Last Man Out (46 page)

In the morning I would load up one helicopter with the group from Chau Doc and either head east to the armada of U.S. Navy ships at sea or go south with the group to meet up with Bill A. on the island. So as not to cause panic, all the KIP would be told that they were being moved to an evacuation point near Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon.

Jim said, “There it is. Go out and make it work.”

Several days before, I had moved from the apartment near the consulate to the Coconut Palms, the agency compound in Can Tho, which was on the way to the airport and convenient to the
kids’ house. I had left instructions with the guards at my former apartment house to send Loi to the compound when he returned from visiting his family.

Loi was waiting beside his truck in front of my apartment when I pulled into the compound later that morning. He had a pensive look and tried to make eye contact as I got out of my Jeep and walked over to him. I told him that the situation was deteriorating. He was to get his family and return to my apartment there the following evening. He hugged me and left. We were together only a few minutes.

For the rest of the day I collected KIP from separate safe houses and moved them into groups. I told them they would be moved to Saigon the following day for eventual movement out of Vietnam by airplane from Tan Son Nhut.

Jim telephoned Glenn at the embassy in Saigon and passed on our plans. When he finished, Glenn hung up the telephone, took a deep breath, and went outside to the parking lot. He found a Jeep with keys in it and drove out to the MACV compound at Tan Son Nhut, where he met with Rear Adm. Hugh Benton and asked him how long it would take to have a U.S. Navy ship within reach of evacuation choppers from the delta.

Benton, claiming surprise that someone was taking action on a sealift, said, “You are the first embassy person to come to me with a request for U.S. Navy support. The first. I’ve had ships steaming around in circles for five days waiting for instructions. Let’s get on with it.”

Glenn asked for a time and place where the Air America helicopters could find the U.S. Navy platform. Benton said he’d have something ready in a few hours and promised to advise us of the coordinates when he got them. With that information, Glenn tried to telephone Jim in Can Tho but was told by the operator that the lines to the delta were down.

When Glenn returned to the embassy in the commandeered Jeep, a red-faced, angry George Jacobson, the ambassador’s special assistant, confronted him. “What the hell is going on? What is this request in to Admiral Benton to evacuate people out of the delta? On whose authorization? And why didn’t this request go through this office or through MacNamara? You people know
anything about proper channels? You taken leave of your senses?”

“They’re Vietnamese,” Glenn said. “Longtime CIA agents. That’s who we’re evacuating. We don’t have access to the Tan Son Nhut gateway for these folks like you do. Or are there other plans to move our key local people from the delta that we don’t know about? And MacNamara knows about this. He has been moving his people out of country for days through the airport here. Well, ours are old CIA agents. They don’t have a clue, we don’t have a clue how to move them through Saigon and get ’em booked on flights out. Our people have no passports, no destinations, no nothing. No one’s helping us. We’re just doing what we can. That’s all.”

“I beg your pardon, MacNamara didn’t know about this,” Jacobson countered. “He blew his top when I called him a few minutes ago and asked what was going on. Blew up. He said you have been trying all along to make your own evacuation plans, to take over, and he was going to put a stop to it.”

“Look,” Glenn told Jacobson, “Saigon’s gonna fall in two days. Two days. Forty-eight hours. Poooof. Gone. No chance to get our people out then. It’s now or never. MacNamara can rant all he wants but this thing is bigger than he is, there’s more at stake. We’re just trying to do in the delta what you’re doing up here … getting people out while we can.”

Jacobson seemed understanding although he was oddly unaffected by Glenn’s report that the NVA would be in Saigon soon.

In parting to answer an anxious call from a colleague down the hall, he said, “Well, good luck. I’ll try to help with MacNamara.”

Glenn took the ambassador’s special assistant’s manner to indicate that he supported our effort to move the KIP to the U.S. Navy.

While this conversation was taking place in Saigon, MacNamara was calling Jim into his office. He yelled that he had just heard from Saigon that Jim was acting as if he were the law unto himself in the delta. Jim called MacNamara hypocritical—everyone in the consulate knew that MacNamara had facilitated the evacuation of his Cambodian in-laws, plus cooks and drivers and others of questionable eligibility through Tan Son Nhut while refusing to allow the base to evacuate its more vulnerable KIP.

MacNamara yelled that he was in charge and that Jim was “fired.”

Jim returned to the base offices and cabled the Saigon CIA Station.

Unaware of the problems that Glenn and Jim had encountered that day, I returned to the consulate in the early evening before curfew and called Brenda. I told her that I thought I would be home soon, that I would be flying out of the delta the next day but that things were under control. She wasn’t to worry. On the way back to the compound I drove by the kids’ house but the lights were out. I hesitated before going in, then decided that I would see them the next evening and give the mother a radio.

Returning to the Coconut Palms, I learned about the latest developments in Jim’s continuing problems with MacNamara. As we were discussing the ramifications, Jim walked in and said MacNamara had just been told in State Department communication channels to continue working with him—he wasn’t “fired”—and to stand down on objections to evacuate CIA KIP. Tan Son Nhut was mentioned in the text. Although there was no reference to taking the KIP directly out to the U.S. Navy, Jim said that’s what we’re going to do, first thing in the morning.

At first light the next day Monday, 28 April, I went by the State Department club complex. One of the Air America helicopters was going to land that night on top of the compound, and several trees had to be cut down. The tree-cutting crews were at work as I left.

Air America pilots George Taylor and Charlie Weitz were flying for me that day. They were just coming in from Saigon when I arrived at the airport and I briefed them on our plans. Sarge, who would be getting KIP ready to go at the different launch sites, had already left on a chopper to meet the group driving in from Chau Doc.

The airport was quiet. There was nothing to do but wait for Sarge to call in that the Chau Doc group was ready. Standing on the tarmac, near the radio room, I had the sense of impending conflict, not unlike the feeling I had here in Vietnam ten years before as we staged for heliborne assaults. There were so many unknowns about the day ahead. We had to pluck people from rooftops and empty fields, and then head out to sea. Was the
Navy going to receive us? Had they gotten the word? And it was hard to tell what was happening around Can Tho. Would we be overrun by fleeing South Vietnamese soldiers or attacked by North Vietnamese? Where exactly was that large force of North Vietnamese moving on Saigon? At last report they were only a few miles to our northwest. Had an element been sent to occupy Can Tho?

I had worked with copilot Taylor, an implacably cool individual, going on four years. He said, “Mule, I’ve never seen you so tense.” Trying to reassure me, he said that we could stay in contact with everyone from the helicopter so we decided to take off and see how the tree-cutting was going. Taylor said it would stop my pacing. As we were gaining altitude, Sarge called in to say that he had the Chau Doc group in a field west of Can Tho and was waiting for us.

We headed due west and soon landed where Sarge was waiting for us. The Vietnamese agents and their families—wives, children, and some unexpected parents—scrambled on board with their luggage. We lifted off with twelve people, including Ros, my former Cambodian agent. Flying high, we headed due east down the Bassac River to the South China Sea. As we neared the coast we could see U.S. Navy ships.

I had on the customer headset. Taylor contacted a Navy air controller and told him that we had Vietnamese on board and that U.S. embassy officials had directed that they be taken to the U.S. Navy evacuation force.

  TWENTY-TWO  

As we left the coast and flew toward the Navy ships, the Vietnamese were becoming agitated. I told Ros to let them know that we had to change our plans. We were not going to Tan Son Nhut. It was for their good. They had to trust me. I did not want any problems from them.

One KIP moved beside me and yelled in my ear that he had to get to Tan Son Nhut, that all his money was being brought from Chau Doc by a relative. He would go back with me on the helicopter. He insisted that he could not leave Vietnam without his money.

I looked at him for a long moment and told him to shut up. I saw no need to be diplomatic.

The Navy air controller asked Taylor again who had authorized the evacuation. Taylor said, the U.S. embassy, and he added that an embassy officer was on board and could explain. The air controller told us to circle between the Navy fleet and shore.

As we circled we saw one ship, with two distinctive helipads marked on the rear deck, move out from the armada. A radio operator from that ship, the USS
Vancouver
, came on the guard frequency. He told us to come in and for the U.S. embassy officer to meet with the captain before anyone else got off.

Armed U.S. Marines surrounded the helicopter as it touched down. A couple of Marines quickly approached one side, and I got off to meet them. They escorted me off the helipad and up a flight of stairs. A Navy officer with an unfriendly expression then took me to a stateroom and asked for identification.

Producing my diplomatic passport and U.S. embassy pass, I explained that the people on this helicopter and other groups of people on their way were delta KIP.

“Delta KIP?” he asked in a flat voice.

I told him I was with the CIA and that these people were agents who had worked for our organization for years. Their evacuation had been coordinated with MACV and the embassy in Saigon. I said he could get confirmation by contacting the embassy, but could rest assured that this was authorized and necessary. If these people did not get out, they would be killed when the North Vietnamese took control of the country.

The officer looked at me without expression. Obviously the Navy at sea had not gotten the word because our KIP were unexpected.

This guy decided their fate and it was up to me to win him over.

I said I had to return to coordinate the evacuation of the rest. We had about 150 total. Time was critical. I encouraged him to check with his superiors. I did not blink.

He reluctantly agreed to take the Vietnamese, although he never smiled.

I thanked him and went back to the helicopter. Ros was the first one off, then he helped a woman who had been sitting wide-eyed near the door of the helicopter to the deck. The remaining Vietnamese seemed reluctant and hesitant, but they followed. As the helicopter revved up and lifted off, the Marines were lining up the people beside their luggage.

In the air, Taylor said he had no doubt that Muley could talk the Navy into taking on some passengers without tickets.

We flew back to the airstrip in Can Tho. Mac came running out to the tarmac and gave Taylor instructions on where the next KIP group was to be picked up. The other helicopter was already en route to the Navy ship.

Throughout the day we moved KIP offshore. I was at the airstrip as the people in the last group were being assembled for what they, too, thought was a flight to Tan Son Nhut. The pilot, Bob Hitchman, was to return to Can Tho after that last flight to the Navy ship and land on top of the club, where the trees had been cut down that morning. It was going to be dark when he returned, and he was unsure if he could find the exact building. I told him I’d go along, that I could find it in the dark. Mac was on the tarmac, and I asked him to tell Jim that I’d be in later.