Last Days in Vietnam Page #2

Communist forces in South Vietnam,

already solidly in

control of 11 provinces,

began working on yet

another one today: Binh Dinh.

I kept a map every day

on the progress of the

North Vietnamese onslaught.

By the 5th of April,

the North Vietnamese

had 15, even 16 divisions

heading in the direction of Saigon.

They were bringing SA-2 missiles down

to provide anti-aircraft

cover for their forces.

There were people who were saying,

"Look, we've gotta do some

heavy, heavy planning here

"because depending on how this goes,

and it doesn't look good now,

we may all have to evacuate. "

And Ambassador Martin

wouldn't tolerate or

countenance such thought.

That was defeatism.

That was poisonous to the prospects

of the people we're here to help.

But people could see what was going on

and they started leaving,

especially the Americans.

I'm leaving Vietnam.

Why?

I'm kind of scared,

to be honest with you.

To be perfectly honest

with you, I'm really scared.

I think the situation's a

lot worse than we know about.

There was always a standing

evacuation plan in the embassy.

It held that in an emergency,

all Americans still in the country,

about 6,000 people, would be evacuated

and that no South Vietnamese

would be evacuated with them.

I was a student.

The school's not closing,

but it seemed like nobody's

interested in school anymore.

You can't stay here.

You can't live with the Communists,

especially if you have a

connection with the Americans.

Then you really gotta get out.

If we really made up a list

of endangered South Vietnamese,

the ones who really worked

closely with us during the war,

this number could be 150,000, 200,000.

Including their families,

many more than that.

But the idea of talking

about an evacuation

and of planning for an

evacuation of Americans,

let alone an evacuation of Vietnamese,

was still anathema in the embassy.

If you mean, "Is South Vietnam

on the imminent verge of collapse?"

I think the answer is

quite definitely no.

We were dealing with an ambassador

who was just convinced that somehow,

he was going to be able to pull this out

and that there wouldn't

have to be an evacuation

and therefore, there

wouldn't have to be a concern

about evacuating South Vietnamese.

The situation in South Vietnam

has reached a critical phase

requiring immediate and positive

decisions by this government.

There are tens of thousands

of South Vietnamese employees

of the United States government,

of news agencies,

of contractors and

businesses for many years

whose lives, with their dependents,

are in very grave peril.

I'm therefore asking the Congress

to appropriate without

delay $722 million

for emergency military

assistance for South Vietnam.

If the very worst were to happen,

at least allow the orderly

evacuation of Americans

and endangered South

Vietnamese to places of safety.

There was no way in 1975

that the Congress was

going to vote any money

to go to the aid of South Vietnam.

We had pulled out our troops in 1973

and public opinion

at that point shifted.

The people of the United

States, having seen Watergate,

having seen the

deception of the generals,

weren't about to give any

help in Southeast Asia.

And you know, Kissinger knew this.

We knew we were not going

to get the $722 million.

By that time it made no big difference,

but President Ford said

he owed it to Vietnam to make a request.

We've sent, so to speak,

battleship after battleship

and bomber after bomber

and 500,000 and more men

and billions and billions of dollars.

If billions and billions didn't do

at a time when we had all our men there,

how can $722 million save the day?

This is the way my map

looked in mid-April.

The North Vietnamese just

rolled down the coast.

Saigon was clearly threatened.

The situation was urgent.

Urgent understates it.

At this time, Ambassador Martin

had been back in Washington

trying to persuade Congress

to vote additional aid.

Do you have anything

to say on your arrival?

He has no statement to make.

He came back to Saigon,

and my boss, the CIA

station chief, said,

"Go down and tell the old

man what's happening. "

I went and I said, "Mr. Ambassador,

"half of the South Vietnamese

Army has disintegrated.

"We're in grave trouble.

"Please, sir, plan for an evacuation.

"At least allow us to

begin putting together

lists of South Vietnamese

we should rescue. "

And he said, "No, Frank.

"It's not so bleak.

And I won't have this negative talk. "

Young officers in the embassy

began to mobilize a black operation,

meaning a makeshift

underground railway evacuation

using outgoing cargo aircraft

that would be totally below

the radar of the Ambassador.

People like myself and others

took the bull by the horns

and organized an evacuation.

In my case, that meant friends of mine

who were senior officers in

the South Vietnamese military.

As the North Vietnamese came

closer and closer to Saigon,

these people were dead men walking.

I had arranged a signal

with my intelligence community friends

that if I said, "I'm having a barbecue,"

that meant come to a

certain pre-designated place

and bring your families

and only bring one suitcase

because we're going to have a party.

But it was understood the party meant

I was going to get them out.

Black Ops were essentially

violating the rules...

In this case meaning,

you're not allowed to bring

out Vietnamese military people

who were under obligation

to stand and fight.

We were fully expecting

if we got caught doing this

that we would be run out of country.

End of career, do not pass go.

But sometimes there's an

issue not of legal and illegal,

but right or wrong.

The deputy defense attach

moved out Vietnamese personnel

and their families to Clark

Air Base in the Philippines

without any approval whatsoever,

without any immigration

papers, anything...

Passports, you name it.

And when they began showing

up in the Philippines,

Martin hit the roof and fired him!

But that didn't stop other

State Department people

who had Vietnamese

friends and family members.

They continued to organize

these makeshift airlifts.

TERRY McNAMARA:
That

April, I was in Can Tho,

which was about 100 miles from Saigon.

And we were getting reports

of this town falling and that

province falling and so on.

And then we were attacked.

Sergeant Hasty came by to

give me a report on the damage.

Can Tho came under pretty

intense artillery bombardment.

The North Vietnamese had overrun

some South Vietnamese

artillery batteries

and managed to turn those around

and shell the center of Can Tho.

We knew that the situation was bad.

We could see that the South

Vietnamese Army was eroding.

Supplies had been cut off

and you could see the

armaments dwindling.

McNAMARA:
We were, under the

terms of the Paris Agreement,

committed to resupplying

the South Vietnamese.

They lacked simple

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