The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2015 39 Dreaming of a White Christmas”—the mission warden code for activating the evacuation—started playing on the radio. It was time to rise and shine … and make things happen. Around noon on the 29th, I grabbed a nine-passenger van with a full fuel tank and headed out for the designated safe house where political section contacts were supposed to assemble. I requested Lacy Wright, the deputy in the section, to lead the way for the first run because of his 4/4 Vietnamese. The ticklish part would be negotiating the police guards sealing off the docks to the evacuation barges on the river. I wanted no 3/3 linguistic slipups to block our entry. The safe house was already swarming with people when we got there, and it only got worse through the day. Word on the street spread fast; it had been an illusion to think we could keep the safe houses secret. Separating out the genuine high-risk cases took time. We each crammed up to 20 people into our vans, but it did not make a dent in the inflow. Lacy sweet-talked us through the police and army barricades for the first run, but he and I got separated after that. Stuck at the closed-off airport, Admin Officer Don Hayes linked up with the Marines to courageously thwart enraged paratroopers trying to force their way aboard the airlift—or block the evacuation. Political Internal Chief Shep Lowman got stuck with a houseful of high-level VIPs, but despite frantic calls, no vehicles were ever sent to pick them up. In the end, Shep made it back to the embassy by foot, but he could get only three high- level friends through the gate with him. Ken Moorefield was also driving a rescue mission out on the streets, but got stuck cruising around Saigon with two full busloads and nowhere to take them. The airfield and the embassy were buttoned up tight. Tellingly, nobody in charge had alerted Ken about the barges leaving from the docks on the river. Sadly, snafus and disconnects like these were the rule of the day, not the exception. Those with initiative—who would rather ask for forgiveness than wait for permission—were the only ones who were truly effective. Officers from the Defense Attaché Office at the airfield had control of key assets, personnel to deploy and the nerve to jump the start gun. The rest of us played it by ear the best we could. Back at my safe house, from all I could tell I was completely on my own. As the city shifted toward chaos, I could only raise the front office on my radio net. I got plenty of “attaboys” and “stick to it as long as you can,” but no useful guidance or info of any kind. Fortunately, the mood on the streets had not yet turned against us. Renegade South Vietnamese soldiers turning their guns on us—not the NVA—was always our biggest security risk. (We knew leaders of the Airborne Brigade were actively plotting to take Americans hostage to ensure their own evacuation.) Beware the wrath of a betrayed ally. I repeatedly delivered my passengers, and policemen guard- ing the docks grudgingly accepted handfuls of Vietnamese cash. Toward the end of the day, a young Army officer at a roadblock detained my van. Trouble, I thought. “No. I just want to say thank you for trying,” he said with a salute. The lieutenant declined to climb in with me, saying he would stay with his family. Earlier, a senior embassy translator had declined a similar offer, snapping, “No, I’m Vietnamese. I’m staying.” It sounded like he already had paid his dues to the new order and knew he was safe. Heading for the Barn The long shadows of late afternoon arrived, and there had been a long gap with no evacuation helicopters from the Seventh Fleet. Crowds overran my safe house. Two longhaired Saigon cowboys in bellbottoms carried in a desiccated grandfather in an ebony chair—outrageous draft dodgers, not the people we set out to save. On top of it all, my van’s once-full fuel tank was now run- ning on fumes, and gasoline stations were shut down tight. It was time to head back to the embassy. I radioed that I was coming home. George Jacobson, the ambassador’s longtime special assistant for field operations, asked that I make one more run to pick up his household staff. It was a personal favor. He told me I could siphon gas out of his parked car, “and don’t worry about the taste.” (Jacobson had been dramatically filmed during the Tet Offensive of 1968, catching a pistol thrown up to his bedroomwindow in time to dispatch a Viet Cong sapper coming up the stairs.) So, gasoline taste in my mouth, I made one more run for the docks. Back at the embassy I found packed crowds hunkered down, waiting. Earlier wall climbers apparently had been beaten down. Street toughs had cannibalized abandoned cars down to their naked x-frames, motor blocks and all. The vandals were snarly and scornful. But as I inched through them, the tens of thousands waiting around the embassy were imploring rather than angry. The Marine guard at the main vehicle gate could not let me in. The old gentleman kindly left us with a concussion grenade, as he quickly departed to sleep elsewhere.