Last Man Out (41 page)

With the collapse of the ARVN forces in the north, military reporting suddenly became job one in the delta. Jim called me to Can Tho on two occasions to meet with Hung for a briefing. The second time he told me to move up permanently so that I could meet Hung on a regular basis. Another reason was that consulate staffers often found Air America pilots uncooperative, and many of the pilots were my friends. Jim thought that I could improve the overall relationship.

I planned to visit Vi Thanh weekly or biweekly thereafter to check on the compound and get a briefing from Colonel Truong, commander of the 21st Division element left behind. My departure was an ominous sign to my interpreters and the staff, especially Loi. As long as an American was on the scene, they weren’t going to be forgotten. They had a fatalistic view about the future and wanted to be at a launch point when the light went out. They were aware that the North Vietnamese were pushing down the coast above Saigon and that most South Vietnamese forces were falling back.

Promising them that I would not forsake them, I said I would be back as often as I could. They were to continue doing the job and let me know what was going on. I left that day with most of my personal items. I had been in Vi Thanh for nine months, most of the time as the only American. As the Air America Porter was making its tight spiral to gain altitude over the city, I saw the staff standing silently in the compound as they watched the plane leave.

My work routine in Can Tho differed greatly from that in Vi Thanh. The nights, however, were about the same. Wasn’t much
to do in Vi Thanh at night, and in Can Tho everyone went to ground early because of the 2000 curfew. Each morning I walked to the consulate from my apartment down the block, and it was crowded with people trying to get in to get a visa for the States. I had to fight my way through the crowd, past the local guards and U.S. Marines, into the secure base area. The first person I always saw there was Jim D.’s secretary, Phyllis F.

The general drawdown of official Americans continued. Every morning as I passed Phyllis’s desk I saw piles of automobile, office, and apartment keys from people who had left the previous afternoon or evening.

After the fall of Ban Me Thuot, the North Vietnamese were moving south without much resistance. Sometimes no one was sure exactly who controlled what area. Some South Vietnamese military forces in the delta deserted their positions. Some South Vietnamese military and provincial officials just walked out of their offices and headed to Saigon to catch planes out of the country. Air America pilots did not want to take just anyone’s word on the security of an area where they were asked to fly or land. Relying on the trust that we had established in Laos, most of the pilots worked with me, as well as “Mac” [alias] and “Sarge” [alias], two other CIA officers at the Can Tho base. Mac, another North Carolinian, had previously worked with Air America in southern Laos and knew most of the pilots. Sarge spoke fluent Vietnamese and was a longtime adviser to the Can Tho interrogation center. He had been in South Vietnam for years and knew the lay of the land in the delta better than any other American in-country.

The principal officer at the consulate, Consul General (Congen) Francis T. (Terry) MacNamara, had the unenviable job of trying to identify all U.S. citizens in the delta to ensure that they had some way to leave if they wanted to. He was assisted occasionally by Lacy Wright in Saigon, previously a State Department officer at the consulate in the delta. It was difficult to determine sometimes who was entitled to U.S. citizen status. Some Vietnamese women had returned from short marriages with GIs in the States. Even if their status was clear, the eligibility of their extended family was always fuzzy.

In one case, MacNamara was required to fly to a province
close to the Cambodian border for a personal interview. He tried to arrange this directly with several Air America crews, but they either told him to get someone else or said that their helicopters were down for repairs. MacNamara, in fact, had a history of altercations with Air America pilots. Once, he had asked a pilot to shut down in a field in an area that the pilot thought was not secured. After a loud shouting match, the pilot said he was leaving. MacNamara could come with him or walk back. MacNamara, of course, left with him but was fuming.

MacNamara asked Jim D. to intervene on his behalf with Air America so he could get out to the province close to Cambodia. The next morning I went with MacNamara to the airfield at Can Tho and waited for the Air America helicopters to come down from Saigon. Cliff Hendryx, an old poker-playing friend, was captain of the first chopper to land.

I asked MacNamara, who had a scrubbed, neat, office-look about him, to wait in air ops until I had talked with the pilot, and I walked up to the helicopter as it was shutting down. Cliff opened the door. His helmet was lying on the console beside him.

His eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t shaved in several days. He had a thin, gaunt face, and his stubble made him look like a mountaineer. He also reeked of garlic. The kicker in the back was handing him a slice of watermelon.

“Muley, how you doing, fuckhead?” Cliff said. Most Air America pilots did not know my real name.

As he ate the watermelon, with juice dripping down his chin and onto his shirt, I explained what MacNamara wanted and what I knew about the area where he wanted to go, which appeared safe. Cliff picked up a
Playboy
magazine and put it in his lap to catch the juice. I said I would go along because I knew some of the ARVN in the area. Cliff didn’t voice any objection to the mission. He finished his watermelon and lit a cigarette. He was smoking and spitting out watermelon seeds when MacNamara walked up. The Congen looked at Cliff—the smelly mountaineer—for a long moment. He finally said he had changed his mind, turned on his heels, and left.

“Well, fuck him,” Cliff said.

  NINETEEN  

An area of increasing concern was Route 4, which ran west and southwest out of Saigon, north of the Bassac River, and down into the delta. Elements of the ARVN 7th Division protected the road, and General Hung arranged for me to be briefed by General Tran Van Hai, the 7th Division commander. Hung said that he had served in the 7th Division himself when he was younger. The American adviser at that time was the legendary Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, a man who became an authority on the ARVN and eventually died in South Vietnam.

I flew out by helicopter to 7th Division headquarters and met with Hai in his office. An Oriental copy of a U.S. Army officer, he was a neatly dressed chain-smoker with his sleeves folded up above his elbows. He spoke excellent English.

The eyes in his pudgy face were hard and he was not friendly. I asked him about the situation.

“You want information, U.S. government man. I want helicopter parts. I want ammunition.”

“You’re talking with the wrong man, that is not my job.”

“You are U.S. government. The U.S. government promised to keep us supplied so we can fight. We can do it, we can continue to fight, if we have bullets and planes. Tell your government that and I will tell you what is happening here.”

“I will. I will report that you are short of supplies.”

Hai looked at me for a long moment. Finally he said, “You Americans don’t always keep your word to us Vietnamese ‘slope heads.’ ” And he continued to look at me through his cigarette smoke as he waited for my reaction.

When I did not respond, he shrugged and started his briefing. He said his men had interlocking positions down Route 4 and out
to the Cambodian border to protect the underbelly of Saigon. The area was mostly open rice fields. Morale was good, and he could hold out against a division-size North Vietnamese force for a short period of time. Morale would collapse, however, if his division was set upon by a larger force and if its ammunition began to run low, and he expected that a large North Vietnamese unit would attack soon and that he would have no source of resupply. He faced the NVA 9th Division commanded by Maj. Gen. Di Thien Tich, who had been fighting in that area since before 1965.

“Tich is maybe the best field general the NVA has,” he said. “You know what the slogan of his division is? ‘Obliterate the enemy.’ That’s me. You know what the slogan of the Army helping me is? ‘Fuck your friends.’ ”

There was venom in his voice. The ARVN was collapsing in the North, and he was sullen, bitter about his fate. Unlike Hung, Hai was not philosophical about the future. He was angry.

I suggested that there might be a negotiated cease-fire that would protect the sovereignty of the Government of South Vietnam. The general looked at me without speaking. I had no idea what he was thinking.

Later, back in Can Tho, I reported on my meeting with the 7th Division commander to Jim D. and told him, in conclusion, that the general wanted more bullets and spare parts. Jim D. knitted his brow and looked at me. “Put it in your report to Washington, then, don’t tell me.”

I went downstairs to the base map room, where I had set up my work space, and wrote a cable for dissemination to Saigon and Washington. I thought about Balls’s overview that things were okay and his prediction that South Vietnam would survive. Who was right, Balls or Hai?

Every morning the crowd in front of the consulate got larger. Every morning there were new keys on Phyllis’s desk. Every morning there was bad news about the North Vietnamese push down from the north.

Sarge, Mac, and I continued to travel throughout the delta as we gathered information and looked after the local staffs in compounds that had been abandoned by departing CIA and USAID officers.

Wherever we went we promoted the line from our Saigon Station that the delta of South Vietnam had nothing to worry about—there would be a negotiated peace. I repeated this message time and again without blinking my eyes. It was a better out than saying what I believed—that the clock was ticking and the end was near.

After consultation with CIA management in Saigon, the base chief decided to close some of the compounds in which there were no Americans. Rather than return the equipment in the compounds to Can Tho, Jim decided to turn everything over to the South Vietnamese government officials in the provinces. He told those of us going to the field to terminate all local support staffs, and he instructed the base finance officer to draw a large amount of U.S. and Vietnamese currency from the Saigon Finance Section to cover their termination and separation pay.

The agency, however, had long-term responsibilities to some of the special agents who worked out of the compounds to be closed. Jim told the deputy base chief, Tom F., to draw up a list of those key indigenous personnel (KIP) who had tenured employment with the CIA and work on ways to protect them.

Tom was uniquely suited to the task. He was one of the most experienced agency paramilitary hands in Indochina. In his first CIA assignment in Thailand during the 1950s, he handled a one-man office in a small town on the Thai-Cambodian border and met other Americans only on quarterly trips into Bangkok. His total immersion into Asian culture served him well. He knew the soul of the Indochinese farmer.

Although Tom had tough standards, he was compassionate and fair when it came to dealing with the Vietnamese and deciding who deserved our special consideration and protection. Because the number of KIP had to be realistic—we couldn’t take everyone who wanted to leave the country—Tom included on the KIP list only those staffers and agents who had done sensitive work. Maintenance staff, guards, and cooks were not included. In Vi Thanh the only people who qualified were my two interpreters. Loi, the senior guard, did not.

Before leaving Can Tho to close my old compound in Vi Thanh, I drew a cardboard box full of Vietnamese piasters and a
box half full of American currency as an advance from the finance officer. Loi met me at the airfield and peppered me with questions about the situation in the North. As we drove into the compound, I told him that we were closing down and I wanted him to prepare a list of all the equipment—every typewriter, every rifle, every knife and fork, every towel, every pencil. The interpreters were sitting on the porch of the main house when we pulled in. I told them to work on the employment histories of all the employees. I wanted to know when each man started to work and his terms of employment. I told the two interpreters that they were being transferred to Can Tho. Loi was carrying my bag into my old bedroom and overheard me. He stopped and looked at me in the hope that I would say, “Loi, too, you’re going to Can Tho,” but I did not. I turned and walked toward the office. Tom had said, “No guards.”