Honorable Exit

by Thurston Clarke

  After the meeting Kissinger drafted a cable to Martin that due to the twelve-hour time difference arrived in Saigon on the morning of April 25. Kissinger opened by stroking Martin’s ego, telling him, “I want you to know that in sending you the details of my negotiations, I am doing something I have never done before.” He then offered an interpretation of the Soviet reply that vindicated Martin, saying that it indicated that “we will be permitted to continue our evacuation, including the evacuation of Vietnamese, unimpeded,” and that the PRG was prepared “to undertake negotiations in the tripartite formulation.” He gave Martin’s ego a final stroke by adding, “The Soviet reply indicates to me that your judgment about the time we have left is correct.”

  Although Kissinger embraced the Soviet reply to the oral note as an encouraging development, one that might facilitate the evacuation of endangered South Vietnamese, he still feared that once most of Saigon’s American residents had been evacuated, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Brown, with the support of Congress, would end the airlift, abandoning thousands of Vietnamese. With this in mind, he told Martin that reducing the nongovernmental and nonessential Americans to around eight hundred by Sunday, April 27, would be “satisfactory.” He followed this with a revealing sentence, saying, “There is a great deal to be said for trickling Americans out slowly after Sunday to keep the airlift going and thus stay within the literal terms of the Soviet note.” He was referring here to the Soviet statement that Hanoi’s position was that “the question of evacuation of American citizens…is definitely favorable.”

  Kissinger knew that Ford was insisting on evacuating the remaining Americans and that Schlesinger and Brown wanted to accomplish this as quickly as possible. Still, he was encouraging Martin to “trickle” out the remaining Americans slowly so that the airlift of endangered South Vietnamese could continue. Kissinger had spoken of America’s “moral responsibility” to rescue its Vietnamese allies in press conferences, at meetings, and in cables that he knew would be part of the official record. But giving Martin a green light to slow the evacuation of Americans to a trickle, an order that he knew Martin would embrace, demonstrates that not only did he believe the United States had a responsibility to evacuate endangered Vietnamese but was prepared to encourage Martin to discharge it. He explained himself a decade later, writing, “We would not be able to evacuate any South Vietnamese friends unless we prolonged the withdrawal of Americans, for Congress would surely cut off all funds with the departure of the last American.”

  In his reply to Kissinger’s cable, Martin urged him to keep the ambassador’s role in the evacuation secret. He reported that to date (April 25) twenty-one thousand Vietnamese had departed on U.S. military planes and that “99% of this movement was illegal in accordance with Vietnamese law.” He closed by saying, “You are quite right that I feel as you do, a very heavy moral obligation to evacuate as many deserving Vietnamese as possible. I feel it so deeply that I refrain from commenting about it or putting it in the official reports to the Department which some damn fool leaks to the press and endangers cutting off our ability to continue as we are.”

  More evidence that Kissinger viewed the airlift of Americans as a cover for rescuing South Vietnamese can be found in his April 23 telephone conversation with Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina—a conversation also showing that not every U.S. senator was as opposed to evacuating Vietnamese as members of the Foreign Relations Committee. After telling Thurmond that the administration was “continuing to reduce” the American population, Kissinger said, “Between you and me, we’re taking out many Vietnamese.” Thurmond replied, “I’m glad. They stood by us and we should stand by them.” Kissinger responded, “Not everybody in Washington feels that way.”

  Another senator who did feel that way was Edward Kennedy. Kissinger called him on April 21 to ask that he lobby his fellow senators to support giving the administration parole authority to admit Vietnamese refugees. Kennedy said that he was interested in “initiatives” that could provide “protection of the population there.” Kissinger replied, “We really owe it to the fifteen years of effort to get some of the key people out.” Kennedy agreed, saying, “I think that is right.”

  The Soviet response to Ford’s oral note convinced Kissinger and Martin that an emergency evacuation of the remaining Americans was less urgent. By holding out the promise of a lengthy period of negotiations, it made expending the time and effort needed to plan an emergency evacuation seem unnecessary. Martin spelled this out in a cable to Kissinger, writing that “the need for [an] emergency evacuation appears more and more remote.”

  On April 26, a day after suggesting that Martin trickle out Americans, Kissinger cabled, “Do not worry about arrangements for the onward movement of evacuees. That is our problem and we will take care of it. Just keep the evacuees coming and do not slow down.” He closed, “I may have an odd way of showing it, but you have my full support.”

  Kissinger’s April 25 cable had been “eyes only” for Martin, but he showed it to Polgar, at the same time threatening to “cut off your balls and stuff them in your ears” if he shared it with anyone. Polgar shared the gist of it with others anyway. Those who were privy to it displayed a confidence and preternatural calm that puzzled, distressed, and angered their subordinates and others. When a foreign diplomat informed Wolfgang Lehmann that he and his staff were departing the next day, Lehmann, who knew about the cable, said, “No, you don’t really have to go. We’re staying. The North Vietnamese aren’t going to take Saigon. There’ll be an arrangement.”

  Several hours after receiving Kissinger’s cable, Martin had lunch in the embassy canteen. He shared a table with a CIA agent who said that he was setting up a network of stay-behind agents. Martin smiled and said that he doubted that would be necessary, adding, “I hope we’ll all be staying on.” Later that afternoon he told Marius Burke, the Air America pilot whom he had forbidden to paint an H on rooftop helipads, that he had “good information” that Saigon was “off-limits” to the North Vietnamese. He cabled Admiral Gayler on April 27, “Through other channels we have increasing evidence that Hanoi has given tacit acquiescence to permitting evacuation operations to continue uninterrupted while the political solution in Saigon continues in a way they deem favorable.” On April 28, with South Vietnam’s surrender two days away, he cabled Kissinger that he believed there would be an official American presence in Saigon for “a year or more.”

  After reading Kissinger’s April 25 cable, Polgar told his two American secretaries that he thought they would all be in Saigon for at least another six months and suggested they cancel their plane reservations. He also modified his plan to evacuate the CIA’s U.S. and Vietnamese employees from Bien Hoa, telling his agents there that because he foresaw the formation of a coalition government, they should stash their Vietnamese in safe houses instead of moving them to Saigon.

  CIA agent Don Kanes arrived in Saigon from Can Tho on April 25. He told Polgar that Jim Delaney had sent him to facilitate the departure of the Can Tho KIP. “Well, I guess you might as well,” Polgar replied, “but it looks like the deal is being set.” He told Kanes that as soon as retired general Duong Van “Big” Minh became president, there would be negotiations and a coalition government, adding, “The North Vietnamese don’t want the world to see them marching into Saigon.”

  “I don’t think they’re worried about their image,” Kanes said.

  The next day Kanes heard the same line from Charles Timmes, the retired general who advised Martin on military affairs. “The fix is in,” Timmes told him. “Big Minh will become president, and there’ll be some adjustments.”

  Polgar had cultivated a professional friendship with Colonel Janos Toth, the Hungarian military attaché. When they met at Polgar’s villa on the afternoon of April 25, Toth reinforced the Soviet reply, saying that according to his “friends in the North” Hanoi preferred negotiations to a
n assault on Saigon. The Communists had three preconditions: Thieu’s departure; a new government in which the North had “confidence”; and a declaration from the United States that it would stay out of Vietnamese affairs, recall its military advisers, and reduce its embassy to a conventional size. Toth said that the PRG delegation at Camp Davis wanted Polgar to serve as an intermediary in talks between them and the Saigon government. Polgar trusted Toth because they were fellow Hungarians. He returned to the embassy in an ebullient mood, telling CIA agent Frank Snepp, “You see, I was right. There’s a chance for some kind of deal. They want me as an intermediary.”

  Polgar had been optimistic about negotiations even before reading Kissinger’s cable. For several weeks New York Times correspondent Malcolm Browne had been serving as his secret intermediary with Phuong Nam, who handled the PRG’s press relations at Camp Davis. Browne told Nam that according to Polgar the United States wanted a peaceful end to the war, the safe evacuation of Americans, and negotiations leading to a coalition government. Browne reported to Polgar that Nam had hinted that all this was possible but remained vague about how to accomplish it. After reading the Soviet note, Polgar infected Browne with his optimism, leading Browne to tell UPI reporter Peter Arnett, “Peter, there will be no final battle, believe me. I am plugged in better now with all sides than I have ever been in my life.”

  Martin could not resist gloating. Hours after receiving Kissinger’s cable, he told Scowcroft, “Events have validated what I felt all along—that as long as progress could be made we really could count on the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam] desire for a peaceful evolution insofar as the transfer of power…to avoid massive attack on Saigon.”

  He dispatched a self-congratulatory cable to Kissinger the next day, writing that the Soviet note “clearly indicates that there will be no interference with the evacuation of Americans” and reminding him, “I have always believed this.” He predicted that the Communists would show “considerable patience” as they followed a strategy of using “the threat of their military dominance in the environs of Saigon to force the pace of political evolution in Saigon to the formation of a Big Minh government to be followed by negotiations.” During that evolution he “saw no reason why the United States would not keep an embassy here.” He called Kissinger’s earlier question of how he and his staff planned to leave “a bit premature” and predicted that after General Minh’s inauguration the embassy would remain “for a considerable period.” He closed by reminding Kissinger, “You once paid me a very great compliment—that I was one of the very few people you knew capable of totally dispassionate and objective analysis.” He said that in recent weeks he had recalled that praise and had “tried to keep even more aloof from emotion than usual,” adding, “It turns out I have been right so far, which is unforgivably infuriating to the bureaucracy.”

  Kissinger shared his optimism. He alluded to Ford’s oral note to Brezhnev and Brezhnev’s reply during his conversation with Ted Kennedy. When Kennedy asked if declaring Saigon an open city was under consideration, he replied that they were “waiting some possible moves and are in touch.” When Kennedy asked if the negotiations would be just “window dressing,” he said, “I don’t think so,” adding, “Incidentally, this is a strictly private conversation.”

  One day after receiving the Soviet reply, Kissinger briefed Ford and Scowcroft on its implications, on France’s attempts to broker a cease-fire, and an encouraging approach from the PRG representative in Paris. Ford said it all sounded “encouraging and interesting” and asked, “If it developed would we keep an embassy there?”

  Kissinger encouraged Martin’s optimism. In a “Sensitive via Martin Channels” cable of April 26 he said, “My thinking regarding the political evolution in Saigon is that following the formation of a Minh government, there will be negotiations which will result more or less rapidly in an agreement on a tripartite government [North, South, and PRG].” After pointing out that this new government would be “two-thirds ‘Communist’ and one third controlled by them,” Kissinger said that they would then have to decide about the future of the embassy. He believed that at some juncture “the North will decide to prevent the future evacuation of Vietnamese” and that the United States would then have to decide “whether to close the embassy or maintain a token presence.” He asked Martin to give him his “considered judgment” on what might happen and do it by “the opening of business here on Monday.” This meant Monday evening Saigon time, several hours after General Minh would be inaugurated and North Vietnam would attack Tan Son Nhut.

  During a White House meeting on April 29, and at a later press conference, Kissinger would say that throughout the morning of April 28 in Saigon he had believed it was “highly probable” that the war would end in a cease-fire and negotiated settlement. Years later, however, he claimed that despite the Soviet note he had been skeptical that Hanoi would negotiate, calling it a “slim hope.” He had been “certain,” he wrote, that Le Duc Tho, with whom he had negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, “would never acquiesce in a gradual transfer of authority or any autonomous political structure in Saigon, however temporary—not even an autonomous Communist one,” and that “Hanoi would take no chances on the emergence of Titoism in South Vietnam.” But these ex post facto assertions are unconvincing when measured against his cables to Martin, his conversations with Ford and Ted Kennedy, and his actions following the Soviet response of April 24. These all suggest that Moscow and Hanoi had bamboozled him, as well as Martin, Ford, Polgar, and others, into believing that a cease-fire and negotiations conducted within the structure of the Paris Peace Accords would be the Vietnam War’s most likely outcome.

  For Kissinger, a cease-fire followed by negotiations and a slow-motion surrender was an appealing scenario. It would affirm the value of his détente with the Soviet Union, spare the United States the humiliation of a panicky evacuation, allow it to rescue its South Vietnamese, preserve the fiction that the Paris Peace Accords remained in effect, and reassure its Cold War allies. For Martin, it would prove that he had been right about Hanoi’s reluctance to capture Saigon by force of arms and correct to have resisted a precipitous drawdown of the mission’s U.S. employees. And it would save him from becoming the man who had concluded a glittering diplomatic career by losing South Vietnam.

  Because Martin, Kissinger, and Polgar wanted to believe that Hanoi preferred negotiations, they inflated the importance of anything appearing to confirm it. They were encouraged by a New York Times story from its Moscow correspondent reporting that “well-placed sources” in the Kremlin had said that based on recent cables from Soviet diplomats in Hanoi, North Vietnam had decided not to attack Saigon during “the current campaign.” Martin cabled Kissinger that France’s ambassador to South Vietnam, Jean-Marie Mérillon, had told him that the French had advised Hanoi “not to press an immediate military attack at the moment” and to follow “a negotiating track” that promised “results much more favorable to Hanoi in terms of world public opinion.” The current lull in the fighting, Martin said, appeared to confirm that Hanoi was listening to the French. Mérillon was so confident that negotiations would occur that on April 24 he recommended that the ten thousand French citizens in Saigon remain because a cease-fire appeared “imminent.”

  But on April 25, the same day that Martin received Kissinger’s cable, the Communist delegations at Camp Davis began digging bunkers, and U.S. intelligence intercepted a message to Hanoi from a member of North Vietnam’s delegation saying that if Communist forces had to shell Tan Son Nhut, they would consider it an “honor” to lose their lives “for the total victory of the campaign.” It would later be revealed that on April 25 the commander of the North Vietnamese armed forces, General Van Tien Dung, had ordered his army to attack Saigon on April 29. His 1977 memoirs confirmed that the talk of negotiations, a tripartite government, and a cease-fire had been part of a disinformation campaign orchestrated by Hanoi, abetted by Mos
cow, and aimed at persuading South Vietnam to relax its defensive planning. France would later acknowledge that it had been “outrageously deceived.”

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  Martin had canceled the Joint Military Team’s April 18 liaison flight to prevent the Communist delegations from evacuating their senior cadre. But after receiving Kissinger’s encouraging cable, he decided that the Friday, April 25, flight should proceed as planned. Bill Bell and Colonel Harry Summers, the second-in-command of the U.S. JMT delegation, flew to Hanoi to represent the United States at the weekly JMT meeting. Summers headed the Negotiations Division for the U.S. delegation, a job that entailed persuading the Communist delegations to reveal the location of American MIAs. He anticipated that while he was in Hanoi, the Communists might attempt to negotiate a cease-fire and political settlement with him. Before leaving, he asked Jim Devine, the embassy’s chief political-military officer, “What are my negotiating instructions?”

  “Damned if I know,” Devine said.

  But what was he supposed to do? Summers asked.

  “Do the best you can,” Devine suggested.

  After boarding the plane, Bell noticed that the Communists were sending their senior cadre to Hanoi. He assumed that they would be briefing the Politburo on conditions in Saigon and the preparations being made to defend it. The passengers sat facing each other on benches along the side of the C-130. The members of South Vietnam’s delegation were subdued and expressionless, already resigned to defeat. (Bell had recently evacuated their families.) The PRG and North Vietnamese delegations were usually somber and poker-faced. On this day they were ebullient and chatty. They pretended to be concerned about the American delegation losing face, a bogus solicitousness that Bell found harder to swallow than their customary lectures about the glories of socialism. Colonel Nguyen Tu, who headed the DRV North Vietnamese delegation, told him and Summers, “You Americans should not feel so badly, you did everything you could.” Summers pointed out that the U.S. military had never lost a major battle. “Yes, that is correct,” Tu replied, “but it is also irrelevant.” This succinct exchange would become a frequently quoted epitaph for the Vietnam War, following Summers through his distinguished career as an author, academic, columnist, and television commentator on international affairs.