Last Man Out

by James E. Parker, Jr.

  Jim said Mac’s plan works. Glenn would be contacted that morning with instructions to get permission from someone in the embassy, or at Tan Son Nhut airfield, for us to move the KIP to U.S. Navy ships offshore.

  As a backup, Bill A. would take a helicopter to Rach Gia and continue work to prepare the island as a safe haven. In either event, we were moving our KIP the next day, 28 April. We had them at launch sites, we had two helicopters at our disposal, and the clock was ticking.

  In the morning I would load up one helicopter with the group from Chau Doc and either head east to the armada of U.S. Navy ships at sea or go south with the group to meet up with Bill A. on the island. So as not to cause panic, all the KIP would be told that they were being moved to an evacuation point near Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon.

  Jim said, “There it is. Go out and make it work.”

  Several days before, I had moved from the apartment near the consulate to the Coconut Palms, the agency compound in Can Tho, which was on the way to the airport and convenient to the kids’ house. I had left instructions with the guards at my former apartment house to send Loi to the compound when he returned from visiting his family.

  Loi was waiting beside his truck in front of my apartment when I pulled into the compound later that morning. He had a pensive look and tried to make eye contact as I got out of my Jeep and walked over to him. I told him that the situation was deteriorating. He was to get his family and return to my apartment there the following evening. He hugged me and left. We were together only a few minutes.

  For the rest of the day I collected KIP from separate safe houses and moved them into groups. I told them they would be moved to Saigon the following day for eventual movement out of Vietnam by airplane from Tan Son Nhut.

  Jim telephoned Glenn at the embassy in Saigon and passed on our plans. When he finished, Glenn hung up the telephone, took a deep breath, and went outside to the parking lot. He found a Jeep with keys in it and drove out to the MACV compound at Tan Son Nhut, where he met with Rear Adm. Hugh Benton and asked him how long it would take to have a U.S. Navy ship within reach of evacuation choppers from the delta.

  Benton, claiming surprise that someone was taking action on a sealift, said, “You are the first embassy person to come to me with a request for U.S. Navy support. The first. I’ve had ships steaming around in circles for five days waiting for instructions. Let’s get on with it.”

  Glenn asked for a time and place where the Air America helicopters could find the U.S. Navy platform. Benton said he’d have something ready in a few hours and promised to advise us of the coordinates when he got them. With that information, Glenn tried to telephone Jim in Can Tho but was told by the operator that the lines to the delta were down.

  When Glenn returned to the embassy in the commandeered Jeep, a red-faced, angry George Jacobson, the ambassador’s special assistant, confronted him. “What the hell is going on? What is this request in to Admiral Benton to evacuate people out of the delta? On whose authorization? And why didn’t this request go through this office or through MacNamara? You people know anything about proper channels? You taken leave of your senses?”

  “They’re Vietnamese,” Glenn said. “Longtime CIA agents. That’s who we’re evacuating. We don’t have access to the Tan Son Nhut gateway for these folks like you do. Or are there other plans to move our key local people from the delta that we don’t know about? And MacNamara knows about this. He has been moving his people out of country for days through the airport here. Well, ours are old CIA agents. They don’t have a clue, we don’t have a clue how to move them through Saigon and get ’em booked on flights out. Our people have no passports, no destinations, no nothing. No one’s helping us. We’re just doing what we can. That’s all.”

  “I beg your pardon, MacNamara didn’t know about this,” Jacobson countered. “He blew his top when I called him a few minutes ago and asked what was going on. Blew up. He said you have been trying all along to make your own evacuation plans, to take over, and he was going to put a stop to it.”

  “Look,” Glenn told Jacobson, “Saigon’s gonna fall in two days. Two days. Forty-eight hours. Poooof. Gone. No chance to get our people out then. It’s now or never. MacNamara can rant all he wants but this thing is bigger than he is, there’s more at stake. We’re just trying to do in the delta what you’re doing up here … getting people out while we can.”

  Jacobson seemed understanding although he was oddly unaffected by Glenn’s report that the NVA would be in Saigon soon.

  In parting to answer an anxious call from a colleague down the hall, he said, “Well, good luck. I’ll try to help with MacNamara.”

  Glenn took the ambassador’s special assistant’s manner to indicate that he supported our effort to move the KIP to the U.S. Navy.

  While this conversation was taking place in Saigon, MacNamara was calling Jim into his office. He yelled that he had just heard from Saigon that Jim was acting as if he were the law unto himself in the delta. Jim called MacNamara hypocritical—everyone in the consulate knew that MacNamara had facilitated the evacuation of his Cambodian in-laws, plus cooks and drivers and others of questionable eligibility through Tan Son Nhut while refusing to allow the base to evacuate its more vulnerable KIP.

  MacNamara yelled that he was in charge and that Jim was “fired.”

  Jim returned to the base offices and cabled the Saigon CIA Station.

  Unaware of the problems that Glenn and Jim had encountered that day, I returned to the consulate in the early evening before curfew and called Brenda. I told her that I thought I would be home soon, that I would be flying out of the delta the next day but that things were under control. She wasn’t to worry. On the way back to the compound I drove by the kids’ house but the lights were out. I hesitated before going in, then decided that I would see them the next evening and give the mother a radio.

  Returning to the Coconut Palms, I learned about the latest developments in Jim’s continuing problems with MacNamara. As we were discussing the ramifications, Jim walked in and said MacNamara had just been told in State Department communication channels to continue working with him—he wasn’t “fired”—and to stand down on objections to evacuate CIA KIP. Tan Son Nhut was mentioned in the text. Although there was no reference to taking the KIP directly out to the U.S. Navy, Jim said that’s what we’re going to do, first thing in the morning.

  At first light the next day Monday, 28 April, I went by the State Department club complex. One of the Air America helicopters was going to land that night on top of the compound, and several trees had to be cut down. The tree-cutting crews were at work as I left.

  Air America pilots George Taylor and Charlie Weitz were flying for me that day. They were just coming in from Saigon when I arrived at the airport and I briefed them on our plans. Sarge, who would be getting KIP ready to go at the different launch sites, had already left on a chopper to meet the group driving in from Chau Doc.

  The airport was quiet. There was nothing to do but wait for Sarge to call in that the Chau Doc group was ready. Standing on the tarmac, near the radio room, I had the sense of impending conflict, not unlike the feeling I had here in Vietnam ten years before as we staged for heliborne assaults. There were so many unknowns about the day ahead. We had to pluck people from rooftops and empty fields, and then head out to sea. Was the Navy going to receive us? Had they gotten the word? And it was hard to tell what was happening around Can Tho. Would we be overrun by fleeing South Vietnamese soldiers or attacked by North Vietnamese? Where exactly was that large force of North Vietnamese moving on Saigon? At last report they were only a few miles to our northwest. Had an element been sent to occupy Can Tho?

  I had worked with copilot Taylor, an implacably cool individual, going on four years. He said, “Mule, I’ve never seen you so tense.” Trying to reassure me, he said that we could stay in contact with everyone from the helicopter so we decided to take off and see how the tree-cutting was going. Taylor said it would stop my
pacing. As we were gaining altitude, Sarge called in to say that he had the Chau Doc group in a field west of Can Tho and was waiting for us.

  We headed due west and soon landed where Sarge was waiting for us. The Vietnamese agents and their families—wives, children, and some unexpected parents—scrambled on board with their luggage. We lifted off with twelve people, including Ros, my former Cambodian agent. Flying high, we headed due east down the Bassac River to the South China Sea. As we neared the coast we could see U.S. Navy ships.

  I had on the customer headset. Taylor contacted a Navy air controller and told him that we had Vietnamese on board and that U.S. embassy officials had directed that they be taken to the U.S. Navy evacuation force.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Broken Promises

  As we left the coast and flew toward the Navy ships, the Vietnamese were becoming agitated. I told Ros to let them know that we had to change our plans. We were not going to Tan Son Nhut. It was for their good. They had to trust me. I did not want any problems from them.

  One KIP moved beside me and yelled in my ear that he had to get to Tan Son Nhut, that all his money was being brought from Chau Doc by a relative. He would go back with me on the helicopter. He insisted that he could not leave Vietnam without his money.

  I looked at him for a long moment and told him to shut up. I saw no need to be diplomatic.

  The Navy air controller asked Taylor again who had authorized the evacuation. Taylor said, the U.S. embassy, and he added that an embassy officer was on board and could explain. The air controller told us to circle between the Navy fleet and shore.

  As we circled we saw one ship, with two distinctive helipads marked on the rear deck, move out from the armada. A radio operator from that ship, the USS Vancouver, came on the guard frequency. He told us to come in and for the U.S. embassy officer to meet with the captain before anyone else got off.

  Armed U.S. Marines surrounded the helicopter as it touched down. A couple of Marines quickly approached one side, and I got off to meet them. They escorted me off the helipad and up a flight of stairs. A Navy officer with an unfriendly expression then took me to a stateroom and asked for identification.

  Producing my diplomatic passport and U.S. embassy pass, I explained that the people on this helicopter and other groups of people on their way were delta KIP.

  “Delta KIP?” he asked in a flat voice.

  I told him I was with the CIA and that these people were agents who had worked for our organization for years. Their evacuation had been coordinated with MACV and the embassy in Saigon. I said he could get confirmation by contacting the embassy, but could rest assured that this was authorized and necessary. If these people did not get out, they would be killed when the North Vietnamese took control of the country.

  The officer looked at me without expression. Obviously the Navy at sea had not gotten the word because our KIP were unexpected.

  This guy decided their fate and it was up to me to win him over.

  I said I had to return to coordinate the evacuation of the rest. We had about 150 total. Time was critical. I encouraged him to check with his superiors. I did not blink.

  He reluctantly agreed to take the Vietnamese, although he never smiled.

  I thanked him and went back to the helicopter. Ros was the first one off, then he helped a woman who had been sitting wide-eyed near the door of the helicopter to the deck. The remaining Vietnamese seemed reluctant and hesitant, but they followed. As the helicopter revved up and lifted off, the Marines were lining up the people beside their luggage.

  In the air, Taylor said he had no doubt that Muley could talk the Navy into taking on some passengers without tickets.

  We flew back to the airstrip in Can Tho. Mac came running out to the tarmac and gave Taylor instructions on where the next KIP group was to be picked up. The other helicopter was already en route to the Navy ship.

  Throughout the day we moved KIP offshore. I was at the airstrip as the people in the last group were being assembled for what they, too, thought was a flight to Tan Son Nhut. The pilot, Bob Hitchman, was to return to Can Tho after that last flight to the Navy ship and land on top of the club, where the trees had been cut down that morning. It was going to be dark when he returned, and he was unsure if he could find the exact building. I told him I’d go along, that I could find it in the dark. Mac was on the tarmac, and I asked him to tell Jim that I’d be in later.

  Like the group from Chau Doc, the people in the last group were also upset to see us flying toward the South China Sea instead of Saigon. I had fallen asleep on the flight and was awakened by one of the Vietnamese at my side who wanted to know what was happening. I told him curtly to calm down, everything was going to be okay, and he’d thank me for it later. He started to object and I leaned in close to him and said slowly, “Did you hear me? Calm down. Shut … up.”

  As we made our approach to the ship, the sun was going down and the ship’s lights were on. In the area under the landing deck I saw an assortment of lights and shapes. The ship’s air controller broke in on his landing instructions to say that the captain wanted to talk with someone in authority on the helicopter, either one of the pilots or somebody else. Hitchman said they had just the man. Mule.

  “Mule?”

  “A U.S. embassy man is aboard,” Hitchman said.

  “He’s just the man the captain wants to talk to,” the radio operator said.

  When we touched down, several Marines with guns came to the helicopter door. One Marine pointed to me and motioned me off. They escorted me, as though I were under arrest, up the same flight of stairs I had climbed that morning. The same Navy officer was standing on the bridge.

  We went into his cabin and he asked me again, harshly, who had authorized this evacuation.

  I said a rear admiral at MACV. I couldn’t remember his name.

  The captain said nobody in Saigon knew anything about this. No one. I asked if anyone in his chain of command had talked to the ambassador’s special assistant, Jacobson.

  He didn’t answer. He seemed tired of talking with me.

  He said that his ship was to be in position in a matter of hours, possibly to lead the Navy up the Saigon River to evacuate the embassy. He was not in the CIA-support business or the refugee business. He was going to put us off at another ship. Now. And he was going to go on with his mission.

  “Us?” I asked.

  “You and all those ratty-looking people of yours below deck who themselves know nothing about this. They are below deck demonstrating, trying to attack my Marines. You, my friend, are going to lead those people off my ship. Now, go say good-bye to your helicopter. You belong to me. And to those people of yours down there.”

  This man, I surmised, was not to be argued with. But I heard myself telling him that I had to get back to the consulate. I was thinking about the two children and Loi.

  Ignoring my statement, he said, “You take your people to this merchant marine ship beside us and tomorrow—if we don’t go up the Saigon River tonight—I will send someone over to pick you up, and your helicopter can come get you and take you to your consulate. It is the best deal I’m offering, and I have been very good to you. Plus, you don’t have any choice.”

  He had indeed been very good to me that day, and he had a point—there were a lot of Marines outside. I went back out on the bridge and down to the helicopter. I told Hitchman to come back and pick me up in the morning, that I had to move the KIP.

  The people on the flight were already off the helicopter. As it lifted off, the Marines lined them up and searched their luggage. One of the Marine officers asked if I had any weapons. I showed him my 9mm, which he said he’d take and hold for me.

  “Thanks,” I said sarcastically and, though I was on a U.S. Navy ship, gave it up reluctantly.

  I followed the last helicopter load of KIP as the Marines escorted them off the helipad and down into the ship. We came out below the deck and saw, under bright floodlights, landing craft tied up ne
ar walkways along the side. All of the KIP, sixty-seven people, had been herded into a corner of the docking area. Marines were standing around them with drawn weapons. Some of the more aggressive of the Vietnamese were staring angrily at the heavily armed U.S. soldiers.

  One saw me and yelled. The rest looked up, and some called out my name.

  “These are not VC,” I said to a Marine standing to the rear. “They are pretty good people.”

  “Couldn’t prove it by me,” he said. “They are awfully pissed. And they were all armed.”

  I broke through the Marines and went into the circle of Vietnamese. One of them said, “Do not tell us everything is okay again. It is not okay.” Many of the women and children were crying. Some of the older people were almost frozen with fear. They had expected to be in Tan Son Nhut that night, not under arrest in the bowels of a monster foreign ship at sea.

  One of the Navy men called out that the boats were ready. I turned to see two of the landing craft being prepared to launch from the side docks on the inside of the ship.

  I led sixty-six tired, confused, angry, disheveled Vietnamese and one Cambodian past the ranks of Marines and divided them into separate groups for the two landing craft. When we were on board and outfitted with life jacket, the landing craft moved away from the dock and out the back of the ship.

  Surprisingly close by was another large ship at anchor. The ocean was calm as we made our way toward her. One of the sailors in the landing craft used a loudspeaker to attract the attention of someone on the ship’s deck. A rope ladder came over the side and the end of it dropped into the sea. The landing craft pulled in against the ship and aimed their floodlights up the side. The KIP began to climb up the ladder. A crane boom extended over the side of the ship and dropped a net on a line. Navy seamen filled the net with the KIP’s luggage and hauled it aboard. Ros and I were the last ones out of the boats. I was tired and had to labor to climb the ladder.

  On deck, one of the crewmen, a Filipino, said the captain wanted to see me. This is becoming a common request, I said. I followed him up a couple of flights of stairs. Lights from Navy ships winked and flashed all around us. It was hard to tell how many vessels there were; there appeared to be hundreds. Below me were the open, empty holds of the cargo ship. In the distance I could see the landing craft returning to the rear of the Navy ship.