Honorable Exit

by Thurston Clarke

  Twelve hours before Martin left the embassy on April 30, he had ordered four tightly sealed suitcase-sized boxes flown to the Midway. The State Department assumed they were his personal effects and forwarded them to his home in North Carolina. The boxes contained classified State Department and CIA documents spanning the period from 1963 to 1975, many of them stamped “Top Secret.” They included “eyes only” communications between Martin and Kissinger that had not gone through regular State Department channels. In December 1977, four high school dropouts stole Martin’s red Fiat sports car from his house in North Carolina and abandoned it in the woods. Martin had been storing the embassy documents in the trunk. State police found some of them in the car; others turned up by the side of a road and in an abandoned house. After selecting the most important ones, the thieves attempted to sell them. The Justice Department decided not to charge Martin with gross negligence because of his age and health.

  Martin claimed that he had been planning to donate the papers to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, although he did not contact the library until several weeks after the police recovered them. Sources at the State Department speculated that he had wanted to use the papers to write a historical account that would protect his reputation from criticisms that might be leveled by Henry Kissinger. An unnamed State Department official said, “Graham Martin expected to get into a pissing match with Kissinger after Saigon. He always suspected that Kissinger would try to screw him and blame the fall of Vietnam on him.” Martin was said to have complained to friends that Kissinger had been spreading rumors to reporters that he was insane. A former member of his embassy staff said, “He [Martin] never trusted Kissinger and, I guess, he got a little paranoid toward the final days.” According to Frank Snepp, “He [Martin] told me he kept them so he could have the last word on Kissinger.”

  Martin never received another posting and retired from the State Department in 1977. On his last day at work he shared an elevator at the State Department with Walter Martindale. After telling Martindale that after thirty years of service he was retiring that day, he said, “I’m not even being given a luncheon or official farewell. I guess they blame us rather than Congress and the White House for losing Vietnam—but we know better and are in good company.”

  Duc Van Mai was one of the news agency employees whom Brian Ellis evacuated. He settled in California with his wife and five children. After becoming an American citizen, he changed his name to Brian Duc Van Mai. He has called Ellis every Thanksgiving, and in 2002 his daughter Julie wrote to Ellis to thank him for “that role that you’ve had not only in my life and the life of every person in my immediate family, but also the lives of the hundreds that you helped to escape.” She continued, “For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard your name—always spoken with an air of respect, the kind that you have for an old friend, and a sense of fondness, that which you have for a loved one, a brother.” She wrote in a postscript that her father had cried when he read her letter. His tears had flowed, she said, “because I think I was able to express the gratitude and appreciation that my father has felt towards you for years but was unable to find words in English to tell you. Or, perhaps there are no words to express the gratitude that he feels. How do you thank someone for saving your family?…Quite simply, you’re our hero.”

  Acknowledgments

  I am indebted to the principal characters named in this narrative who spent hours with me sharing their stories and supplementing them with letters, emails, and diaries. I met with Walter Martindale on four occasions, and he followed up with long and informative emails. I spoke with Ken Moorefield multiple times over the course of a year during which he patiently and in great detail described his experiences during this period. Bill Bell kindly hosted me at his home in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and spoke movingly about the loss of his wife and son in the Babylift crash. Brian Ellis entrusted me with his thoughtful and comprehensive written account of his meetings with Graham Martin and his white-knuckle trips to Tan Son Nhut. Lem Truong permitted me to draw from her unpublished account of her thrilling escape from Saigon. Tom Glenn followed up our interview with several illuminating emails. I can recommend the gripping books and article that he has written about his experiences in Saigon to anyone seeking to learn more about him and the activities of the NSA in South Vietnam. Lionel Rosenblatt was generous with his time, spending most of an afternoon reliving the pop-up underground railway that he and Craig Johnstone cobbled together in Saigon. Bill Ryder gave me a copy of his final report on the Military Sealift Command’s evacuation from Saigon. Jim Parker was one of my first interviewees, and he supplemented our long and pleasant interview in Las Vegas with a number of suggestions and clarifications.

  I have also drawn extensively on my interviews and correspondence with Richard Baughn, Erich von Marbod, Ross Meador, Al Topping, Nelson Kieff, Don Kanes, David Whitten, Alan Carter, Jaime Sabater, Richard Armitage, Al Gray, Don Hays, Joe McBride, Theresa Tull, Terry McNamara, Marius Burke, Glenn Rounsevell, Lacy Wright, Jackie Bong-Wright, Jack Madison, David Kennerly, Stuart Herrington, Andy Gembara, Cary Kassebaum, and John Sullivan. I am grateful to them for welcoming me into their homes and offices and reliving memories that for some remain painful. Graham Martin’s daughter Janet shared with me some fascinating and little-known aspects of the life and character of her proud, accomplished, stubborn, and ultimately heroic father. Had I included the exploits of all the Americans, South Vietnamese, and others who evacuated endangered Vietnamese during the spring of 1975, Honorable Exit would have been several times longer. Some of those whom I interviewed will not find themselves in these pages, not because their stories were less courageous and compelling but because of space constraints. Please accept my apologies.

  I have also drawn extensively on the Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, the Gerald R. Ford Library Oral History Projects, and the Oral History Collection at the Texas Tech University Vietnam Center and Archive. All three collections are of a uniformly high standard. David Butler, author of The Fall of Saigon, published in 1985, conducted lengthy interviews with many of the same individuals who I interviewed three decades later and with others who are no longer alive. His notes and transcripts, available at the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College, were an important resource. Professor Larry Engelmann conducted hundreds of interviews for his magisterial oral history, Tears Before the Rain. After his book was published in 1990, the indefatigable Engelmann continued interviewing Americans and Vietnamese, posting the results on his website, Pushing On. His interviews with Graham Martin, Tom Polgar, and George McArthur were particularly illuminating, and I am deeply in his debt. I also drew on several published collections of oral histories, including Al Santoli’s To Bear Any Burden and Kim Willenson’s The Bad War.

  Terry McNamara, Bill Bell, Theresa Tull, Stuart Herrington, O. B. Harnage, Tom Glenn, and Jim Parker have written accounts of their experiences during this period, in some instances as part of longer memoirs. Their books are listed in my bibliography, and I recommend them to anyone wishing to learn more about these remarkable people. No one can write about the final months of the Vietnam War without consulting, as I did, former CIA agent Frank Snepp’s Decent Interval. It was published in 1977 and remains the longest and most detailed account of America’s exit from South Vietnam. During the last four decades, some of my principal characters have recounted their experiences to other authors and oral history interviewers. I have found that in some instances and in some minor respects their stories changed slightly over the years. I have done my best to reconcile any discrepancies and apologize if I have fallen short.

  My wife, Antonia, has been patient and supportive while I wrote yet another book that required more time than was initially anticipated. Her love has given me the energy and confidence to complete Honorable Exit and the other books that I have had published during forty years of joyful marriage. My
daughters Phoebe, Edwina, and Sophie, are now out of the house, but their frequent emails and phone calls have buoyed my spirits. Joe and Pamela McCarthy have continued providing support and encouragement, not to mention a bed and working space in Brooklyn during my periodic visits to New York. Fellow author Stephen Fenichell has been a thoughtful sounding board and good company during our monthly luncheons. And many thanks again to Sandy and Stephanie Carden and to their daughters, Isabel and Lily, who have welcomed me to their home in Florida for several weeks every winter. Other authors have the McDowell Colony; I have the Cardens.

  I am grateful to Melissa Danaczko and Bill Thomas at Doubleday for their enthusiasm and encouragement. After Melissa departed I had the great good fortune to be handed over to the energetic and indefatigable Kristine Puopolo. She has given this manuscript more perceptive reads than any author has a right to expect from an editor, and her suggestions and edits have improved it immeasurably. Her associate Dan Meyer has been unfailingly efficient, insightful, and helpful in moving the manuscript through the publishing pipeline. I have been represented by Kathy Robbins for twenty-seven successful and productive years. She and the indispensable David Halpern have given the proposal, research report, drafts, and final version of this book so many thoughtful readings that I would not be surprised if they had unwittingly committed some passages to memory. I am dedicating Honorable Exit to the newest member of our family, my accomplished and kind physician son-in-law, Tom Gilliland, and to Ben Weir, a good and loyal friend who has contributed his ideas and research skills to my last several books.

  Notes

  ABBREVIATIONS

  ADST—Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection.

  CIA—Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency. Thomas L. Ahern Jr. CIA and the Generals: Covert Support to Military Government in South Vietnam.

  DBC—David Butler Collection. Papers of David Butler at Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.

  FLEAP—Ford Library, National Security Council, East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

  FLMF—Ford Library Martin Files. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Mich. Archives. National Security Adviser. Files kept by Ambassador Graham Martin. Boxes 1–10, includes copies of files removed without authorization by Graham Martin.

  FLNSA-Meet—Ford Library, National Security Advisers, NSC Meetings File.

  FLNSA-Mem—Ford Library, National Security Advisers, Memorandum of Conversations Collection.

  FLOHP—Ford Library, Oral History Projects.

  FRUS—U.S. Department of State: Office of the Historian. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume X, Vietnam, January 1973–July 1975.

  LDE—Larry D. Engelmann, “Pushing On.” Unpublished oral history interviews conducted by Engelmann. lde421.blogspot.com.

  MSC—Military Sealift Command. “Activities of the MSCOV During the Vietnam Evacuation.” Memorandum from Acting Chief, MSC Office Saigon Residual (Bill Ryder), to Commander, Military Sealift Command, Far East, June 27, 1975.

  OFW—U.S. Marine Corps, Ninth Marine Amphibious Brigade, “Operation Frequent Wind,” Aug. 5, 1975. U.S. Marine Corps, History and Museums Division.

  RSP—Report on the Situation in the Republic of Vietnam. Hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. Testimony of Ambassador Graham Martin, July 31, 1974.

  SBE—Summers, Lieutenant Colonel Harry G. “The Bitter End,” Vietnam Magazine, April 1975.

  TTU/ARC—Texas Tech University, Vietnam Center and Archives, Archive.

  TTU/OH—Texas Tech University, Vietnam Center and Archives, Oral History Collection.

  USDAO—U.S. Defense Attaché Office, Saigon, Republic of Vietnam. End of Tour Report. Major General Homer Smith wrote three versions of his report in 1975, marked I, II, and III.

  USMC—U.S. Marine Corps, History and Museums Division. Frequent Wind.

  VCE—The Vietnam-Cambodia Emergency, 1975. Hearings before the House Committee on International Relations. Part I: Vietnam Evacuation and Humanitarian Assistance. April 9–18, 1975. Part II: The Vietnam-Cambodian Emergency, 1975. Hearings of March 6–13 and April 14, 1975. Part III: Vietnam Evacuation: Testimony of Ambassador Graham A. Martin. Hearing of Jan. 27, 1976.

  PROLOGUE: THE MAN IN THE WHITE SHIRT

  Dutch photojournalist: Hubert “Hugh” Van Es, “Thirty Years at 300 Millimeters,” New York Times, April 29, 2005.

  “makeshift wooden ladder”: Ibid.

  Zoom in: Harnage, Thousand Faces, 158; Leeker, Air America, 1, 31–32.

  “a gregarious, macho good old boy”: Sullivan, Of Spies and Lies, 186.

  The cigar was one: Harnage, Thousand Faces, foreword, 121–29; Fred Bernstein, “This Week O. B. Harnage Remembers America’s Last Day in Vietnam,” People, April 8, 1975.

  seven years in Laos: Harnage, Thousand Faces, 48.

  Earlier that afternoon: Ibid., 158–60; Bernstein, “This Week O. B. Harnage Remembers America’s Last Day in Vietnam.”

  Van Es photographed Harnage: Ralph Ellis, “Famous Saigon Photo Captured Doctor’s Escape,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 28, 2010.

  Next came Tuyet-Dong Bui: Tiet-Tong Bui, interview.

  “In the coming hours”: Saigon Post, April 16, 1975.

  It was there because: Gray, interview.

  Air America pilots: Burke, interview; Robbins, Air America, 283; TTU/OH: Fillipi, 32–34; Leeker, Air America, 16–17.

  He refused Burke’s request: Burke, interview.

  Bob Caron and Jack Hunter: Caron, interview; Zac Anderson, “A View from the Roof: Fort Walton Beach Resident Piloted Huey Seen in Saigon Evacuation Photo,” Northwest Florida Daily News, April 29, 2006.

  To make more room: Harnage, Thousand Faces, 158.

  As he lifted off: Caron, interview.

  Harnage never forgot: Harnage, Thousand Faces, 164.

  “Don’t look in their eyes”: Dennis Troute, “Last Days in Saigon,” Harper’s Magazine, July 1975, 60.

  A reporter who had refused: Hoffmann, On Their Own, 372–73.

  “the look in the eyes”: Moorefield, interview.

  “Oh my God”: Bui, interview.

  “I am opposed”: United Press International, “McGovern Opposes Airlift,” New York Times, April 30, 1975, 18.

  “We have them”: Hoffmann, On Their Own, 333.

  Between noon and 5:00 a.m.: “Air America Played a Crucial Part of the Emergency Helicopter Evacuation of Saigon,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, June 2006.

  Add them to the 45,000: Tobin, Laehr, and Hilgenberg, Last Flight from Saigon, 45.

  Jackie Bong, the widow: Bong-Wright, Autumn Cloud, 194–99.

  Teenager Linh Duy Vo: Linh Duy Vo, “A Fateful Lottery Ticket,” www.generalhomersmithprize.org; LDE, General Homer Smith.

  Two decades earlier: Greene, Ways of Escape, 161.

  General Marcel Bigeard: Swain, River of Time, 276.

  “seductive about Vietnam”: Nessen, It Sure Looks Different from the Inside, 95.

  “any great attachment”: Engelmann, Tears Before the Rain, 53–54.

  “not one of the people”: Ibid., 74.

  An American who had served: Ogden Williams, “Last Trip to Vietnam, April 4–22, 1975,” unpublished memorandum supplied to the author.

  “We’re not going”: Santoli, Everything We Had, 91.

  “Every one of you folks”: Manyon, Fall of Saigon, 110.

  A journalist who witnessed: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 1: OMENS

  It was said that swarms: LDE, “Nguyen Thi Kim-Anh Remembers the Fall of Saigon”; LDE, “Huyen Lac.”

&nb
sp; An American diplomat: LDE, “Vincible Ignorance: Doug Pike’s Vietnam.”

  During a state dinner: Hung, Palace File, 261–62.

  North Vietnam’s chief of staff: Dung, Our Great Spring Victory, 22.

  “first big step”: Vien, Final Collapse, 68.

  “Is the South Vietnamese Defense”: Todd, Cruel April, 100.

  Nelson Kieff, a military intelligence: Kieff, interview.

  “Roll up your sleeves”: Lee and Haynsworth, White Christmas in April, 119–20.

  “The cuts they”: FRUS, 156.

  While author and Vietnam War critic: Isaacs, Without Honor, 333.

  “We are ready to withdraw”: Kimball, Vietnam War Files, 120, 187.

  “If we can live”: Calvin Woodward, “Kissinger Papers: U.S. OK with Takeover,” Washington Post, May 26, 2006.

  “If a year or two years”: “Tape: Nixon Mulled Vietnam Exit in 1972,” USA Today, Aug. 8, 2004.

  “all the U.S. cared about”: LDE, “Keyes Beech.”

  “I am returning”: FLNSA, April 3, 1975.

  During the next two years: FLMF, box 8.

  By then, Saigon wags: Isaacs, Without Honor, 143.

  “Of course we have information”: Herrington, “Third Indochina War,” 91.

  Like many in his generation: Herrington, interview.

  Soon after Phuoc Long fell: Herrington, “Third Indochina War,” 90.

  An American contractor: Ibid., 193.

  One evening a posse: Herrington, Peace with Honor?, 124.

  After Phuoc Long fell: Bell, interview; Bell, Leave No Man Behind, 18, 69–71.

  After hearing Gembara’s report: Bell, interview; Bell, Leave No Man Behind, 70–71.