Saigon Has Fallen

by Peter Arnett

  KOMOR: Do you see that AP had a specific role to play in that—fulfilling that great journalistic ideal? Was it, did it operate differently from other news organizations? And how is it different?

  ARNETT: The AP in the 1960s and ’70s was basically as it is today: the rock of coverage. I mean, today, all American mainstream news organizations look to the AP wire for guidance; for the latest news. Now, maybe they’ll look at CNN, if they want a press coverage live, and a—if, they’ll look at the other 24-hour networks if there’s a big developing story, if there’s a Katrina.** But basically, day in and day out, the AP wire is the guidepost; the example. The unchallenged, you know, truth, as best being determined, of what’s going on. And this was the case in the 1960s. It also applied to the AP during the previous wars. Don’t forget the AP operated under censorship. It didn’t challenge censorship because it was understood that in wars of national security, you have censorship. But bearing that in mind, they would push the censor, you know, to get more information into the report, but there was an understanding. You’re censored? OK, we understand that, but let’s try and get a little more on the wire than you would normally get. Like, when I was in Baghdad for CNN in the first Gulf War, I was the only reporter there. So, the Iraqis would say, you know, “You’re allowed two minutes a day to report and we want to censor what you write.” “OK, so this is what I’m going to write, but you know, I have to get on the air, and I have to talk about a few other things.” “OK.” So you keep expanding the perimeter, as best you can. And that’s what the AP did in World War II and World War I. The important thing though, is to admit that you’re under censorship. So, when I was in the Gulf War, every report I did, CNN said “under censorship.” And in World War II and World War I, it was understood by the public and everyone that there was censorship in place. There was a general in charge of censorship. There was never any pretense that there wasn’t censorship. You know. It was a requirement that news organizations remembered, that as Walter Cronkite has said, “You still had the reporter’s presence with the 101st Airborne when they leaped in at, you know, D-Day, you know, June 5, 1944.” Cronkite was with them. So their report was censored, but the point is, he was there, he had his notes; sooner or later, you could write your book, or give the bigger picture. It’s simply the information you had was, you know, significant, you know, you had to be a time delay on it. So, there was no pretense. We knew they had—you had censorship. In Vietnam, there was no time delay. There was no censorship. Why wasn’t there any censorship? Well, the succession of U.S. governments: the Kennedy administration; the Johnson administration; the Nixon administration, refused to admit there was a war on. It was sort of a police action. It was an insurgency. It was never officially perceived as being a war. And Secretary of State Dean Rusk mentioned after the war, when asked why hadn’t censorship been imposed, he said, “Well, we didn’t want to bring the focus of the war up to the level where if we—the imposition of censorship would have brought into place so many other requirements. You introduce censorship, you introduce mobilization, and you have to bring so much else into play when you have censorship in this democracy.” They didn’t want to do that. They didn’t quite know what they were doing in Vietnam. There was no plan to win the war, so they had to live with a media that challenged what they were doing. And the media was basically saying, you know, “Get out of here!” You know, that, that, that was climaxed after the Tet Offensive in February of 1968, when Walter Cronkite had come back from a tour of the war zone, and on CBS said, you know, “We’re losing this. What are we doing there? It’s not working.” And Walter Cronkite was a voice that was more respected than Lyndon Johnson’s at the time, so Johnson just declined to run for office again. [Laughs] It was—so this was—what the AP brought then, was, and the other media, was an insistence that, you know, the facts should not be concealed. If the government felt it was such a big issue, go ahead and, go ahead and impose censorship. Don’t ask us for self-censorship. The worst censorship is self-censorship. It’s like me going to—in Iraq, and seeing a beheading, or seeing some terrible action, and not talking about. Particularly, it was done by American troops. It’s concealing the Abu Ghraib pictures, because it’s not in the national interest to do it. It’s not our job to do that. If the Pentagon wants to impose censorship, do it, but with the understanding that, you know, that the nation trusts your best judgment. And it, it’s—and will hold you accountable. If the media is asked to self-censorship, who’s accountable? You know, this is not good. And throughout the Vietnam War, Wes Gallagher was unwilling to impose self-censorship. He was unwilling to tell us, “Well, guys, go to the field, but don’t report any atrocities you might see committed by Americans.” You know? You know, “Let’s not—let’s have a more optimistic assessment of where we are in 1967.” You had President—you know, you had Lyn—you—General William C. Westmoreland, then the commander in Vietnam in November of 1967, came, told Congress, “We’re winning the war; there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” Did Wes Gallagher say, “Hey, why don’t you do something that supports that?” No! He said, “Is that right or wrong?” I did a piece which said it was wrong. You know? So. But he didn’t—what he challenged, what he demanded of the AP staff was that you had to be correct. And I saw Wes a few times; I’d come back to the States; he would come to Vietnam, and he’d say, “Peter, you’re a great reporter. Don’t ever be wrong. You’re so—there’s so many people who don’t like what you’re doing that if you were wrong we won’t be able to do anything to hold you.” I didn’t do anything wrong. [Laughs] So. Not in Vietnam anyway. And so, it was. That was the attitude. “We’ll go with the reporters; they’re risking their lives. We’ll go with what they’re reporting to us. And this is how it has to be in a democratic society.” And I think this was an incredibly important standard that the AP certainly helped—or led. The AP led the reporting. I mean, we had the more reporters; more photographers; we were first with the story more often than UPI; we—the analyses we did held up, still hold up. You know, we gave 4 dead, 18 wounded to the story, and we’re willing to do that. And this was a wonderful commitment. And, and it was, and, it, it was a necessary commitment, you know, and it was, and something that we can all be proud of. I’m proud of it; Richard Pyle’s proud; Esper is proud. Every AP reporter who served in Vietnam, that was their proudest time of their career. With good reason! Because we really believed in, you know, our requirement to tell the truth of what’s going on; demand accountability; get to the bottom of what’s happening. And don’t forget, the Vietnam War was over a course of time; it was from, basically, ’62 to ’75. It was a long time, a lot of challenging—it was a challenging time. It’s sort of like Iraq today; it’s very challenging. And Vietnam was challenging, but I think from beginning to end, I think the media held up pretty well. And historians have agreed with that assessment. There are those on the right side of the spectrum who blame the press for losing the war. But even military historians, in their volumes they’ve written about the media, conclude that we were on top of it all. If there’s any challenge, it’s the fact that information came out that shouldn’t have. But that’s not up to us to determine. It’s up to the authorities to, you know, to either not do those things, or have kind of controls that the public is aware of, that we’re aware of, but which require accountability eventually.

  KOMOR: Thank you, Peter.

  ARNETT: My pleasure.

  Compiled by Sarit Hand, Coordinator, The Associated Press Oral History Program, AP Corporate Archives. Oct. 08, 2009.

  * * *

  * Once There Was a War (1958).

  ** Hurricane Katrina (2005).

  Appendix B

  Original Sources

  from the AP Corporate Archives

  [transcription begins on page 210]

  The “Vietnam Diary” dispatches from Peter Arnett and George Esper (page 1 of 3), sent as the city of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on Tuesday, Apr. 29, 1975. Original wire copy. (AP C
orporate Archives)

  The “Vietnam Diary” dispatches from Peter Arnett and George Esper (page 2 of 3), sent as the city of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on Tuesday, Apr. 29, 1975. Original wire copy. (AP Corporate Archives)

  The “Vietnam Diary” dispatches from Peter Arnett and George Esper (page 3 of 3), sent as the city of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on Tuesday, Apr. 29, 1975. Original wire copy. (AP Corporate Archives)

  [Eds: (sic) in a transcription indicates a spelling or grammatical error in the original document]

  Vietnam Diary

  Peter Arnett and George Esper, “Vietnam Diary”, Apr. 29, 1975. Wirecopy, Various Wires, Oversize Folder. AP Corporate Archives, New York.

  Saigon (AP)—Tuesday, April 29. [1975]

  4:00 a.m.—The day begins early, the thumping of rockets at Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut air base. It is a replay of 1968 when the communist command’s Tet Offensive similarly obliterated part of the city and the best vantage point in town was again the Caravelle Hotel where in the pre-dawn hours newsmen again counted the rockets exploding with bright balls of fire. There is a new twist this time, brilliantly yellow path burned by the Strela missile, a hand-fired Soviet-built weapon that downed three aircraft in full view of the newsmen.

  8:45 a.m.—They’re pulling the plug. The U.S. Embassy has quietly passed the word that all Americans will leave today ending 30 years of American involveement (sic) in Vietnam. The Embassy staff and the few military people left had no choice. They had to go. Newsmen did have the choice and a handful remained to see the last few hours of the country that had flowered just briefly on the international scene.

  Noon—The mad evacuation scramble starts. Associated Press photographer Neal Ulevich had to be summoned from the post and telegraph office where he was sending radiophotos of the rocketing of the airport. He did not have time to check out of his hotel room and left with only his cameras. Another AP staffer, Carl Robinson, barely had time to locate his newly adopted Vietnamese daughter. Old Indochina hand Ed White, who has covered Vietnam for the AP off and on since 1962, crammed himself into a crowded bus and said, “This is not the way I wanted to leave Indochina.”

  4:00 p.m.—This was the last chance for those Vietnamese who wanted to go to go. Rumors had it the Viet Cong would be in the city by morning. Streets around the U.S. Embassy became clogged with the last desperate Vietnamese trying for a new life in the United States as against the regimented life they had been led to expect under communism.

  In the haste to leave what was valuable yesterday was worthless today. The owner of a local American restaurant gave AP reporter Matt Franjola, who stayed on, his Jeep. Another AP reporter who stayed, Peter Arnett, was presented with a diplomatic licensed car by a departing Japanese friend. Newsmen who had departed without time to pay their hotel bills offered those staying behind all the possessions in the rooms if they would pay the rent.

  Nightfall: the worst fears start to be realized. Shooting breaks out in the streets around the AP office in downtown Saigon as drunken soldiers shoot off their weapons. Suddenly all power is cut. Communications with our New York office are broken. It is raining heavily outside. You can’t see a thing. Are the Viet Cong in town already? One wonders. Did they cut the power? The lights soon go on again. The soldiers go home to sleep it off. We file our night report and the first day without the Americans is over.

  Endit.

  Arnett/Esper

  Peter Arnett’s analysis (page 1 of 14) of the battle of Dak To, filed Nov. 25, 1967. Original typescript copy. (AP Corporate Archives)

  Dak To Reconstruction

  Peter Arnett, [Dak To Analysis], Nov. 25, 1967. Typescript copy, Saigon Bureau Records, Box 36, Folder 619. AP Corporate Archives, New York.

  (Editor’s note: The B[attle of Dak To was one of] the fiercest of the Vietnam War. An Associated P[ress correspondent wh]o spent ten days at the battle scene reconstructs the action [and] discusses enemy and Allied tactics.)

  By Peter Arnett

  Associated Press Writer

  Dak To, Vietnam, Nov. 25 [1967] (AP) – The communists picked the time and the place for the bloody battle of Dak To.

  From the time the first enemy shots were fired from a bamboo thicket at U.S. infantrymen on November three, to the painful scramble to the top of Hill 875 by weary U.S. paratroopers on Thursday, the communists made it clear they were at Dak To to fight.

  It was the nearest thing to a set piece battle yet seen in the Vietnam War. It may still not be over.

  Yet after 21 days of bloody fighting, Allied commanders still privately confess themselves mystified as to the enemy’s real intentions at Dak To.

  The initial Allied reasoning, that the communists planned to [page 2 missing]…

  […]The officer was referring to the American casualties taken in capturing the hill, merely one of a thousand knolls that dot the Dak To area. Unofficially, the 173rd airborne brigade took nearly 150 men killed and almost 300 wounded on the hill, at best a one to one ratio with enemy casualties.

  Asked if he felt the objective was important, a senior paratrooper officer commented, “Well, it sort of commands the valley, so in a conventional war it would be important. But this isn’t a conventional war, so I guess it means nothing.”

  The nature of the terrain was a major advantage for the communist forces. Each year the enemy’s November offensive, launched as the highlands begin drying out from the monsoon, have been steadily shifting north into the jungled hills.

  Under the shelter of the triple canopied jungles, the communists can busily build extensive bunkers and trench systems, forcing American troops to rout them out one by one in the worst possible terrain.

  The communists must have been working over the Dak To hills for at least three months, and possibly longer, senior American officers believe. The bunker systems stretch across numerous hills, some having caverns with woven bamboo walls and elevated log floors.

  One or two turns were in each entrance to seal out napalm, considered the ideal anti-bunker weapon until the Dak To battle. Now it has been shown that in the end, only hand to hand fighting can rout an enemy who digs deep enough.

  Twenty or thirty men at the most would conceal themselves in the bunkers. The main ground fighting would be done by flanking forces who would melt into the jungle after the initial infantry clash, leaving those in the bunkers to fight to the end. This accounted for the few bodies found in the bunker systems at the end of the fights.

  Each hill top bunker system around Dak To probably took two weeks to construct, U.S. engineers figured, and they were built to withstand the severest Allied bomb onslaught.

  From the nature of the hill top emplacements and their number, American intelligence officers believe that the North Vietnamese intended to stand and fight in the lonely Dak To hills and had laid the groundwork well. The enemy has used the Dak To region freely since 1964 when the first North Vietnamese infantry regiments were clandestinely slipped into the south. The district town of Tou Morong and the special forces camp of Dak Sut, both to Dak To’s north, were wiped out in 1965.

  Two enemy regiments—the 174th and the 24th—were known to be somewhere in the hills, and the U.S. Army’s 173rd airborne brigade chased after them during July, August and September this year. The paratroopers left Dak To early October, confident they would not need to return.

  In November the 173rd brigade has been the most severely punished of the three American brigades in the Dak To fight.

  American intelligence keeps a close watch on enemy troop activity, but is limited by the scarcity of population in the hills. Two enemy regiments—the 32nd and the 66th—dissappeared (sic) from the Cambodian border opposite Pleiku mid-1967 and the search went out for them.

  Airforce (sic) planes using infrared cameras, helicopters carrying “people sniffers”, and long range infantry patrols searched far and wide. The new locale of the lost regiments was eventually determined—the tangled hills around Dak To.

  Enemy
pressure on the Montagnard villages near Dak To mounted. Special Forces patrols reported seeing communist troops entering the Dak To bowl.

  The U.S. Fourth Division, commanded by Maj. General William R. Peers, began to move. For months Peers had been waiting for a sign that the communists wanted to fight. He had it now.

  The battle of Dak To was on.

  The battle has been fought in two parts.

  The first part was between November three and November twelve and saw clashes between two American infantry brigades (the 173rd and the First Brigade, 4th Division) and the North Vietnamese 32nd and 66th regiments.

  An indication of the battles to come was a tough fight November six when a 173rd company lost 26 killed and 37 wounded on a ridge southwest of Dak To. A total of 84 enemy dead were reported in that battle.