“Oh, Christ. Knock it off. You are supposed to get depressed when you have a hangover. I haven’t even started drinking. Here, let me buy you a Hennessy for a change,” Sam offered, reaching into his pocket. “Besides, the more alcohol you have inside you, the less there will be for the RVN to drink when they show up here and plant their flag on top floor of the Caravelle Hotel.”
The artillery shells continued to pound Tan Son Nhut Air Base rhythmically at first, and then the shells rained in so frequently there was no distinction between the blasts. The sky over the only airport in or out of Saigon glowed like a glorious sunrise. But it was noon. Rain was coming down in sheets. The sky was black.
It’s happening again, Jean Paul thought. I hope the masking tape I stuck to the windows will keep them from shattering.
Then he announced, “Put away your money, Sam. Put away your money, everyone. Let’s make a party tonight. Hey everyone, the drinks are on Jean Paul, step up, whatever is your poison.”
As North Vietnam closed in on Saigon and most news reporters were looking to get out, a few journalists returned to cover the latest developments. Among them was Carl DeCarlo, who had actually reported on-scene during the fall of Dien Bien Phu two decades earlier. In the years since, he had worked as an assignment editor for a New York television station. As other reporters were flying out on anything that would take them, he flew into Tan Son Nhut on an Air Force C-130 from Clark Air Base. DeCarlo’s station wanted him to cover the evacuations and get the local angle if at all possible.
DeCarlo ordered a martini and then turned to Lisette. “Tell me, are you old enough to remember when Saigon was a sleepy colonial outpost in Asia?”
After telling him about her years in-country, DeCarlo said, “When I returned this time, the first thing I did was go to the Rex. I went inside and it is still there.”
“What’s still there?”
“The ballroom. This is the only city in Asia with a sprung dance floor. Back then, when I was here in the ’50s, every Vietnamese boy and girl could waltz, foxtrot, samba, rhumba, and tango by the time they were fourteen. No matter what happened, we danced.”
“We still do.”
“Lisette, would you like to dance?”
Jean Paul put a waltz on the turntable and dropped the needle. “No, Jean Paul, not a waltz, a tango. Let’s have a tango!” DeCarlo urged.
Lisette nodded and smiled. Carl, his hand firmly on her back, guided her through a few steps and then whispered, “You do realize we are dancing at a wake.”
Sam watched, mesmerized by her moves, until Jean Paul jolted him out of his trance. “Hey, Don Juan. She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“Huh?” Sam answered, realizing for that brief moment, only Lisette existed.
“Lisette. I like the way she moves,” Jean Paul continued.
“I guess,” Sam answered, trying to be nonchalant.
Pouring Sam a drink, Jean Paul went on, “I’ve known you and Lisette for a long time. It is like watching you in your own opera.”
“An opera? What do you mean?”
“You take too long, you don’t say what you mean, you have too many misunderstandings, and, in the end someone will get fucked—and not in a good way.”
“I suppose.” Sam shrugged.
“Or you might try telling her how you feel.” Jean Paul smiled as the music ended and Lisette ambled toward Sam to take up her spot next to him.
* * *
Lisette eventually got around to putting together a reel—the TV news equivalent of a résumé. While news footage from Saigon aired, NBS New York would simultaneously film the broadcast off the TV screen using a machine known as a kinescope. This produced an exact 16-millimeter copy of the broadcast, called a kine, for short. The kines were then sent back to the bureaus so that reporters could see what of their work was airing and how it actually looked on TV.
Lisette charmed one of the Vietnamese film editors in the bureau to splice together a kine for her, producing the reel she needed to hunt for a job. “Life after Vietnam,” she called it. While selecting film and handing the strips to the editor, she told him, “I’ve been here for ten years—my life after college, hah! And what do I do? I go out every day with one thing in mind; hoping I’ll be discovered by the supreme high honcho of television news, Walter Cronkite, and you know what? Father Cronkite could not give a shit about me. I never even met Cronkite, and to think I spent a decade trying to get his attention with great footage of a war no one in America cares about anymore.”
“Uh-huh,” was all the enthusiasm the editor could muster. He had lost count of the number of reels he had put together for reporters looking for new jobs.
She went on, “After all I’ve done, will the network remember me and get my ass to the world when this whole thing falls apart? Do I get a cushy job in New York or at least at an NBS bureau in a nice warm city like LA? Or maybe Paris? Yes. Paris would be nice. You been to Paris?”
“Um. No, yes, I have been to Paris. Very nice city. How does this look,” the editor cranked the Moviola forward then back, inviting Lisette to peer into the tiny screen so that she could watch herself on TV.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s okay.”
Ever since the Americans and most of her journalist pals left in ’73, Lisette found herself running over the same ramble, and if no one was there to listen she went over it in her mind at least once a day. “Start with New York, then LA, possibly D.C., even a smaller market like Miami would be okay,” Lisette told the editor as he handed her the evidence of her ten years of work in Vietnam, all tightly wound inside a metal canister held together with a strip of black tape.
No matter what, I’ll be out of here, and the sooner the better, she thought. Lisette dropped the reel in her desk drawer and looked in the assignment basket for press handouts. She needed something newsworthy to chase down tomorrow—presuming the ARVN could hold back the North Vietnamese invasion for one more day.
She found an item that looked promising and, walking toward the door, started to read it. When she opened the door to leave, Sam was right there. He had run up the stairs and was out of breath.
“Sam! What are you doing here?”
“Don’t leave me. I need you. I’m in love with you.”
“You are such an asshole,” Lisette whispered as Sam grabbed her, held her to him, and softly kissed her lips.
Thieu Resigns, Calls U.S. Untrustworthy; Appoints Successor to Seek Negotiations; Evacuation of All Americans Considered – Headline New York Times April 22, 1975
Nguyen Van Thieu: “… the debates in Washington over aid were like bargaining over fish in the market … I could not afford to let other people bargain for the bodies of our soldiers.”
Many Vietnamese repeated that comment and other pithy remarks with delight as they vented deep resentment over what they feel is betrayal by the United States. – Fox Butterfield, Special to the New York Times.
* * *
CQ ALM, ANAC 1975: The House Armed Services Committee refused to authorize additional military aid for South Vietnam in a close vote April 22.
The House committee voted 21-17 to table a bill (HR 5929) that would have raised the fiscal 1975 military aid authorization for South Vietnam to $1.422-billion from $1-billion. The additional $422-million, combined with $300-million in previously authorized, but never appropriated, funds would have provided the $722-million requested.
The motion to table the bill was made by G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Miss.), a supporter of additional military assistance. Montgomery and many other aid supporters were said to fear that HR 5929 would have been defeated outright in a straight up or down committee vote.
Tuesday, April 22
SIR, XUAN LOC IS FINISHED. GONE. That was Saigon’s last defense—now there’s nothing between there and here to stop the North from taking the city.”
Martin didn’t want to hear it. Wouldn’t hear it. Carwood sat hunched over, facing the ambassador but staring at the floor. He’d
had no sleep since Thieu’s resignation speech the day before. Hell, he couldn’t recall when he’d had any sleep at all.
“The North Vietnamese won’t invade—not while our Navy is sitting offshore,” Martin said matter-of-factly. Always a chain-smoker, he shook another Caporal from the blue pack on his desk and lit it from the cigarette he had been smoking. His voice abruptly turned angry.
“Do you know what your boss at the CIA just told the president? ‘South Vietnam faces total defeat, and soon.’ Soon, he said! It was all over the news, stateside. He might as well tell us to hand Saigon and the rest of the country over to General Giap and be done with it!”
“Sir, Director Colby was only repeating—”
“Colby’s an ass! My contacts in Paris tell me the North is ready to negotiate! There will be no invasion of Saigon because they see the benefit in a power-sharing agreement as long as we’re backing the South. They wanted Thieu out of the way and they got what they wanted. He stepped down. But Hanoi won’t be satisfied until they know he’s out of the picture completely. Gone! So I want you to see to that—today! Get him the hell out. Fly him to Subic, or Taiwan, or all the way to California if you have to, but get him the hell out of Saigon and out of South Vietnam!”
* * *
Their plan was simple. Thieu was now vulnerable; he knew his life was in peril. It took him less than an hour to accept the ambassador’s offer to spirit him to a safe haven out of the country. The Taiwanese had already agreed to take him in—hell, they were happy to, if for no other reason than to poke a thumb in China’s eye. Despite their many differences, China and Hanoi were allies, and South Vietnam’s defeat would be a communist victory that both could bask in.
Well, screw them, Carwood thought. They might get South Vietnam, but the U.S. wasn’t giving them an opportunity to hang its former president. He would see to that.
He was sweating bullets as he drove to Thieu’s villa. Thunder could be heard somewhere off in the darkness. The monsoon season was coming on and Saigon had become unbearably hot and humid. The flak jacket he wore only added to his discomfort. But it wasn’t the weather or the heavy vest that made his shirt wet and his hands slippery on the Renault’s steering wheel.
The North Vietnamese were not alone in wanting revenge on Thieu. There was no shortage of people now calling for his scalp. His former ministers, also stripped of power, were now equally vulnerable. Many others, inside as well as outside the government, were bitter because they felt Thieu had so easily capitulated to Hanoi’s demands, or blamed him the way they were blaming the U.S. for caving in to the North. Carwood’s sources said that even officials within Thieu’s inner circle were demanding his head. And it wouldn’t take much to put a hit on him, just another roadkill on the highway out of here.
The villa’s lights were out and it looked deserted when Carwood, followed closely by a car carrying two U.S. Marines and a third car with two more men from his CIA contingent—all of them heavily armed—drove in through the gates. Carwood knew Thieu would be waiting for him, so he guessed that he and his bodyguards were sitting in the dark, guns ready, just in case any unwelcome visitors showed up. He reached across the seat and found the grip of his M-16. Just in case, he thought.
Carwood’s group killed their headlights but kept the engines running. They didn’t have to wait long. One of Thieu’s men emerged from the house, toting an M-16 in his right hand, pistol style. With his other hand he dragged a heavy object, a duffel bag stuffed to capacity. For a moment Carwood wondered if it held Thieu’s body. Then the former president himself stepped from the door and stopped, swaying unsteadily. Another man came from the house behind him, took Thieu by the arm, and carefully but firmly guided him down the three steps from the veranda toward the Renault. Like the first man, he lugged a heavy bag in one hand. When they reached the car, the man propped Thieu—Carwood could see now that the president was deeply drunk—against the fender while he groped for the door handle.
When Carwood tried to exit the car to help, the first man pushed him back, then held the door closed. “You stay!” he said. It was a command, not a request. “President not well. We help. Not you. Okay?”
“Whatever you say,” Carwood replied. “Let’s … keep calm. Okay?” A reflection from below caught his eye. A glint of gold. The heavy valise the man carried had tipped over on the ground, spilling some of its contents. Carwood heard a dull clink of metal on metal as the man bent to scoop up the loose objects. Looks like Thieu isn’t heading into exile a pauper, Carwood thought. The national treasury will never miss a bagful or two of gold and greenbacks. There was an awkward moment as the man searched around at his feet with one hand while holding on to the president’s leg—Thieu ever-so-slowly tilting away from his center of gravity—but before Thieu could fall, the first man let go of Carwood’s door and grabbed him, pulled open the rear door, and manhandled the president onto the seat.
With Thieu safely stowed inside, the men loaded the bags into the trunk. The one with the M-16 climbed in beside his boss while the other went back into the house. He returned with two more bags, both of which appeared so heavy that he barely managed to keep them off the ground on his way to the car. The Renault sagged noticeably under the weight as the man squeezed into the car, sandwiching the president between himself and his partner.
“You go—airport! Now!” he commanded.
Carwood put the car in gear. As they approached the villa’s gates he looked cautiously up and down the avenue. At this hour it was clear of traffic in both directions, with no parked cars in sight. Before he left the embassy to come here, he had gotten word from one of his informants that an assassination attempt would be made on President Thieu—tonight, the source told him. With that thought in mind, he stepped hard on the accelerator as soon as they cleared the gates and didn’t turn on the headlights until they were well on their way to Tan Son Nhut.
* * *
Ambassador Martin was waiting for them on the tarmac beside a blacked-out Air America plane when Carwood pulled the Renault to a halt beside him. The big airplane’s engines were already powered up, its props turning, but its navigation lights were off and the only illumination Carwood could see was a glow from the cockpit high above them.
In the backseat, Thieu stirred from his half-slumber and said something unintelligible to his men. Carwood looked back at the trio in his rearview mirror. Thieu’s face was glazed with sweat, his expression blank. As his aides climbed out and busied themselves with the bags in the trunk, Thieu leaned forward and placed a hand on Carwood’s shoulder. Carwood had felt only apprehension since the operation began and all the way out to the airfield, but now that feeling abruptly changed to pity, then sorrow. He had known Thieu for years. He wasn’t a bad man, just a man caught in a bad situation. He had tried everything in his power to overcome increasingly unmanageable odds and, in the end, failed, but the failure wasn’t entirely his fault. Now, there was nothing left to do—nothing that he or any of them could do.
“Thank you,” Thieu said, his voice slurring slightly. “You have been my friend. I will not forget.”
Carwood said nothing as Thieu slid across the seat and exited the car. His sorrow suddenly turned to anger as he realized that this really was the end. All that’s left to do now is lower the curtain, strike the sets, and turn off the house lights on the way out. Thank you? For what? he thought. How many had to suffer and die to get us here? South Vietnamese. North Vietnamese. American boys and others. Maybe a million or more, altogether. For what?
He watched from the car as Thieu greeted Martin with a short bow and offered his hand. The ambassador hesitated long enough to make the message clear, then responded with a brief, perfunctory handshake. Neither man spoke. Finally, the former president of the Republic of South Vietnam—his head held low, a picture of defeat—turned and gazed up at the plane’s open cargo door, slowly climbed the steps, and disappeared inside.
Martin angrily stalked away from the plane, shouting at the grou
nd crew to send Thieu on his way.
Carwood pitied Martin. In their ultimate moments, both he and Thieu were joined together in defeat. History would judge them harshly—not because they had tried, but because they failed. He watched the ambassador stride briskly toward his waiting car. Martin couldn’t give it up, even when they all knew, deep down, that the end had arrived.
After a moment, Carwood turned the Renault around and pointed it toward Saigon. There’s still a job to be done, he thought. Someone’s got to turn out the lights.
Wednesday, April 23
TWO DAYS AFTER THIEU’S RESIGNATION, HANOI rejected the South’s chosen successor, Tran Van Huong. He was quickly replaced by Duong Van Minh, whose only mission was to negotiate a peaceful end to the war.
The South Vietnam government press office sent messengers around the city, dropping off yet another round of mimeographed news releases to every news bureau requesting press coverage of Minh’s inauguration.
Lisette had had it with official announcements, news conferences, and government formality. She decided to pass up yet another news conference, and instead marched to the embassy where she confronted a hapless clerk. As Lisette went down her list of State Department sources, asking to speak to each one, the clerk would only repeat, “Unavailable.”
“Christ, I’ve been after Ambassador Martin for days to give me something. Yesterday all I got was mush from Carwood. Carwood! God, is he the CIA’s worst-kept secret of a secret agent? Oh, I mean analyst—yeah, right, analyst!”
She went on, “I can’t believe this two-day power shift inside the Vietnam government is a surprise to Carwood, Martin, or the whole damn State Department. I bet you even knew about it. What are you … a GS-3?”
The aide looked up at her with a vacant stare—the kind of stare that says “no comment” without having to move his lips. By now there was no stopping her. “The CIA didn’t know about this? How about this—where are the North Vietnamese tanks now? I mean, don’t you know anything? Did you line up a ride out of the country for yourself? I bet you did!”
Escape from Saigon Page 12
