Chapter Fourteen
The embassy’s brand new air-conditioned conference room, Lodge explained, had become the temporary living quarters of the bonze who had led the Buddhist uprising and several of his brother monks. Ignoring all official demands to surrender them, Lodge had granted the monks indefinite sanctuary. So the morning’s security briefing would have to make do with an older room on the fourth floor. Paint peeled and flaked from the shabby walls. The cracked ceiling dripped plaster.
Lodge handed his jacket off to someone to have it sponge-cleaned and went into the meeting in shirtsleeves, primping his hair with his hand. I took off Robeson’s jacket, doused it with a glass of water and dropped it into a metal rubbish bin. We got odd looks from the group seated around a scuffed oval table, but nobody said a word as Lodge introduced me to a guy from embassy security and “Donald” from CIA.
The ambassador gave a brief after-action report about our close shave, shrugging off the idea that he had been the target. The others in the room seemed less convinced. The security officer reviewed new safety precautions and said the chancery was henceforth closed to all Vietnamese nationals. Access to non-Americans would be limited to the USAID offices in the annex next door.
Lodge turned to his gatekeeper and personal assistant, who had slipped into the chair just behind the ambassador: blue-eyed, black-haired Colonel Mike Dunn, a seriously decorated artillery officer. Mike Dunn was known to like his fellow Catholic, President Diem, but he also toed the official line drawn by his boss.
“Mike, have a warning issued immediately to all US officers at all ranks. Authorize the discreet carrying of personal weapons.”
“The regime won’t like our people going around the city armed,” he said.
“Let’s set that nicety aside until this Communist agent is dealt with.” Lodge turned to Donald CIA. “Should I worry about President Diem’s safety? How good is his protection?”
“Massive. Although we have new intelligence of some unusual surveillance going on.”
“Of Diem?”
“Of his personal secretary.”
Lodge peered over his reading glasses. “Viet Cong agents are following the president’s secretary?”
“No, sir. Nhu’s secret police are.”
“Why would Nhu have the poor man followed? Hasn’t he been the president’s trusted secretary for years?”
“Nhu suspects everyone,” said Donald. “And the secretary recently pleaded with one of our foreign-service officers to save Diem by getting rid of Nhu.”
“Just as Washington is urging.”
“Yes, sir. But once Nhu got wind of that, he’d have his snoops watching the guy every waking moment.”
Mike Dunn weighed in. “They’re coming apart over in the palace, panicking that the end is nigh.”
Donald said, “Cao Xuan Vy is also being followed.”
Lodge raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Vy being who?”
Donald CIA sucked his cigarette. “One of the president’s longtime personal bodyguards. Vy also heads Brother Nhu’s armed youth militia.”
“The Republican Guard,” Mike Dunn added. “Nhu’s answer to Hitler Youth.”
Lodge looked to Donald. “Does Counselor Nhu believe the Communist assassin might be able to persuade Mr. Vy to betray the president?”
“Any close-range attempt on President Diem would have to go through Mr. Vy. Nhu’s worried he may’ve been turned.”
“By the Communists.”
“No, sir.”
“Who then?”
“By us.”
The ambassador sat back. “Please elaborate.”
“Last month, the chief of Special Police made a public claim that CIA has marked Diem for assassination. Turning his secretary or bodyguard would be the most direct route.”
Lodge inhaled deeply. “Donald, please assure me there’s nothing to this fear of theirs but paranoia.”
Donald raised three fingers in a scout’s-honor gesture and everybody laughed.
Lodge rubbed his left shoulder, flexing it a little. The trembling left hand stayed out of sight, under the table. He turned to the blonde taking the minutes.
“Send an alert to the palace. Say that until the assassin has been apprehended, we urge their highest officials and general officers to take appropriate precautions. Assure them we have genuine concern for their safety.”
Lodge explained to the room that I needed to obtain an interrogation report from the National Police that might provide some leads about the Viet Cong newcomer who’d been killing Americans and was possibly now targeting Diem.
“I’ve got a solid contact in Counselor Nhu’s office,” Donald from CIA volunteered. “Why don’t I mosey over to the palace after the meeting and fetch the report?”
“No,” Lodge snapped. “Keep to my directive. No one moseys over or makes a casual phone call. No one makes drinks dates. No one accepts an invitation to dinner or so much as attends a christening without my express approval.”
Which wouldn’t be forthcoming, I thought. Lodge’s easy public style won over the ordinary citizens in the street. But with his staff, Lodge behaved more like a shit-kicking interrogator in a Senate committee than a genteel Yankee ambassador.
“Nothing is to be conveyed,” Lodge went on, “none of our positions are to be softened—or hardened—other than by me. No intelligence goes to the palace, either, and most certainly not about any South Vietnamese opposition to the president.”
Like Nhu, Lodge seemed not to trust anyone. Rumors had it that no classified communications were transmitted from the embassy to Washington except by Lodge. I’d heard he even typed some communiqués himself. Likewise, incoming cables came only to him. Lodge had blacked out his own staff, even General Harkins, cabling Washington about the military situation in Viet Nam without bothering to consult the commanding four-star general. Harkins and Diem liked each other, which was enough to make the general untrustworthy in Lodge’s eyes.
Maybe back in Washington they were having trouble making up their minds where they stood on Diem, but Lodge showed no signs of indecision. If Diem and Nhu wished to communicate with the American government they’d have to come to him, appropriate reforms in hand. And Nhu’s exit still topped that list.
Donald from CIA shrank back, reprimanded. “Understood, sir. You talk to the regime. No one else.”
“Good,” Lodge said. “I also want all relevant intelligence on this lady assassin to be made available to Investigator Miser and his associate, ah—” He looked to me.
“Sergeant Clovis Robeson.”
“Agent Robeson, yes. Henceforth CIA will avail Agents Robeson and Miser of all classified intelligence materials relating to her. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” everyone chimed.
“Do you have any questions concerning my instructions?”
“Several, sir,” said the CIA man. “How do I carry them on the access list? I mean, there’s the question of clearances and—”
“I’ll take responsibility for their clearances,” Lodge said.
“Sir,” Donald interrupted. “I’m not sure your regulations permit—”
“We’ve just formulated new ones,” Lodge said, annoyed.
“Excuse me,” I interrupted, hand half-raised like a grade-schooler. “My partner and I have clearances through Top Secret, and unlimited arrest authority on up through generals and GS-16s.”
“But not ambassadors,” said Lodge, wryly.
“No, sir. Though we’re working on it.”
That got a ripple of a smile, even from Donald. Lodge’s eyes crinkled politely. He brought both hands up on the table. “All right. I suppose we need a contingency plan in case it’s me at the top of her to-do list and she succeeds in her objective.”
Donald CIA said, “Already in place, Mr. Ambassador.”
“A
h. How diligent.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Lodge constructed a smile. “What exactly happens if she manages to rend me asunder?”
“The Seventh Fleet comes in, dependents go out. We stand by for instructions from the secretary of state”—Donald looked him dead in the eye—“and await the arrival of the next ambassador.”
Lodge nodded. “Quite proportionate and proper. An effusive memorial service would be appropriate too.”
Everybody laughed. Lodge rose and the room with him.
“Sir,” Mr. CIA interrupted.
“Yes, Donald.”
“One last thing. If the rumored rebellion against Diem actually materializes, the code word we’ll transmit to announce it is durian, as in the fruit.”
“Zombie fruit?” the security chief said, making a face. Vietnamese cooks made gorgeous desserts out of durian, but raw it smelled like rotting corpses.
“Durian,” Lodge repeated. “Everyone got that? Very well. We’re done, gentlemen.”
Lodge summoned me to join him but Donald CIA blocked my path.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to slip past.
Donald smirked and stepped aside. “Mustn’t keep the Man waiting.”
I caught up with the ambassador and followed him to the elevator.
“Don’t mind Donald,” he said. “He’s a tad resentful because he was close to former Station Chief Richardson. A lot of folks—including Donald—hold me responsible for Richardson’s recall and tattered career.” He glanced away. “As well they might.”
Chapter Fifteen
Saigon had the largest American embassy staff in the world, so I expected Lodge’s office to be grand, but the suite was barely ordinary. Unsafe too. Someone could practically step into his window from the terrace of the adjoining apartment building. A new embassy was badly needed.
“Sir.” I nodded toward the neighboring balcony. “Even a crappy marksman could make easy work of you at that distance.”
“True,” Lodge agreed. “Which is why Mike Dunn had that building bought to ruin the sight lines into my office. Worse, he keeps insisting on closing my shutters no matter how hellishly hot it gets. And as you can see, I’ve been provided with personal weapons in case we’re boarded.”
He indicated a small side table where a Police Special .38 revolver sat next to a fat Dictaphone machine.
“It wouldn’t discourage a real mob for very long, but it packs all the authority you can fit in a desk drawer. Fred Flott’s in the adjoining office with a Schmeisser machine pistol, commandeered from the CIA’s non-attributable weapons stash. It’s an arms wonderland down there, Freddy says.”
A half-eaten jar of baby food sat in the middle of the ambassador’s desk. Ulcers, I wondered, or just an attack of the tropics?
I was surprised how quiet and empty the entire floor was. Everyone had been cleared out to make room for the ambassador; his appointments secretary, Mrs. Lacey; and his two closest aides, Mike Dunn and Freddy Flott. Lodge had worked with Colonel Dunn at the Pentagon and brought him to Saigon as his ass-kicker. Flott, a former infantry officer and a friend of Lodge’s son, was the ambassador’s official French interpreter, not that he really needed one.
Lodge’s classy secretary, Mrs. Lacey, appeared in the doorway. From the way Lodge groused about signing his correspondence and initialing the cables she spread in front of him, it was clear he wasn’t the paperwork type. The scuttlebutt about Lodge looked to be true: that he’d gotten a taste for action in the tank corps in North Africa and felt shortchanged in most of his jobs since. Judging from his excited reaction to the street bombing, and given the two office pistols—the .38 Special and a .357 Magnum poking out from under a briefing book—I suspected the dangers of his new post were to his liking.
Mrs. Lacey reported the ambassador’s Checker limo had been towed to the embassy motor pool, its front tires flat, one door completely misshapen. The Marine escorts looked the worse for wear, too, the driver hospitalized with concussion and ruptured eardrums, his partner already treated and released for limited duty.
“Anyone see the car arrive, Mrs. Lacey?” Lodge squinted. “Reporters, I mean.”
“Only one or two.”
“Good.” Lodge slipped into his jacket. “Don’t confirm my presence at the scene when they come snooping. No need to hand our adversaries a propaganda victory, however minor.”
Mrs. Lacey nodded and reminded him of an upcoming meeting with Lucien Conein.
Lucien Conein —“Black Luigi”—featured in many a Radio Catinat legend. A former French legionnaire who had been in Viet Nam on and off since he parachuted into the country to battle the Japanese occupiers, he had briefly fought alongside Ho Chi Minh. He had a reputation as an expert OSS saboteur too. After the partition of the country in 1954, he’d rigged a surprise for the new Communist occupant of the Hanoi mansion where he’d been staying: a refrigerator full of hidden C3 explosives wired to detonate when the fridge got plugged in. The American consul had thoughtfully disarmed Black Luigi’s booby trap before it could blow anybody up.
“Conein’s CIA, isn’t he?” I asked Lodge.
“Yes, but he reports directly to me.”
From Lodge’s expression, Conein was one of the few people he trusted besides his aides, Mike Dunn and Fred Flott. Maybe me, now. Lodge seemed to have isolated everyone else.
Lodge finally introduced me to Mrs. Lacey.
“Thanks to Sergeant Miser’s quick thinking,” he said, “we escaped the scene unscathed.”
She brushed away a stray gray strand and smiled at me. “Well done, Sergeant. You’re most certainly going on the Christmas card list this year.”
The Givral bakery and café, the town’s number-one rumor station, stood catty-corner from the National Assembly. Assembly members sometimes stopped in, as did attachés from the various embassies.
The shoeshine kid waved us into his shady parking spot and we did our customary negotiation over the fee to guard the jeep and our Prick-10 field radio. I liked the little mercenary. As soon as we agreed on the price, he tossed his polish and rags into an olive-green ammo can and piled in behind the wheel, joined quickly by his gang.
Café Givral had the hottest gossip and coldest air-conditioning in Saigon. “Ah, climatisé,” Robeson sighed and licked his parched lips as we entered. The icy currents raised the sunburn on my neck.
Onetime legionnaire André Lebon was at his usual table, snowing German reporters with stories about how he’d lost his foot at Dien Bien Phu. At the next table, half a dozen Western ladies in summery Parisian blouses and chino skirts enjoyed ice creams and pastries. Across the room, a group of Catholic Relief Services women in open-toed shoes shared a dish of flan along with a bar of the blackest chocolate.
A few threadbare Frenchmen hid behind newspapers, nursing their coffees like boulevardiers, waiting to shop bits of information to intelligence operatives for a few bucks. So far the only one who’d found a taker was Jacques Rae, bending the ear of gents from the French SDECE and the Cambodian Deuxième Bureau. Next to them, a pair of retired French policemen were loudly giving it away to impress their CIA guest with their formerly hush-hush work in Indochina.
We took a table next to the duo of Le Monde correspondents—French Olivier and Italian Enrico—who practically lived at the Givral. Olivier was revisiting the rumor that Madame Nhu had personally set fire to a section of houses with wooden roofs to force through a law requiring metal ones, because she had recently purchased a factory that made galvanized metal sheets.
The waiter took our order, then spoke to Robeson in a speedy mix of French and Vietnamese I couldn’t follow.
“He’s curious where I’m from,” Robeson explained. “Nouvelle Orléans,” he said to the waiter.
“Ahhh, oui,” the man said, “le jazz,” and happily mimicked a clarinet.
“
Got anything juicy?” I asked the journalists.
Olivier beckoned us closer. “An American general just flew his Korean mistress in from Seoul aboard his personal military transport.”
The rest of the day’s gossip concerned the going prices the wives of Saigon’s ruling elite were negotiating for their husbands’ latest government positions. Not bribes, of course, Olivier insisted sarcastically.
“The wives deal in ‘gifts of esteem and gratitude,’” he said with panache. “Their men touch nothing. Hót của—harvesting the wealth—is woman’s work.”
Wives ran the family finances and came to “understandings” with their counterparts about their spouses’ salaries and advancements, who got trade permits, whose children could get visas to go abroad, and whose sons could escape military service by leaving the country to study or getting a soft non-combatant’s army posting somewhere civilized. Of course, at the very top of that hierarchy of “understandings” sat Diem’s sister-in-law, Madame Nhu, receiving her cut and amassing a fortune.
“Gratitude flows ever upward in Saigon,” Olivier said and sipped his coffee. “Entry visas, exit visas, passports. Business is brisk.”
“In permissions to divorce too,” said Enrico. “Except for Madame Nhu’s sister—no sale there. She will not be let out of her marriage to run off with her French lover. The sister, she cuts her wrists after Madame Nhu says to her this news. Howling and bleeding, she runs through the family quarters in the palace.”
“Ah, the dramatic opera of the ruling classes,” Olivier said. “Madame Nhu commands like an empress. She has far more the personality of a ruler than Diem or Nhu.”
“No Nhus is good Nhus,” Enrico quipped. Olivier came back with a joke about “Diemocracy.”
Enrico turned serious. The latest Vietnamese official to land on Brother Nhu’s shit list had just been posted to Dam Doi as punishment for protesting the mistreatment of peasants, he said. We all groaned. Few civil servants survived Dam Doi. The Viet Cong were hard on Saigon’s lackeys in what they considered their territory. But the odds were even worse in Nhu’s gulags, so the administrator had gratefully accepted the new job and was leaving the next day, right after finalizing his will.
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