“I have solid information, documented in a top secret intelligence report from a very reliable American military source, that tells me that while the United States withdrew their support of us during the past two years and cut our aid to a fraction, the Russians have covertly shipped no less than seven hundred million long tons of new military equipment, ammunition, and supplies to Hanoi in preparation for this very campaign! They blatantly violate the Paris Accords, just as the North Vietnamese now ignore its rules with this invasion!” Thieu preached, his voice crescendoing to a shout as his face flushed dark red and blood veins pulsed outward on his forehead and temples.
Pham Van Phu said nothing, waiting for the president’s rage to subside. He deeply suspected that no such intelligence report ever existed, nor had any of the American military staff shown Nguyen Van Thieu anything even similar to the document he described. It contradicted everything that the Americans had otherwise said.
Furthermore, General Phu’s old friend, “Charlie,” an American general assigned to the CIA in Saigon, had visited him only weeks ago. When Phu asked him for advice, Charlie had refused because he claimed that the Paris Accords prohibited him lending such help. Not even advice from an old and trusted friend. Who would have known? It was only the two of them, yet Charlie, still, had said no.
Nguyen Van Thieu had no real friends within any of the American diplomatic, intelligence, or military communities. Ambassador Martin merely tolerated the man because his job required of him a minimum of such conduct. No one, in Phu’s mind, would have given President Thieu such incredible news.
“The Communists clearly hold the upper hand,” Thieu roared, continuing to bluster as he walked back to the table and threw down the green folder on a stack of others like it, toppling them across several cardboard tubes that contained charts and maps. “America has turned its back. Deserted us in the breach! How do we stand in defense against such forces when they can now so easily overwhelm us?”
“How can we withdraw our units from their defenses without placing them and the republic at far more risk?” Phu said, now courageously pleading for the president to simply consider what nearly any military strategist finds immediately obvious and most basic. “Forces in movement face the greatest vulnerability of all situations.
“On the march, our soldiers will have no defenses and can rely only on the equipment, ammunition, and stores that they carry. In such a massive retreat, they will have highly inadequate armor and artillery defenses, and even those that they can deploy cannot respond rapidly enough to an attack. They cannot count on air cover, either. The Communists now have widespread antiair defense missiles deployed throughout the northern provinces and Central Highlands, making our pilots very timid to fly into these hostile zones. A reinforced enemy lying in ambush will find such an army in movement an easy prey indeed.
“Remaining in defense, our forces will have the advantage of holding high ground fortresses, heavily supported by artillery and armor, with ample provisions. Placed in movement, the army must desert these fortifications and the greatest majority of their supplies and munitions. They are simply too vast to carry with us. What of them?
“Furthermore, consider the reaction of the people when they see the massive movement of our units. They will surely panic and crowd the highways, following the retreating forces to safety, and thus choke traffic to a crawl. Already, I have heard reports of civilians flooding into Hue, fleeing the attacks in those outlying hamlets. Certainly they will make an exodus at the sight of our retreat.
“Sir, abandoning the Central Highlands and the northern provinces to establish a new DMZ appears to me a recipe for disaster.”
“You have no choice in the matter, General Phu,” President Thieu snarled. “We will sacrifice those forces necessary to protect the redeployment so that my plan does succeed. I have already ordered such units to fight to the man. It is the republic’s only hope.”
Pham Van Phu said nothing more and turned his gaze to the ornate design and dark colors of the Persian carpet spread across the floor. He realized that President Thieu had now let fear dominate his thinking, and panic, driven by the defeat at Ban Me Thuot, his loss of faith in the fighting abilities of South Vietnam’s armed forces, and the absence of hope for any American support, obviously guided his decisions. Clearly, the president’s resolution to the crisis, if executed, spelled the end for the Republic of Vietnam.
The general now began to consider his own safety and what he must do to stay alive and free. He had endured captivity and torture by the Viet Minh in 1954 and felt certain that he could not again survive imprisonment under the Communist hand, especially considering his rank and his age.
Pham Van Phu stepped back to the sofa chair and stood, waiting for his nation’s leader to return to his seat and spell out details of his plan. The diminutive general resolved to say no more about the matter and only to listen dutifully. Seeing the president so demoralized and now consumed with such trepidation that it warped his thinking, General Phu concluded that more words would only serve to further inflame President Nguyen Van Thieu.
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC
“DAVE, PUT DOWN your camera for a minute and talk to me,” President Gerald R. Ford said to White House photographer David Hume Kennerly.
“What is it, sir?” the young photojournalist said, lowering his camera and casually walking to the President of the United States’s desk in the Oval Office, where Kennerly had worked through the placid afternoon, snapping candid pictures of America’s leader quietly reading a stack of memoranda and their accompanying documents.
“What do your friends in the press corps say about all this mess in South Vietnam?” President Ford asked.
“A lot of them think that this is the beginning of the end,” Kennerly said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“What do you think?” the President then said.
“You know the press, sir,” Kennerly answered and shrugged. “Lots of rants and raves over dinner. Lots of opinions, both informed and uninformed. Honestly, sir, it does sound bad to me, based on what we know here.”
“The Secretary of State wants General Fred Weyand to return to Saigon with Ambassador Martin and make an assessment for us. I told Dr. Kissinger to give him carte blanche on his recommendations. Whatever he believes is necessary to save South Vietnam, I want him to tell me straight out. Whatever it takes.
“He will have a couple of our smartest military analysts advising him, George Carver and Ted Shackley, and Secretary of Defense Jim Schlesinger’s best logistics man, Erich Von Marbod, looking at the situation too. We need to find out what we can do to save the country,” President Ford said, watching the photographer’s face as he spoke. Before he had finished the sentence, he realized none of it came as any surprise to Kennerly, a man who seemed to know anything about everything that went on at the White House.
“I could give you an objective opinion, if you sent me too,” Kennerly said. “Those guys are the experts, but they also have long-held interests that may bias how they characterize what they see.”
“Right,” President Ford said, leaning back in his leather chair and lacing his fingers behind his head.
“I don’t mean to suggest that they would consciously misjudge things or intentionally misguide you,” Kennerly added, “but with the years they spent there, working to help the South Vietnamese, I think a bias in that way is a fair call.”
“Oh, I understand what you say, Dave,” the President said, still leaning back in his chair. “I have to weigh in that factor when I see their report. I am just considering your suggestion of going with them, as an additional observer. You could possibly help to give me that balance.”
“I think that I would give you a picture of the facts without any tilt to them,” Kennerly said. “I could report what I see, straight to you. Give you a fresh perspective, something to compare.”
“I am thinking about that, Dave,” President Ford said. “May not be a bad idea. Besides, yo
u could make a historical record of this with your camera. I think that it is important that we have a good record.”
“Just say the word, Mr. President, and I will pack my bags,” Kennerly said and walked back to the couch to resume taking photographs of President Ford, seated at his desk with the afternoon sun streaming through the three tall windows centered in the curved wall behind him.
“I need to talk to the Secretary of State about the idea and consider his opinion of it, but right now I can’t see where it would hurt anything to have you along,” President Ford said and then quietly turned his eyes back to the stack of papers that he had earlier begun to read.
David Hume Kennerly raised his camera, and through its wide-angle lens he studied the way the brightness from outside reflected off the President’s back, producing a kind of halo along the lines of his head and shoulders. Then the photographer took a quick glance at the needle on his spot meter, checking the various illumination levels that it read.
To eliminate excessively dark shadows, Kennerly had set up an umbrella strobe on a stand behind the coffee table. Triggered by his camera’s shutter release, it would bounce a subtle kick of soft flash to fill in the foreground, but not so strong that it would become noticeable or reduce the embracing effect of the natural, rim lighting that streamed from the Oval Office’s three tall windows.
Satisfied with the look and content that his exposure settings still held true, the photographer began snapping more pictures of the American leader at work.
ARVN II ARMY CORPS HEADQUARTERS, NHA TRANG
PRESIDENT NGUYEN VAN Thieu sat at the head of the long conference table at the Nha Trang garrison headquarters. He listened as members of the Joint General Staff and representatives of South Vietnam’s military regions offered their assessments of the crisis as a prelude to the presentation of his redeployment plan.
Thieu felt deserted and alone. He had to chide and pressure his only ally, Major General Pham Van Phu, into supporting his position. He knew that Phu did it because he had no other choice. His losses at Ban Me Thuot had essentially emasculated him. Now the man just sought a way out, not merely out of the situation, but out of the country.
Already rumors had begun to surface that the former premier of South Vietnam, at one time Thieu’s own vice president, and currently the supreme commander of South Vietnam’s air force, the flamboyant Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, had begun talk of staging a coup d’etat. According to the gossip, Ky had already approached several American leaders at the Defense Attaché’s Office and had even discretely suggested the idea to some of the Joint General Staff.
Who at this table could he trust? Pham Van Phu? A small man, who today, seated in the large, leather conference chair behind the great mahogany table, appeared even more dwarfish than ever. His only ally?
He had no idea who the heavyset, round-faced General Nguyen Van Toan truly supported, nor where his real loyalties lay. Toan had the reputation of a man easily swayed with a dollar, or promise of power. He held no qualms in getting what he wanted by any available means, inside or outside the law or command structure. Toan wielded his muscle in Saigon and Military Region 3 more as a warlord than as a uniformed commander of forces.
However, Thieu felt confident that General Toan would stand with him, since the president’s plan also benefitted the general’s own self-serving interests.
Thieu’s only openly defiant critic, Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, commander of Military Region 1, did not attend the Nha Trang meeting, nor did he offer any excuses for his absence. He regarded the entire conference as merely an exercise in procedure, a game of smoke and mirrors, and totally a waste of his time. President Thieu already had his plan. Today’s commentary simply shuffled more papers for no good reason other than to satisfy bureaucratic egos.
Two days earlier, Nguyen Van Thieu had ordered General Truong to redeploy the entire Airborne Division from the defenses of Hue and Da Nang so that he could move them into position to reinforce units that his plan had established to cordon off Saigon and at least save that city. The president did not even have a specific mission for the Airborne Division, other than they should report to MR 3 at once and that they would fill in where General Toan needed them.
At the onset of President Thieu issuing his order to redeploy the force, which represented more than a third of the defense of Hue and Da Nang, General Truong had emphatically refused and had vehemently pled for his commander in chief to reconsider.
That following morning, March 13, General Truong flew to Saigon to argue his case, face to face, with President Thieu.
BURLY AND SWEET smelling, Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Toan did not bother to stand as his senior-ranking protege, Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong stepped through the conference-room doorway inside the Presidential Palace, where the two men awaited their audience with President Thieu. The thin-faced general from Da Nang glanced at Toan and then at Toan’s aide-de-camp, who had leaped to his feet when Truong entered the room.
Scowling now, General Truong sat in a leather armchair at the opposite end of the conference table from General Toan and dismissed the disrespect as another quality in the man’s gangsterlike demeanor. In January, President Thieu had relieved the former MR 3 commander who had lost an entire regiment, more than three thousand men from the Fifth ARVN Division, attempting to defend Phuoc Long Province. Toan had stepped into the commander’s billet and immediately boasted that his three divisions, armored brigade, and five ranger groups would lose no more ground.
“I hope you had a smooth flight from Da Nang,” Toan said casually, trying to cut the ice with small talk.
General Truong simply looked at his colleague and nodded. He had few indulgent words for anyone today.
More than forty-five minutes passed before President Thieu finally entered the conference room. General Toan had fidgeted and chatted nervously with his aide-de-camp, while General Truong had sat quietly, jotting notes and studying a thick stack of battle-planning documents.
“Please remain seated, gentlemen,” Thieu said as he breezed into the room and took a seat in the leather armchair at the right of General Toan.
The distance of the conference table looked like a long mahogany highway to Ngo Quang Truong. Clearly he had no advantage, and he immediately realized that his bumpy flight to Saigon this morning had only wasted his precious time. He felt suddenly sick at his stomach, and for the first time in his life he genuinely feared for his country, and for his fellow soldiers, whom he greatly loved.
“With all due respect, Mr. President,” General Truong said with a sharp edge in his voice, “I had hoped that we could discuss this matter privately.”
“My decision to redeploy the Airborne Division from Hue is a matter of direct importance with Lieutenant General Toan,” Thieu said, “since I am reassigning that force to his command.”
“And what of Hue City?” Truong asked.
“Those army and Marine Corps units that I have allowed you to keep there will defend that citadel to a man,” Thieu said. “We have already had this discussion, Lieutenant General Truong. You must obey my order.”
“No, sir!” Ngo Quang Truong snapped and stood defiantly.
Nguyen Van Thieu remained seated and smiled. Nguyen Van Toan leaned back in his chair and glared at General Truong.
“You will bring the whole nation to ruin with this insanity, sir,” Truong said, his pent-up rage beginning to boil in his voice.
“That is quite enough, General,” Thieu said, still keeping his seat.
“What is the purpose of this lunacy?” General Truong said. “Abandoning our cities makes no sense. Deserting our fortresses and our stockpiles hands the enemy victory.
“You order my soldiers to stand and die, for what? So that you and your cronies can cut and run? Meanwhile those units that you order to redeploy will be slaughtered on the highways. The timing is too late. The enemy is in place! Do you not realize this?
“Pulling such a force from Hue wi
ll cause its utter destruction overnight. Those soldiers left to fight will quickly lose heart. Those who actually remain at their posts, and do not desert, will surely die or fall prisoner to the Communists.
“Once Hue falls, refugees will flood over the Hai Van Pass into Da Nang, and with inadequate defenders there, it will quickly collapse too. Then Chu Lai will topple, and an unstoppable tidal wave will come crashing down Highway 1 through Qui Nhon and Nha Trang, and straight into Saigon.
“I will not do it!”
“You will send those forces I order, and you will send them immediately,” Thieu barked, now standing and walking around the conference table to meet General Truong face to face.
“Relieve me! Shoot me for insubordination! But I will not obey such an insane order, sir!” General Truong said, looking the president squarely in the face.
“I have already transmitted orders to your subordinate commanders and the Airborne Division,” President Thieu said, turning his back on General Truong. “You will return to your command post, and you will fight and defend Hue and Da Nang and Chu Lai to the last man standing. Is that clear? You may not surrender!”
“History will bitterly remember you, Mr. President! Our people will come to scorn your name,” General Truong said, snapping his satchel filled with working papers under his arm and marching defiantly out of the room.
On the other hand, General Toan did not even wince when President Thieu ordered him to abandon his positions at An Loc, the capital of Binh Long Province, and redeploy those forces to Saigon. General Truong had no more than stormed out of the conference when the president turned toward Toan and told him of his decision.
Thieu had fully expected a reasonable and strong argument from the general, because of the significance of An Loc, not a simple shrug and nod from the man. Such indifference and casual agreement at giving up a stronghold that was perhaps the most symbolically important among the rank-and-file of the South Vietnamese armed forces had even caused Nguyen Van Thieu to pause and wonder where the burly general’s true loyalties really lay.
Goodnight Saigon Page 13
