course downward and appeared doomed short of a miracle. Under these conditions, the South Vietnamese social fabric gradually disintegrated, influenced in part by mistrust, divisiveness, uncertainty and defeatism until the whole nation appeared to some to resemble a rotten fruit ready to fall at the first passing breeze. 4
General Vien's blunt assessment of South Vietnamese society
differs substantially from the overly-optimistic views held by
key members of the US mission during 1974 and 1975. Long
after defeatism had infected the ranks of the war-weary
South Vietnamese,our senior analysts failed to recognize
its symptoms. This was one of the major reasons for the wide-
spread surprise at the "sudden disintegration" of the South
* Vietnamese military in 1975.
During the crucial turning point in 1974, the members of
the US mission most sensitive to South Vietnamese vulnera-
bilities tended to be those relatively few people who spoke
*In fact, even though the Communists' assessment of South Vietnamese society was frequently off the mark, it was more accurate than our own by 1974.
Vietnamese and who had served as advisors during the war.
Of more than sixty American military officers in Saigon,
very few spoke any Vietnamese; almost no one was fluent in
the language. And the situation in the Embassy was not
much better. We had trained thousands of Vietnamese lin-
guists during a decade of involvement in Vietnam, many of
whom had served as advisors in the countryside during
the war, yet our personnel systems failed to staff the
US mission with genuine expertise. Many members of the
mission were actually serving their first tour in Vietnam,
but they became "experts" by virtue of their positions.
Among my acquaintances in Saigon were German linguists,
Latin American experts, Indonesian and Arabic specialists,
and Chinese linguists. Few members of our mission had the
background and qualifications to enable them to understand
Vietnam in the way required to serve effectively. (Ambassador
Martin himself had never served in Vietnam; Minister Lehmann
was likewise a newcomer who had spent much of his career in
Europe.) When I conducted a study aimed at reorganizing the
DAO intelligence apparatus for General Smith, one of the senior
civilians in the intelligence branch admitted that none of his
civilian collectors and analysts spoke Vietnamese fluently.
•
"They don't need it," he argued. "We have excellent inter-
preters." Little wonder that we consistently underestimated
the enemy's determination and failed to understand South
Vietnamese society as it sought to cope with the corrosive
internal effects of the insurgency, the assaults of the North
Vietnamese Army, and the damages caused by the "invasion"
of a well-intentioned but clumsy American military. We were
blinded by a near terminal case of linguistic-cultural myopia
that contributed significantly to our difficulties in grasp-
ing the nuances of either the friendly or the enemy situation.
Not surprisingly, the operational concept that flowed from
such a blurred perception was no better than its assumptions.
In the words of one unidentified pundit, "It was easy to see
the light at the end of the tunnel when we were backing into
it."
In spite of our many blunders and inadequacies, the insur-
gency in the south had been crippled by 1972. On e of the
lessons of Vietnam should be that insurgencies can be defeated,
but this truth has been overshadowed by the victory of the
North Vietnamese Army in 1975. In fact, even though the Thieu
government failed to eliminate many of the grievances that
the Vietcong had exploited for years, the pacification program
was remarkably effective in restoring security to much of
the countryside by the time of the American withdrawal.
Ultimately, Hanoi was forced to mount two massive conven-
tional invasions of the south to support the faltering in-
surgents. Convincing evidence of Vietcong weakness by
1975 was the need to establish North Vietnamese '~ilitary
11anagement Committees" to impose martial law on "liberated"
South Vietnam. "Provisional Revolutionary Government" cadre
were simply too few in number to manage the government
bureaucracy. Hanoi was even forced to call upon former
civil servants of the Thieu regime to keep the wheels of
* government turning.
Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese, crippling the
insurgency did not equate to winning the war -- a truth that
has been lost on many an armchair strategist. For this
reason, it has become fashionable to argue that the war was
*If our Vietnam experience proved that insurgencies can be defeated, it also demonstrated that one does not have the luxury of wasting several years in search of the correct combination for victory. For it is true that the elusive nature of the insurgency denied us the quick victory that the American . people require of their military. Since the protracted confl~ct that resulted ultimately led to our withdrawal and the defeat of the South Vietnamese, my North Vietnamese Communist friends would no doubt argue that the insurgency served its function quite effectively.
all but won by 1972. After all, had we not decimated the
insurgency in the south, and was not Hanoi on its knees from
fierce and effective strategic bombing? Proponents of this
theory argue that the United States proceeded to throwaway
its victory at the conference table in Paris. It is a com-
pelling argument -- almost as compelling as the theory that
we could have won the war by 1967 if the United States mili-
tary had been allowed to pursue a strategy of total victory
(usually defined as unrestrained bombing, and denial of sanc-
tuaries, and an Inchon-like invasion of North Vietnam). "If
only the policitians hadn't meddledl" is the watchword of
those who advance this thesis.
Both theories appeal to our national inclination to
assume that American ingenuity can handle any task with suf-
ficient commitment of resources and the time to force reality
to conform to our notions. Neither theory addresses how a
mere military defeat could somehow convince the North Viet-
namese communists to abandon their protracted military-poli-
tical struggle to end foreign influence in Vietnam and to re-
unite its two parts. If we had followed this prescription
for victory (even assuming that the Chinese would have allowed
us to occupy North Vietnam without reacting), what would have
been our strategy after establishing a headquarters in Hanoi?
Presumabl~we would have made some attempt to create a united,
non-communist Vietnam, but what of the deposed Communists?
History suggests that their mostly likely reaction would have
been to repeat the cycle that led to Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
... 11 from sanctuaries in Laos and China,and Operating 1.n1.t1.a y
then expanding into the mountains of the Tay Bac region, the
insurgency would have begun anew its campaign to seize power.
Armed with the legacy of Ho Chi Minh, backed by faithful
allies, and blessed with favorable terrain, would the Commun
ists have allowed a temporary military defeat to force abandon-
? And, 1.·f confronted with a renewed proment of Ho's dream
tracted conflict, could the United States have avoided the
same kind of domestic discontent that had confronted Mendes
France, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon?
If we have learned anything from our Vietnam experience,
we should understand that the application of military power
unsupported by adequate political consensus and resolve is
insufficient to insure victory. Our military forces cannot
operate in a political vacuum, for we are a consensus-oriented
society served rather than dominated by our military forces.
The violation of this principle can only lead to the worst
form of pyrrhic victory an army that wins virtually every
military battle only to lose the highly political act that
we call war. Thus, when reminded that his army had not
defeated the United States Army on the battlefield, a North
Vietnamese officer was able to reply, "That may be so, but
it's also irrelevant."
FOOTNOTES
CHAPTER IV
1. Van Tien Dung, "Great Spring Victory," FBSI-APA-76-110, 7 June 1974, Vol IV, No 110, Supplmenet 38, p. 15.
2. Letter dated 19 November 1973. Author's personal papers.
CHAPTER V
1. Frank Snepp, Decent Interval, (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 131.
CHAPTER VI
1. "Restoring Peace in Vietnam," Basic Documents On Ending The War and Restoring Peace I~ Yietnam, US Information---Service, 1973, p. 64.
CHAPTER VII
1. Tom Wolfe, Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine, (Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 1976)~ p. 21 ------
CHAPTER IX
1. Thong Nhat, Number 237, 23 March 1974, p. 5.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
CHAPTER X
1. Charles J. Timmes, t1G, "Vietnam Summary: Military Operation After The Cease-Fire Agreement," Military Review, Vol LVI, No.8, August 1976, p. 68.
FOOTNOTES (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER X
2. This account was provided to me by MG Murray in a letter dated 14 liarch 1980.
3. Dung, pp. 1-2.
4. Ibid., p. 5.
5. Ibid.
6. Lawson, Anthony B., "Survey of the Economic Situation of RVNAF Personnel, Phase III, " report by the DAO Special Studies Section, pp. 2-17.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid-=.., p. 7.
9. Ibid. , p. 3.
10. Ibid. , p. 5.
11. Ibid..
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid. , p. 6.
14. Ibid. , p. 5.
15. Henry Kissinger, White House Years, Little, Brown and Company, (Boston, Toronto, 1979), p. 1462. It is also worthy of note that the Nixon promise was reiterated in writing by President Ford shortly after the Nixon resignation.
16. Dung, p. 5.
17. Ibid., p. 3.
18. Ibid.
390
FOOTNOTES (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER XI
1. Quoted in, "Vietnam: From Cease-Fire to tion," by Col. W. E. Le Gro, p. 128. (Work to be by U.S. Government Printing Office in 1980-1981). permission.
2. New York Times, August 9, 1974, p. 26.
Capitu1apublished
Used with
3. Quoted from a letter dated October 18, 1979 from MG Murray to author.
4. Chicago Daily News, September 17, 1974, p. 4.
5. Dung, p. 3.
CHAPTER XII
1. Le Gro, p. 207.
2. Cao Van Vien, "The Final Collapse," unpublished manuscript, p. 68. (To be published by the US Army Center for Military History.) Quoted with permission.
3. "History, US Delegation, Four Party Joint Military Team: 31 March 1973 - 30 April 1975," p. 17.
4. Much of the account of the Congressional Delegation's encounter with the Communists is taken from the report which I submitted to the Embassy on 4 March detailing the events of the two sessions.
5. "South Vietnam, The Struggle," March 17, 1975, p. 6.
6. Vien, p. 88.
7. Ibid., p. 89.
CHAPTER XIII
1. Le Gro, p. 222.
391
FOOTNOTES (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER XIII
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid. , p. 224.
4. Dung, p. 10.
5. Le Gro, p. 217.
6. Ibid. , p. 224.
7. Dung, pp. 62-63.
CHAPTER XIV
1. Major General Homer D. Smith, "The Final Forty-Five Days of Vietnam," an unpublished paper. Used with MG Smith's permission, p. 10.
2. "Stars and Stripes," 4 April 1975, p. 3. MG Smith points out that Lawson's indictment of Al Francis, the MR-l Consul General, was not completely fair. The general recalls that Francis did "everything possible to get as many folks out as he could. He didn't lose control - the VN public authorititS did. ff
3. Interview between author and Mr. Lawson, 14 January 1980.
4. "Saigon Post," March 22,1975, p. 1.
5. FBIS, 200424Z, April 1975, p. 3.
6. "Saigon Post," April 3, 1975, p. 3.
CHAPTER XV
1. FBIS, 200825Z April 1975, pp. 1-3.
2. FBIS, 19l546Z April 1975, p. 2. (Emphasis supplied by author).
i ~
t I . , ,
t~ f
.1
FOOTNOTES (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER XV
3. FBIS, 190936Z April 197, p. 2.
4. FBIS, 2l04l4Z April 1975, p. 2.
CHAPTER XVII
1. "Saigon Post," 21 April 1975, p. 1.
2. FBIS, 03l400Z April 1975, p. 3.
3. FBIS, 211220Z April 1975.
4. FBIS, 211400Z April 1975, p. ? .
5. Dung, Volume II, p. 76.
6. Ibid. , p. 77.
7. FPJMT, Memorandum For Record, 27 April 1975, "SaigonHanoi Liaison Flight, 25 April 1975, pp. 2-4.
8. Vien, p. 200.
CHAPTER XVIII
1. Smith, p. 6.
CHAPTER XIX
1. Letter from MG Smith to author dated 21 January
1980.
CHAPTER XX
1. "Last Flight From Saigon," Thomas G. Tobin, Lt. Colonel, USAF, Arthur E. Laehr, Lt. Colonel, USAF, John F. Hilgenberg, Lt. Colonel, USAF, USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Volume IV, Monograph 6, p. 106.
FOOTNOTES (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER XXI
1. "The Economist," December 28,1975, p. 11.
2. These words were quoted froQ a letter to the author from a former South Vietnamese field grade officer who prefers to remain anonymous.
3. "The Economist," p. 11.
4. Vien. p. 205.
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