The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2015 37 With the fall of South Vietnam looming, and an ambassador still in denial, FSOs on the ground began taking matters into their own hands to help get people out, by any means possible. BY JOSEPH MCBR I DE Joseph McBride’s Foreign Service career spanned 37 years. He first joined USAID for assignment to the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Develop- ment Support program in 1969. Following five years with USAID, including a tour in Bangkok, he joined the State Foreign Service in 1974 and was sent to Embassy Saigon as a political officer. Other career highlights include stints in Rome, Bangkok, Lima, Managua, Bogota, Kandahar and 17 years inWashington, D.C. He also served on the AFSA Governing Board and represented AFSA during negotiations for the Foreign Service Act of 1980. Post-retirement activities include backstopping Afghanistan drug eradication and Darfur peacekeeping. S outh Vietnam seemed strangely secure when I reported to Saigon as a first-tour, political officer in late 1974. But signs soon suggested that stability was chimerical. In early January 1975, I pulled late duty to report the translation of President Nguyen VanThieu’s speech to the nation after the North Vietnam- ese Army had overrun Phuoc Binh, just 90 miles north of Saigon. Thieu rationalized that retaking the jungle town was not worth the cost. Militarily, he was right, but politically this was a disaster. Phuoc Binh was the first provincial capital the government per- manently abandoned after more than a decade of war. Even more dismaying, Thieu rambled on for three disjointed hours. Viet- Saigon Sayonara FOCUS ON THE FOREIGN SERVICE IN VIETNAM nam’s president and commander in chief seemed to be losing it. While the translators worked, I slipped over to the Recreation Association to grab a sandwich. It was “Luau Night” around the swimming pool. U.S. contractors were decked out in orchid leis and served by waitresses in sarongs, all lit by tiki torches. The incongruity stunned me: partying as usual while the NVA racked up the score, less than 100 miles to the north. “This cannot last,” I thought. A Reality Check But I wanted to see for myself. So in early 1975, I took annual leave for a four-day bus trip over the Tet (lunar New Year) holiday, unarmed and unescorted, deep into the Mekong Delta. No travel clearance was required in those days. (It was a different time and a different Foreign Service; hard to envision in the current era of cocoon-like constriction.) My intent was to poke around the district where I had served with USAID as the sole civilian on a joint military-civilian pacification advisory team from 1969 to 1971. (USAID was my chosen entrée into the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support program—the equivalent of a countrywide Provincial Reconstruction Team on steroids.) I wanted to gauge how security had changed on the ground, in a place where I could really judge. Our former team interpreter, a lasting friend whom I got out a fewmonths later, went with me. We encountered no problems on the road. Vietnamese were astonished to see an American on board, but happy to banter for long hours. Arriving in the district, the army captain now in command was a different matter. Totally flummoxed, he wanted us out of there.