Honorable Exit

by Thurston Clarke

  He and AP bureau chief George Esper calculated that if they evacuated the Vietnamese employees of every U.S. television, radio, and print news agency in Saigon, including their families, and were generous in their definition of “family,” it would mean taking out about two thousand people. Because such an evacuation would violate U.S. and South Vietnamese immigration laws, they would also have to do it clandestinely. After President Ford asked Congress for $722 million in supplemental aid to South Vietnam and demanded a vote by April 19, Ellis telexed CBS News Division president Richard Salant a warning that once the South Vietnamese learned there would be no additional aid, the situation in Saigon could turn ugly. He reported that he and the other bureau chiefs had concluded that chartering planes to evacuate their employees would work only “if the embassy says it will help us, and it says it won’t.” Instead, he hoped to launch a seaborne evacuation before Congress rejected Ford’s request.

  He drove to Vung Tau, the port on the South China Sea fifty miles south of Saigon and found that anyone with a boat was demanding large down payments to buy black-market fuel, life vests, medical supplies, food, and portable toilets and provide reimbursement in case the authorities seized their vessels. While he was searching for a ship, he was also organizing an emergency airlift of 150 U.S. news agency employees from Phnom Penh. The reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities there spooked his Vietnamese employees, and they started asking him if CBS planned to evacuate them from Saigon.

  The reports also unsettled the network and print executives in New York. The networks contacted White House press secretary Ron Nessen, a former NBC correspondent in Vietnam, and asked him what the government’s reaction would be if they evacuated their Vietnamese employees. Nessen sent a memorandum to Deputy National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft inquiring what would happen “if a planeload of Vietnamese employees of the networks showed up by charter plane at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines without proper visas or passports.” Nessen added that the networks wanted reassurance that the U.S. government would not penalize a charter airline for flying them to the Philippines. Two days later, a member of Scowcroft’s staff told Nessen that giving the news agencies a green light would be “highly improper” and that the Philippine government had already complained about undocumented Vietnamese arriving at Clark. Scowcroft followed up in person, telling Nessen that the administration could not “make exceptions to U.S. laws and regulations for the employees of the U.S. networks” nor encourage them to violate Vietnamese regulations.

  The media executives decided to defy the government and organize their own evacuation. CBS executive Sid Feders called Ellis on April 14, and using an informal code to confuse the South Vietnamese security services that CBS assumed were tapping its Saigon bureau’s phones and reading its telexes, he reported that the executives wanted Ellis to head a committee in Saigon to coordinate “all future shipping needs” (that is, the evacuation of Vietnamese employees). Ellis suspected that NBC and ABC had voted for him so that their bureau chiefs would be free to cover the news.

  Martin heard about the committee and instructed his press secretary, John Hogan, to invite Ellis to meet with Deputy Chief of Mission Wolfgang Lehmann at the embassy. Lehmann spoke to Ellis of “contingency plans” and an evacuation being “a work in progress.” He said that an early draft of who might be on evacuation lists included some news agency people and suggested that the agencies send him a list of their employees. Ellis was even more encouraged after receiving a telex from Feders saying, “Tell your daughter the next time you see her that the man was going to help all her friends.” He interpreted it as meaning that the White House had promised to evacuate the CBS employees. But less than an hour later Feders telephoned to report that Assistant Secretary of State Philip Habib had informed the CBS Washington bureau that the embassy’s evacuation list would not include the agencies’ Vietnamese. Feders added that the executives in New York had voted 8–1 against mounting an independent evacuation, but because CBS had cast the dissenting vote, the network wanted Ellis to continue searching for a way to evacuate his own employees.

  On April 16, Ellis telexed an anguished letter to Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield and House Speaker Carl Albert imploring them to persuade the administration to include the Vietnamese employees of the American news agencies in any evacuation. He reminded them of the risks these Vietnamese had taken and the “invaluable contribution” they had made to U.S. reporting. Several hours later, he received a call from Martin’s secretary, Eva Kim, inviting him to meet with the ambassador. He had seen Martin at official functions and had been impressed by his silver hair, elegant suits, courtly manners, and how closely he matched the classic image of a crusty old-school ambassador. He arrived to find Martin sitting at his desk in shirtsleeves and reading a document. Without looking up, Martin nodded his head toward a chair, indicating where Ellis should sit. His face was ashen, and the room reeked of cigarette smoke. An autographed photograph of Richard Nixon shared space on his desk with one of his late adopted son, Glenn Mann. After several minutes of awkward silence, he fixed Ellis with a penetrating stare and waited for him to speak.

  Ellis explained that he had come as chairman of the press evacuation committee, not as a journalist. To emphasize this point, he placed his reporter’s notebook on his desk so Martin could see that he would pick it up only to make a note when they were discussing an evacuation. He began by asking Martin to clarify the contradiction between Habib’s statement to the news agency executives that the embassy would not evacuate their Vietnamese and Lehmann’s statement to him that their inclusion was “likely.”

  “Don’t you mean if there’s an evacuation,” Martin said. “But if you have people who want to leave, they should leave now.”

  “But what about the Vietnamese? They can’t leave now.”

  “That’s not the embassy’s problem.”

  Martin locked eyes with Ellis and warned him against organizing his own evacuation. “Such efforts are bound to fail,” he said, a statement showing that he was either ignorant of the underground railroads or chose to ignore them. He condemned freelance evacuations for “sending a bad message, a defeatist message to the South Vietnamese.”

  Holding his stare, Ellis replied that he could appreciate his concerns but could not rule out that he and the other bureau chiefs might organize their own evacuation if the embassy refused to assist them.

  Martin surprised him by summoning him back the next day. He was standing by the window holding a clunky radiophone. He waved the phone at Ellis and said, “You’ll be getting one of these.” He remarked casually that Kissinger had given him the green light to evacuate American journalists. Ellis assumed that the news executives in the United States had pressured the White House.

  “Will there be any seats for our Vietnamese employees?” he asked.

  “No. No seats for the Vietnamese,” Martin said.

  Ellis asked if that was likely to change. Martin said it would not and announced that he was putting Ellis in charge of implementing the evacuation of American journalists, if such an evacuation proved necessary. He handed him a 1973 pamphlet titled “Standard Instructions and Advice to Citizens for Normal and Emergency Situations.” A map identified “civilian assembly points,” and a recently prepared insert explained that when Americans believed an evacuation was imminent, they should tune in to Armed Forces Radio. When the announcer said, “The Temperature in Saigon is 112 degrees and rising” followed by Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” everyone should report to their assembly points. The amateurish nature of the scheme shocked Ellis, but he agreed to organize the American newsmen, hoping to find a way to include his Vietnamese. He telexed a summary of the meeting to Feders, who replied that network executives had lobbied Kissinger, only to be told, “No Vietnamese.”

  The next morning Eva Kim summoned Ellis back for the third straight day. As he walked in, Martin was talking with his pre
ss attaché, John Hogan. After Hogan left, Martin said, “I’ll strike a deal with you. I’ll help you get your Vietnamese out.” Part of the deal was that Ellis had to manage their evacuation. “You’re the man that the news agencies have already put in charge,” he said, “and besides, I don’t want to be getting phone calls at all hours from a dozen or so bureau chiefs wanting to know when they can get their seats and how many.” He explained that he had “found some seats” for the news agency Vietnamese on the U.S. Air Force transports flying back to Clark Air Base and asked how many Ellis needed. Ellis said that if all the agencies participated, there would be between eight hundred and twelve hundred evacuees, a number including spouses and children, as well as parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and so on.

  Martin shook his head. “No. You’ll have to be much tougher than that. I can’t get you so many seats.” He could promise only around twenty a day, he said, explaining that Hogan would call Ellis every morning with a specific number, but first Ellis would have to submit a list of his evacuees to the embassy. “I want to know who you’re taking,” he said. “I don’t want to see any maids or girlfriends. And don’t take anyone who’s in the military.”

  Ellis knew that the number of seats he could wring out of Martin could determine whether or not he had to split up families. They dickered over seat numbers and luggage, agreeing on one small carry-on bag per person and that Ellis would be responsible for deciding the order in which the news agency employees departed.

  As Ellis reached across the desk to shake hands, Martin said, “Now you understand, of course, that you are not going to be able to tell anyone, and I mean anyone, about how you are getting these people out, or who is helping you.” He had to insist on this, he explained, because by helping Ellis evacuate his people, he would be violating South Vietnamese immigration law and the U.S. War Powers Act, which prohibited U.S. officials from using the military to exfiltrate foreign nationals from a war zone.

  Ellis thought, “Oh no, this isn’t good,” and said that the other bureau chiefs and U.S. executives would want to know the details before entrusting him with their people.

  Martin took a long drag on his cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke upward. After a long pause he said, “Okay, that I can understand. But can you guarantee, can you promise me that none of them will ever let the cat out of the bag?” He had to know that Ellis could not promise this and that once he told the other bureau chiefs and they informed their bosses in the States, keeping the evacuation secret would be difficult.

  Ellis protested that he did not think the ABC and NBC bureau chiefs would be pleased that he was in charge of the evacuation.

  “If they balk at your offer or talk openly about it, tell them they won’t be getting any seats from you,” Martin said. “Remind them that you’re the one with the seats, and if they don’t like it, threaten to give them to other deserving Vietnamese.” Here was the hard-nosed Graham Martin that Ellis had expected.

  As Martin shuffled papers and puffed on his cigarette, Ellis struggled with his conscience. He finally shrugged and said, “Okay.” Martin looked up and they exchanged a firm, lingering handshake. Martin warned Ellis that he was on his own and that if the South Vietnamese authorities caught him, he would not be able to help him. For the first time, Ellis detected a faint smile.

  Ellis wondered why Martin had changed his mind. Had Kissinger or Ford buckled to pressure from the network executives? (This might explain why Martin had rebuffed NBC’s bureau chief Art Lord in the beginning of April but was now cooperating with Ellis.) Or was Martin doing it on his own? And why was he willing to break the law to evacuate South Vietnamese citizens working for a press corps he detested when there were thousands of Vietnamese whose current and former employment with the U.S. mission placed them at equal or greater risk?

  The next year, Martin would tell Congress that Kissinger “had requested that we do what we could to facilitate the escape of Vietnamese nationals of the American press and TV offices in Saigon.” Still, he could have stalled Kissinger, as he did throughout April when Kissinger was badgering him to reduce the number of Americans in South Vietnam. Ellis later wondered if Martin had decided to help him because his evacuation was small and more easily concealed, and would not hamper the smooth running of his embassy, and because evacuating these particular Vietnamese might inhibit the Saigon press corps from criticizing him.

  Ellis told Sid Feders that he had a plan that might work but did not disclose that it involved Martin. After being briefed about the evacuation, one reporter assumed that Ellis had bribed Thieu, another speculated that he had leased a submarine, another wondered if he had persuaded a platoon of Vietnamese rangers to overpower the perimeter guards at Tan Son Nhut by bribing them with seats on a DC-6 chartered by the CIA. When Ellis made a test run to Tan Son Nhut, two reporters tailed him, and he noticed them inspecting the registration decal on his van, hoping to identify its owner.

  His agreement with Martin seemed straightforward. Martin would provide seats on the planes, and Ellis and Press Secretary Hogan would drive the evacuees to the airport. But the more Ellis imagined what might go wrong, the more worried he became. He wondered what he should say if the MPs detained him at the Tan Son Nhut gate, or do if the embassy bus had departed and the plane failed to arrive, or if there were not enough seats on the plane, or if some people changed their minds at the last minute and decided not to leave. His employees were not strangers. They were people he cared about deeply—people who had entrusted him with their lives.

  He called Martin and asked him to promise that the first group would get through.

  “No guarantees!” Martin snapped.

  At midday on April 19, Ellis summoned his employees to the CBS office on the second floor of the Caravelle Hotel. An editor took the phones off the hook and watched the Teletype for urgent messages. The Vietnamese were silent and stood. Ellis was nervous and his mouth was dry. He spoke slowly, pausing to sip from a coffee mug. He announced that he had arranged to evacuate them and their families during the next twenty-four hours. They could each take a small bag and should pack their passports, birth certificates, and marriage licenses. There was a long silence as they realized they would have to decide whether to leave their country forever.

  Senior reporter Nguyen Khiem Cat asked if they were going to America. Ellis said it was their final destination, but there might be intermediate stops. Cameraman Pham Boi Hoan asked what they would do in America. Ellis said they would remain on the CBS payroll, and the network would offer most of them jobs. Hoan smiled and said, “That’s good, that’s good.” Reporter Nguyen T. Nguyen kept saying, “Thank you, boss…Thank you, boss.” Soundman Mai Van Duc wiped away tears. Secretary and office manager Pham Thi Yen threw her arms around him. He sensed that she was as frightened by the future as she was relieved to be going.

  Hogan called that evening to offer him fifty seats on two planes leaving the next day. Hogan also promised to accompany him on the first run. Ellis decided to make his employees the guinea pigs and evacuate them first. If anyone was arrested, he wanted them to be his people rather than those from another network. He told his first fifty to gather at a corner in the Cholon Market at noon. The neighborhood was busy with buses and minibuses, and he reckoned that the DAO’s gray school bus would attract less attention there.

  The next day he stood outside the bus, counting off his employees as they boarded. Khiem Cat wept in relief as he climbed the steps. He had many high-ranking government officials among his confidants and believed that the Communists would find his name on Rolodexes throughout Saigon. He told Ellis, “You’re saving my life.”

  Ellis worried that the MPs at the gate would storm the bus and arrest everyone. None of his people had exit visas, and some were of military age. Hogan was so calm and practiced that Ellis assumed him to be a veteran of similar missions. As they approached the gate, Hogan ordered the
driver to pull into the middle of the road. That way, he explained, the bus would block both lanes, creating an instant traffic jam and making the MPs eager to wave them through. As they rolled to a stop, Hogan jumped out and thrust a wad of papers with U.S. embassy letterheads and official-looking stamps at a startled MP. As the soldier leafed through them, Hogan told Ellis, “Most of these guys can’t read English, but they’ll be impressed by these documents.” He pretended to be impatient, checking his watch and pacing back and forth while announcing that his passengers were embassy employees going to the Defense Attaché Office for reassignment. Another policeman boarded the bus and walked slowly down the aisle, staring at the silent passengers but not demanding visas or identification.

  The MPs let them pass, and they drove to the Air America terminal. The air force loadmaster was Major Robert Delligatti, a stocky joker who had escaped the West Virginia coalfields to play on an undefeated U.S. Air Force Academy football team. He had covered the name tag on his overalls with a piece of gray tape that he termed a “security measure.” He explained that his superiors knew that he was engaged in unauthorized evacuations and wanted to prevent him from being traced back to his unit. He boarded the bus and delivered a tongue-in-cheek safety briefing that he concluded by saying, “Be sure to have your tickets and boarding passes ready and have a nice flight.”

  He pointed to two C-130 transports sitting on the tarmac with their engines running and shouted, “Thirty people in that one; twenty in the other.” Ellis noticed another bus pull up near one of the planes and disgorge dozens of Vietnamese, each clutching a single bag. An air force officer identified them as DAO employees, and during the next several days Ellis noticed buses, troop carriers, and trucks bringing evacuees to the flight line. His friend Jim Eckes, who managed a charter airline, said that some U.S. agencies had been evacuating their Vietnamese employees since early April and that neither Martin nor the Thieu government had known about it.