Honorable Exit

by Thurston Clarke

  With David Kennerly’s photographs fresh in his mind, Ford warned Congress that “a vast human tragedy has befallen our friends in Vietnam and Cambodia.” After asking for $250 million in economic and humanitarian aid and $722 million in emergency military assistance, he demanded a vote by April 19. He declared that the supplemental military aid might enable South Vietnamese forces “to stabilize the military situation” and offer a “chance of a negotiated political settlement,” but if the “very worst” occurred, the aid would “at least allow the orderly evacuation of Americans and endangered South Vietnamese to places of safety.” He added that the humanitarian aid was needed to fulfill America’s “profound moral obligation” to South Vietnamese whose allegiance to the United States had put their lives “in very grave peril” and to guarantee “the orderly evacuation of Americans and endangered South Vietnamese.” White House counselor Robert T. Hartmann would later write that the $722 million had also been a kind of “ransom,” an effort by Ford to buy time to save “the remaining Americans and as many blacklisted South Vietnamese as we could get out.”

  Ford also asked Congress to “clarify” the law—meaning the 1973 Case-Church resolution prohibiting U.S. military activity in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam without congressional approval—so that U.S. troops could assist in the evacuation of Americans and endangered South Vietnamese, the implication being that Congress would be putting American lives at risk if it refused.

  Washington Post Saigon bureau chief Don Oberdorfer described Ford’s talk of a moral obligation as “more a statement of principle than an order for evacuation” and saw a “contradiction between what is being said and what is being done,” adding that so far “hardly anything” had been done to evacuate endangered South Vietnamese. An embassy source told reporter George McArthur that although people at the embassy were compiling lists of potential Vietnamese evacuees and debating who should be included on these lists, they were doing little to figure out how to get them out of South Vietnam. Another source told him that some Americans were talking about evacuating thousands of Vietnamese so that after Saigon fell, they could say, “Well, we tried.”

  Only half of Congress attended the joint session. Some members booed and hissed. Two walked out and no one clapped. Telegrams and calls to the White House and Capitol Hill opposed sending additional aid to South Vietnam by a wide margin. Former Vietnam War hawk Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.) said of Ford’s request, “It’s dead. I oppose it.” House majority leader Thomas “Tip” O’Neill (D-Mass.) said it was “inconceivable” that the House would approve any supplemental military aid, and for that to happen, there would have to be “a complete turnaround” of public opinion.

  On the day that Ford addressed Congress, a new Harris poll revealed that the time had passed when a U.S. president could persuade Americans to support more military assistance for South Vietnam. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that Congress had been right not to authorize the $300 million in military aid that Ford had requested in January. Since then, the hearts of a majority of Americans had become so hardened toward the South Vietnamese that when asked, “If more military aid to Vietnam and Cambodia would avoid a bloodbath for the people of those countries would you favor or oppose such military aid?” Fifty-seven percent replied that even under those circumstances they would still oppose any additional aid, and only 29 percent said they would support it.

  There was a measure of racism behind the callousness. Unlike other Cold War refugees whom Americans had welcomed—the 40,000 Hungarians who left their country in 1956 after its failed anti-Communist uprising, and 675,000 Cubans who had fled to the United States since 1960—the South Vietnamese were Asians, and American opposition to Asian immigration had been so fierce that before passage of the 1965 immigration act immigration from Asia had been limited to 100 persons a year. War weariness was another factor. After investing so many lives and so much money in the conflict, Americans were sick of Vietnam and did not want Vietnamese refugees around to remind them of the war. By portraying the Thieu regime as corrupt, repressive, and undeserving of U.S. support, the antiwar movement and the press had also made it easier for Americans to tell themselves that South Vietnamese did not deserve U.S. citizenship. But the greatest portion of blame for this coldheartedness belonged to the U.S. political and military leaders whose bungling and lies had left Americans cynical and skeptical about anything involving South Vietnam, including its refugees.

  After Ford’s speech, members of Congress from both parties declared that they were primarily or exclusively interested in evacuating Americans. Senator Edmund Muskie (D-Maine) said he could “see some difficulties with respect to evacuating South Vietnamese on any massive scale.” Tip O’Neill declared that “Congress will vote for the humanitarian aid but it will never vote for further military aid” and predicted that legislation would be passed to ensure the evacuation of Americans from South Vietnam, but that evacuating Vietnamese was “an imponderable issue at this time.” Some questioned Ford’s legal right to order troops into South Vietnam to protect an evacuation without their approval. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) said that Congress and the administration should act with “caution” to involve U.S. troops in an evacuation, even one restricted to Americans, because it risked “miring down U.S. troops” who might have to protect evacuation enclaves from North Vietnamese forces.

  At a time when the Bien Hoa explosion was unnerving Saigon and Major General Dao’s defense of Xuan Loc was faltering, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came to the White House. The senators had requested the meeting, and it would be the first between the committee’s full membership and a president in almost sixty years. Kissinger opened it by declaring that a Communist victory would put over a million of America’s South Vietnamese allies in danger and that 174,000 of them would be in “overwhelming jeopardy.” Senator Church protested that evacuating so many Vietnamese could re-involve the United States “in a very long war.”

  Ford countered that if they tried to abandon the at-risk South Vietnamese, they might “have a hard time getting the 6,000 Americans out” and warned that if they refused his request for the $722 million in emergency aid, Thieu’s government and military might take revenge against the remaining Americans. Kissinger reported that a member of Thieu’s government had already warned an embassy official that “if you pull out the Americans and leave us in the lurch, you may have to fight your way out.” Ford estimated that the country should be prepared to evacuate between 175,000 and 200,000 Vietnamese, adding, “We’re morally responsible and we have to help the people who helped us.”

  Not a single senator on the committee agreed. The only excuse some could see for evacuating any South Vietnamese was to ensure the safe evacuation of American citizens, and the only rationale for approving $722 million in supplemental aid was if the money was essentially an unavoidable ransom.

  Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.) declared that he would not vote for “one nickel for military aid for Thieu” but would approve “any ransom to get our people out.” Joe Biden (D-Del.) said, “I am not sure I can vote for an amount to put American troops in for one to six months to get all the Vietnamese out,” but he would “vote for any amount for getting Americans out. I don’t want it mixed with getting Vietnamese out.” Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) believed that evacuating Americans was “so urgent” that everything else was “secondary.” Clifford Case (R-N.J.), the ranking Republican on the committee, said that the committee’s members believed that the number of Americans in Saigon should be reduced to a point that the last contingent could be evacuated on a single plane. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) suggested that the United States should fly Vietnamese evacuees to the Indonesian island of Borneo, because it had “the same latitude [it doesn’t], the same climate, and would welcome some anti-Communists.”

  Ford replied that the Vietnamese should not be treated any differently from Hungarians, Cubans, or Soviet Jews. “We opened our do
or to the Hungarians,” he said. “I am not saying the situation is identical but our tradition is to welcome the oppressed.”

  After the meeting ended, Kissinger told White House press secretary Ron Nessen, “I personally don’t believe we will get [out] anything like the 174,000.” Nevertheless, he said, “we have an obligation to get out as many as we can, if we can get any out.”

  The Washington Post reported that at a caucus of Senate Democrats afterward, “sentiment was widespread in favor of a quick withdrawal of Americans from South Vietnam, with much opposition to any use of U.S. troops to evacuate South Vietnamese.” During the meeting, James Abourezk (D-S.D.) pointed out that fifteen 747 jets could evacuate the remaining Americans. Majority Whip Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) said he was “very much opposed to the use of the armed forces to evacuate any South Vietnamese personnel” and introduced a resolution authorizing President Ford to send U.S. military forces into South Vietnam solely to rescue American citizens. Some House members went further and circulated a resolution calling for evacuating Americans “solely utilizing civilian personnel and transport.”

  On April 16, the House Committee on International Relations began several days of hearings to consider Ford’s request for $250 million in humanitarian funds necessary for the evacuation of Americans and between 150,000 and 200,000 Vietnamese. Representative Don Riegle Jr. of Michigan, a liberal Democrat and longtime Vietnam War opponent, charged that Ford was using the Americans “as a lever to bargain out the exit of 100,000 or 200,000 Vietnamese.” He called the evacuation of so many Vietnamese “a mistake” and suggested that the administration “scale down” its list of endangered Vietnamese to between 1,000 and 2,000. He predicted that trying to rescue hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese could result in the deaths of five thousand American soldiers.

  Congress failed to authorize Ford’s request for $722 million in supplemental aid but endorsed $200 million for humanitarian assistance on the understanding that the administration would accelerate the departure of U.S. citizens. The Senate and House bills prohibited Ford from increasing the number of U.S. military personnel involved in the evacuation beyond those needed to evacuate Americans. The Senate bill required that U.S. troops leave South Vietnam once Americans had been evacuated.

  It was too late for Nixon’s letters to Thieu promising swift retaliation if North Vietnam violated the cease-fire to influence Congress. Erich von Marbod told his friend Nguyen Hung that Weyand had handed copies to President Ford and that Ford had seemed “moved” by them. But after Secretary of Defense Schlesinger briefed Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on their contents, Jackson said that they simply demonstrated that Nixon had made secret commitments to Thieu without consulting Congress, and therefore Congress was under no obligation to honor them.

  Schlesinger and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General George Brown agreed with the politicians urging a rapid evacuation of Americans. At a meeting of the National Security Council on April 9, Schlesinger had said the administration should recognize that South Vietnam was “gone” and that more aid was justified only as a way of “buying time, partly to get out the Americans.” At a meeting of the Washington Special Actions Group on Vietnam and Cambodia on April 17, he said, “I think we ought to get out what Americans we can, and soon,” adding, “I don’t think we can get many Vietnamese out, even under the best of circumstances.” In fact, he argued, the administration did not have the authority under U.S. law to evacuate anyone but Americans.

  Kissinger believed that Schlesinger had less than honorable reasons for insisting on the rapid evacuation of Americans, writing later, “The careful record established by the Pentagon of its repeated requests for a speedy evacuation guaranteed that Ford and I would be held accountable should anything go wrong at the last minute.”

  After the dispiriting April 17 WSAG meeting, Kissinger cabled Martin, “You should know that at the WSAG today there was almost no support for the evacuation of Vietnamese and for the use of American force to protect any evacuation. The sentiment of our military, DOD [Department of Defense] and CIA colleagues was to get out fast and now.” He said that in light of this he was ordering Martin to accelerate the evacuation so that only two thousand official and private U.S. citizens remained in South Vietnam by April 22. Minutes later he sent Martin a second back-channel cable warning that “interagency pressure for immediate evacuation of US personnel has now become irresistible” and that “drastic action will be required if we are to have any chance of providing for those Vietnamese who have relied on us.” He added that the “drastic actions” he was contemplating included “initiating discussions with the Soviet Union and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] in order to work out some arrangement which would permit the departure of substantial numbers of Vietnamese who would be endangered and to whom we are most deeply obligated.”

  At a WSAG meeting four days later, on April 21, General Brown reported that according to General Vien, South Vietnam’s chief of staff, a mob at the Nha Trang airport had shot three of his generals as they were boarding helicopters and that Vien had warned that Americans attempting to leave from Tan Son Nhut might suffer a similar fate. In light of this, Brown said that it was “ridiculous” to imagine that the U.S. military could execute an all-day evacuation from Tan Son Nhut. Instead, it would be lucky to manage two waves of helicopters, enough to collect the last remaining Americans. Schlesinger recommended evacuating the remaining Americans on a few C-130s, even if that meant abandoning the Vietnamese. NSC staffer William Smyser reminded Schlesinger that Ambassador Martin had promised to evacuate the U.S. mission’s Vietnamese employees and their families and that if most accepted his offer, America would have to evacuate upwards of 100,000 people.

  The next day, April 22, NSC staffer William Stearman sent Kissinger a memorandum titled “Evacuation or Rescue of Vietnamese.” He predicted, “We will be able selectively to evacuate only relatively small numbers of endangered Vietnamese (e.g. employees of the U.S.).” If the administration wanted to save substantially more, he believed that it should be willing to accept “the random evacuation or rescue of large numbers of Vietnamese.” He also predicted that “most Vietnamese who want to escape will have to do so by water,” estimated that the tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees who put out to sea could pose “operational problems” for the U.S. Navy, and asked, “Do we pick them [the refugees] up or not?” And if we decided to pick them up, should the navy move close enough to the shoreline to pick up people whose vessels might sink if they braved the open sea? And then what should they do with these evacuees, people for whom, Stearman wrote, “we would assume a certain responsibility” by having rescued them. One solution, he said, might be “to take as many as possible to Guam or other non-Vietnamese islands to await resettlement in the U.S. or other countries.” He closed by suggesting that at the next WSAG meeting Kissinger should ask its members, “Do we want to make every effort to rescue Vietnamese escaping by water?” And if so, how close ashore could navy vessels go, and where should they take the people they rescued?

  At a WSAG meeting on April 23, Schlesinger again opposed any large-scale evacuation of Vietnamese nationals, saying, “But the U.S. is going to be accountable for all these Vietnamese. Don’t forget that.” Kissinger replied darkly, “It’s me who’s going to be held accountable.”

  Members of the Ford and earlier administrations had cited the bloodbath scenario as a reason for supporting the Thieu government, but now that a genuine bloodbath was under way in Cambodia, it was seldom mentioned at these meetings as a rationale for rescuing large numbers of South Vietnamese. Instead, discussions of their fate in Washington were largely dispassionate and bloodless. Representative Don Riegle spoke of evacuating 2,000 South Vietnamese instead of 200,000 as if the difference scarcely mattered. Stearman’s NSC memorandum mentioned the “operational problems” the U.S. Navy might face when thousands of South Vietnamese attempted to escape by water, and pre
sented Kissinger with a choice between ordering the navy to steam closer to shore and rescue them and allowing their vessels to flounder in the open sea—a choice between saving them and letting them die of thirst or drown.

  As the end neared, Kissinger became more insistent that the United States had an obligation to evacuate its South Vietnamese allies. On April 19, he told the WSAG that he hoped for “a collapse under controlled conditions” because it promised “the greatest chance of getting the most people out.” He asked Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to assist in persuading Congress to support an immigration parole for endangered Vietnamese, telling him during a telephone call, “We really owe it to the fifteen years of effort to get some of the key people out.” During an April 22 meeting with Republican congressional leaders, he said, “We want to take out the people most likely to suffer,” and at a WSAG meeting that same day he asked General Brown, “How many Vietnamese have we gotten out so far?” When Brown admitted that they did not have any “reliable figures,” he asked plaintively, “Anybody have any ideas on how we could get more Vietnamese out?”

  As John Gunther Dean, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, was preparing to leave Phnom Penh on April 12, five days before it fell to the Khmer Rouge, he received a letter from Deputy Prime Minister Sirik Matak, replying to his offer to evacuate him and other senior members of the pro-Western government. After thanking Dean for his “offer to transport me towards freedom,” Matak wrote, “I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.” He continued, “As for you, and your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty….You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under the sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love it is too bad, because we are all born and must die one day. I have committed this mistake of believing in you, the Americans. Please accept, Excellency, my dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.”