That was bad news, losing his best writer. But when, one week later, candidate Robert Kennedy announced that he too would make a weekly broadcast, Senator Keating and his staff were there, listening in to the first one. And the first full minute was a series of engaging gags about the week’s developments, of exactly the pattern Kenneth Keating had made popular.
Keating rose. “He has stolen my humorist!” But of course no one could contrive a nonhumiliating formula for making the protest public.
But since the bad news from Vietnam had broken in the Saturday-morning papers, Keating wondered whether Robert Kennedy would begin his noon broadcast, opposite Kenneth Keating, with a joke about Bien Hoa. And what would he say to the Columbia students on the subject?
Kennedy elected to devote his broadcast to the need for federal health insurance. This left his listeners with the impression that the Vietnam news, which overwhelmed all other concerns, had broken after Mr. Kennedy had recorded his broadcast. But he could not avoid being accosted by Bien Hoa when he met with the students at the McMillin academic theater at one o’clock. What matters, his principal aide had said to him in the late morning, “is your aspect. Grave, deliberate, outraged, sad, determined. Got it?”
“Got it.”
What I want to know, the first student panelist said, after the brief introductory remarks, is how can the Vietcong stage a massive raid just twelve miles from Saigon?
It was an act of sheer adventurism, Mr. Kennedy said pensively. By no means representative of the strength of the Vietcong, which we have every reason to believe is diminishing every month, with our strategic hamlet program. These were desperadoes. They will undoubtedly be tracked down and be made to pay the penalty for killing civilians, to say nothing of brave United States soldiers.
How does the President intend to respond?
Mr. Kennedy had spoken with him over the telephone just an hour or two earlier, and had been told that all the aircraft destroyed or damaged would be quickly replaced, and that the incident would by no means provoke the Administration into relenting in its determination, so frequently reiterated by his late brother, to stop the Communist aggression, or into thoughtless retaliations.
Did Mr. Kennedy think the President’s attitude correct?
Mr. Kennedy turned his head just a little, in that special, affecting way of his, and said that yes, he thought the President’s strategy sound, but only in context of the imperative need to press for a negotiated settlement, a return to the Geneva Accords, and that when elected—if elected (smile)—he would do everything he could to continue to fuel enthusiasm for diplomatic initiatives. But meanwhile there was no alternative to standing by our commitments to our ally and to the relevant treaties.
The applause, while not deafening, was substantial, and reassuring.
“How’d I do?” Kennedy asked his aide, back in the car and headed for his new house in Long Island, necessary to his rebirth as a resident of New York.
“Good. Perfect line … got-to-keep-up-our resolution … help-our-allies … but look-for-diplomatic-pressures … Good. Hang on to it. By the way, did you speak to the President?”
“No. But I left word with a pal at the White House to log the call in on the record. LBJ will understand. He always understands things like that.”
The aide was right. President Johnson did understand it. He was casually advised, later that day, of the imaginary telephone call, and of Bobby’s comments at Columbia. They were innocuous, LBJ concluded. And Bobby had been correct in reporting that the President would order immediate replacement of the damaged aircraft. He did wonder how Bobby knew this, since the order had only gone out at about the time Bobby spoke, noon. Goddamn informant on the staff, probably over at the Pentagon.… What he couldn’t understand, and nobody he had questioned could enlighten him on the point—not McNamara, not Rostow, not Bundy, not McCone—was the ability of the Vietcong to stage so dramatic a raid so close to South Vietnamese headquarters; that, and their motives in doing so. Why behave so provocatively at this time, so close to a national election?
McNamara had not really been helpful. McCone had said something to the effect that the eternal South Vietnamese intramural political squabbling, and the recent public protests against General Khanh, in-again, out-again, might have been a reason for the North Vietnamese publicly to challenge any notion that South Vietnam was stabilizing.
The door to the Oval Office opened, after a perfunctory knock. A military aide approached the President, laid a folder down on his desk, turned around and walked out. Johnson opened it.
Hanoi had broadcast that the Bien Hoa incidents had been in retaliation for the U.S. raids following the “fake” Tonkin Gulf incident of August 4, and in further retaliation against more recent disguised raids against North Vietnam on the Laotian frontier, and by naval forces which had shelled the coastal areas of Quang Binh Province. And that the raid had been further motivated in retaliation against Saigon’s execution of Nguyen Can Troi, who had attempted to assassinate Secretary McNamara during his last visit to Vietnam.
LBJ allowed himself to wonder whether attempting to assassinate McNamara ought to be a capital offense.
The President allowed himself to wonder where it would all end, how would it end.
33
November 2, 1964
Saigon, South Vietnam
It was after two in the morning when the telephone rang in the safe house where Blackford was asleep. As usual, he came rather slowly to his senses, his reaction beginning only after the third ring. Sally? But as he switched on the light he knew it couldn’t be Sally calling. He hadn’t given her this telephone number, and hadn’t expected a call from her.
Tucker.
“Sorry ’bout this, Black, but I got to see you. Yes, I know what time it is, but I’m scheduled to go back to Savannakhet tomorrow and you’re going to Danang, and I can’t wait another couple of weeks for our next meeting.”
“Come on around, Tucker.”
He arrived in ten minutes. Blackford had on khaki trousers and was barefoot. He led Tucker to the kitchen table, on it fresh coffee and two bottles of beer. Blackford sat down. “Take whatever you want, Tucker.”
He poured himself coffee. “You, Black?”
“Same.”
“I got to tell you something. But I got to swear you to silence.”
“Tucker … Look, sometimes it can’t work that way.”
Tucker paused. “Can’t you trust me?”
“Can’t you trust me?”
“What do you mean? Why do you think I’d be here, if I couldn’t trust you?”
“I mean: You tell me what you want to tell me, and I’ll have to decide whether I’m obliged to communicate it to someone. Trust me to make the decision.”
Tucker hesitated. “All right. But on one condition: that you level with me on whether you intend to—to give it away. My secret.”
Blackford nodded his head lightly.
“Okay. Well.” Again, Tucker hesitated. “It’s this. I found something out tonight.” He stared away. Blackford didn’t press him. His face still turned, Tucker went on. “Madame Lao Dai works for North Vietnam.”
Blackford breathed deeply. Tucker did not go on. After a moment Blackford spoke.
“How did you find out?”
“I went to her apartment after the meeting this afternoon. I had told her I wouldn’t be there until ten, that I had to have dinner with you and Rufus. I didn’t know you had another engagement. I reached the landing—she’s on the fourth floor—just when her door opened, and a young guy, Vietnamese, left, carrying a briefcase. Didn’t see me clearly, was in a hurry. I kept walking, as though going on up to the fifth floor, let him get to the staircase and start down. I turned around and followed him.
“I swear I don’t know what made me do it, but when he was out on the street and had walked maybe a block, block and a half—street was empty—I ran up. Grabbed him. I asked who he was. He said in French he was a schoolteacher.
I said let me see your briefcase. With his left hand he handed me the case, with his right hand he went for a pistol in his pocket. He didn’t have a chance: I smashed his face in, plenty of time, pistol fell on the pavement. I dragged him and the case into a side alley. He was out. The case was locked. I found the key in his pocket. I opened it. There were two rolls of film in it, undeveloped. And four packets of U.S. bills, $1,000 stamped on each packet. Then … then in the document compartment two folders. The first folder had a receipt for one thousand dollars. Signed: Lao Dai, dated yesterday, November 1. And in the other packet, black-and-white pictures …”
Blackford waited. Tucker turned, again, to one side. There was an audible catch in his throat. Blackford said nothing.
“Pictures of me … having sex with Lao Dai.”
Blackford permitted himself to whistle. But he said only, “What did you do?”
“You guessed it, I went back to the apartment house. Knocked on the door, she answered. I locked it behind me, walked over to the table, opened the briefcase, spread out the stuff, told her she hadn’t asked for enough money, here was three thousand dollars more, and I tossed her the money.”
“And?”
“I don’t feel I can go through it all, Black. But that was at about seven o’clock. And I left her half an hour ago, went to a bar and called you. I guess I can just put it together and say: I forgave her.”
Blackford spoke cautiously. “Why?”
“Because she convinced me. She convinced me she’s trying to avoid a world war, convinced me that she loves me, that she will do anything I want, including turn herself in if I ask her to; that the North Vietnamese are going to win, no matter what, and the sooner they do, the less lives it’s going to cost. That she had no idea there was a trick camera in the bedroom, she’d give them hell over that; that the money was to pay several subordinates on her payroll. And convinced me that Ho Chi Minh is very sick, is on the way out, and the younger people coming in aren’t the old Stalin types, but independents who have nothing but contempt for the old ways, and that the new Vietnam will be just a socialist state, like Sweden—” He stopped talking suddenly. “You think I’m crazy?”
“No, Tucker. I don’t think you’re crazy. But I think you’ve got to be real careful. I mean, let’s take Lao Dai. Maybe she’s on the level with you … but then maybe she isn’t. If she isn’t, she might try to ambush you, get you kidnapped—you’d be a pretty hot property up at Hanoi, you know.”
“That’s right, Black. Either she’s telling me what she really believes, or she isn’t telling me what she really believes. I got to decide, right? Well, I have decided. I have decided she is telling me the truth. So the question is: What do I do?”
“You mean, what do you do—other than tell me what’s happened?”
Tucker nodded. “Besides that?”
“Well, you won’t be surprised, Tucker, if I tell you you owe it to—to all of us to go back to Savannakhet and finish up on Igloo.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
“Will you?” Blackford spoke slowly.
“I haven’t one hundred percent decided. Will you agree to keep secret on Lao Dai until I decide?”
“I have to—for now. For you.”
“Black, can I ask you for another favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can we talk for a while about something else? Anything else?” Tucker reached for the bottle of beer. Blackford gave his answer by reaching for the second bottle.
34
November 2, 1964
Saigon, South Vietnam–Savannakhet, Laos
Tucker left just after 4 A.M. During their last half hour together Blackford decided what he would do. He could keep his word, of course—it was much easier to do than Tucker expected, given that Rufus and South Vietnamese intelligence knew about Lao Dai. He could bring in ARVN Intelligence or for that matter U.S. Intelligence, bring them into the picture in the sense of advising them that, just possibly, Major Tucker Montana would not be going back to Savannakhet. But if he did that, Tucker would be on a kind of CIA–Judge Advocate General–Pentagon assembly line and any hope of dealing creatively with the Montana problem would be gone. As Tucker talked, of this and that—of his childhood, of Fr. Enrique, of Los Alamos—Blackford decided that the key was Alphonse Juilland. As far as Alphonse was concerned, Blackford Oakes, and only Blackford Oakes, was his superior. He could instruct Alphonse to do anything, and he would do it. And Alphonse, with his knowledge of Vietnamese, could travel anywhere more inconspicuously than any American, and if Alphonse was ignorant of intelligence practice, as he insisted he was, he was not in the least ignorant of ways to get by in Indochina—whom to bribe, how, with how much, how to get information not readily available.
Five minutes after Tucker left, he had Alphonse on the telephone.
He instructed him to be on the 6 A.M. flight to Saigon, to call the duty officer and arrange to have a naval officer sit in at Oakes’s office in Danang. He should be instructed to tell anyone who called in for Mr. Oakes that he was out of the office but would be back “in the afternoon,” and could the naval officer take a message for Mr. Oakes? He should call the technician from Aberdeen and tell him to proceed without Oakes on the scanner tests. He gave Juilland the address of the safe house: “I will expect to see you at about seven-thirty.” He hung up the phone. Tucker: That poor, wretched, complicated, endearing man. He hoped Rufus would not call in. His own calendar called on him to be in Danang. Perhaps he could still catch the 10 A.M. flight. He hoped desperately that Tucker would telephone him with his decision early. If not, Tucker might call him in Danang, perhaps even leave a message with the naval aide. That message: Either Tucker Montana would be returning to duty in Nakhom Phanom, or—?
That, three hours later he explained to Alphonse, was his responsibility: to follow Major Montana and to find out when Major Montana goes if he does go to Savannakhet, and from there to Nakhom Phanom. “I know you never laid eyes on him when he was giving us help with the Tonkin raid, but you talked over the telephone. Probably you would recognize his voice. What I don’t have is a picture of him, which would be useful right now. But he doesn’t look like many other people. He’s as tall as Gregory Peck—you know the American movie star? Good. And in fact he looks a lot like Gregory Peck, and his hair is exactly like Peck’s. He is almost always traveling with a large, I mean, a very large”—Blackford spread out his hands—“briefcase, brown, with a lot of old airplane stickers on it. You have to spot him if he goes to the airport—when he goes to the airport. Whatever flight he goes on, I want you on it. Even if it’s a flight to Savannakhet. If he lands there and goes on to his office or to his apartment, call me and come on back. If he goes anywhere else, I want to know where. Here,” he was glad he had picked up the Danang payroll from Rufus yesterday, “is all the money you could possibly need. Share some of it with the reservations and ticket people at the airport. Don’t let them tell you there’s not another seat on any plane Montana gets into.”
Nine o’clock, no word from Tucker. No word at nine-thirty. He initiated the call, but Tucker’s number didn’t answer, and he was not going to call Lao Dai, though he had filed away her number. Too late to get the ten o’clock to Danang. He would wait until ten, then rush out for the eleven o’clock flight. He called and switched his reservations. Ten o’clock, no call. Blackford hurried to the street and got a taxi.
When two hours later he walked into his own office he greeted the sleepy lieutenant (jg) on duty, who had been aroused by Juilland at five that morning. “Messages?”
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant looked down on the desk and read out the message he had taken. “A Mr. Montana. He said to tell you he was taking a couple of days off to hunt boar with an old friend in Laos. He’ll give you a buzz when he gets back to his office in—” the lieutenant stumbled over the pronunciation of Nakhon Phanom. “All right, sir?”
Blackford thanked him and dismissed him. No call from Rufus, he noted. And no
call from Juilland.
At Savannakhet, on the Thai border and the nearest commercial airport to Nakhon Phanom, Tucker descended with his old labeled briefcase in hand and waited in the baggage room for his suitcase. He looked carefully about the large tin-roofed shelter, lit up by neon bulbs around which the flies and the mosquitoes buzzed. He was familiar with the two ancient men who acted as porters, and with the woman at the dispatch desk. Only three other passengers waited for luggage. They had been seated several rows ahead of him on the DC-3. Two of them had sat together talking in Chinese. The third, a younger man, perhaps in his thirties, was absorbed by a crossword puzzle and by a photograph album which he opened three times on the flight. Tucker could see pictures of a young woman and a baby, the baby only a few months old, photographed in every conceivable pose including seated on the potty. The young man closed the album with palpable reluctance.
Tucker’s bag came down the slide. He picked it up and went out toward the roadway. He shook his head kindly at the toothless stick of a man who beckoned him toward his taxi. Seconds later a modern Peugeot sedan, dusty, stopped beside him. The driver said in French, “We have been sent by Madame Lao Dai.”
The passenger door was opened by the man in back, and Tucker got in. The driver meanwhile took Tucker’s suitcase to put in the trunk. He reached also for Tucker’s briefcase, but Tucker declined to relinquish it. The doors now closed, the car started up. The man at his side, wearing a deep blue shirt open at the collar, and cotton pants, leaned over, his hand extended. “I am Bui Tin.”
“Tucker Montana.”
During the thirty-five-minute drive to the Thai inn whose telephone number Tucker had taken the pains to memorize, and which he had called that morning, by way of establishing its bona fides as a functioning inn, Bui Tin spoke without pausing. (Tucker had asked for an imaginary Mr. Chung Leh, the operator had taken a moment or two, evidently looking through her records, and come back: “Sorry, sir, there is no Mr. Chung Leh staying at the Lao-tse Inn.”) Colonel Bui Tin talked about the history of this easternmost part of Thailand, about the many military skirmishes that had taken place here against the Japanese during the war, about the prospects for that year’s rice crop.
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