Escape from Saigon Read online

  When Sam got a break from reporting, he read the news copy that came by Telex over the international wire. Increasingly the news was about Vietnam. On June 2, the South was winning. On June 3, South Vietnam was losing a key battle over some peninsula he couldn’t pronounce. A week later it looked like the war was spreading to Laos. He had to check the atlas to find out where Laos was.

  He learned that South Vietnam reports of minor victories were doctored. In one case, sixty captured North Vietnamese Army regulars turned out to be women and children. During that time Viet Cong became a new term in his vocabulary, synonymous with assassinations, killing rampages, and torture. Twelve thousand American military advisors were being sent to help the South Vietnamese fight them.

  “Advisors my ass,” Reines would sneer when he saw the reports. “They’re kids who still need advice from their mothers, and they’re going to get killed.”

  * * *

  A few days before Thanksgiving in 1963, Sam ran into Billy Freda, a kid from his neighborhood. Billy was home after a one-year tour in Vietnam and Sam wanted to know what it was really like over there.

  “Come on,” he said to Billy. “Let’s take a drive over to Temple Street. We’ll hit Mory’s for a couple of beers then maybe Pepe’s for a slice later.”

  While they sat and drank at one of the old carved-up wood tables in Mory’s, all Billy wanted to do was reminisce about the time Norwalk beat West Haven by one point in the biggest game of his high school basketball career. But after a few beers he opened up and began to talk about his time in Vietnam.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it, Sam,” he said. “We got these ‘Ricans in our unit. I mean had them in our unit. They’re all KIA now. Anyway, because they’re built small, Sarge sends them down into these tunnels where we think the gooks are hiding.” Billy’s eyes widened as he went on, “Then the Viet Cong sets booby traps all over the place. They bury sharpened bamboo stakes in a pit—punji sticks, they call them—and cover the pit with a burlap bag and dead leaves. One of my buddies fell into one on patrol. They had to amputate both his legs. It wasn’t the wound—they could have fixed that. It was the infection. Those little fuckers coated the stakes with their own shit.”

  Sam let Billy ramble on, recounting one war story after another.

  “So let me see if I’ve got this right,” Sam said. “They’ve got guys in pajamas fighting us on the ground with sharpened sticks straight out of the Stone Age, while the Russians are giving their pals—the North Vietnamese—radar-controlled surface-to-air missiles and MiG-15s. On top of this, the North Vietnamese Army is invading through Laos and Cambodia, carrying weapons on bicycles and elephants.” The incongruity was lost on Billy.

  “Here’s how I see it, Sam. Do we want to fight them over there or fight them over here? I say over there is better and I’m going back for a second tour. I’ll be fighting to save your ass from the commies. So this round’s on you, Sam!”

  “Sure. Beer’s on me. And if I see the Western Union guy on our street, let’s hope he’s not visiting your mom.”

  “Sam, I gotta go back. I have to. I feel like shit in the States. All my friends are gone. When I’m there, man, I feel right. Like how I felt when we beat West Haven by one point with one second on the clock. And Billy Freda scores the winning point.”

  * * *

  Two days later—at precisely 1:30 in the afternoon on November 22, 1963—the office walls shook as every Teletype machine in the UPI bureau sprang to life simultaneously. First, the machines’ alarm bells alarm went off, warning everyone something big was coming. Then the machines started typing, rhythmically beating out news reports faster than any human could type, churning through the rolls of copy paper that hung above each machine.

  Sam ripped the copy out of the nearest machine. It read:

  “Dallas, Texas … President John F. Kennedy has been shot during a motorcade near Dealey Plaza …”

  Then every phone in the bureau began to ring. Newspaper editors who relied on UPI for their international news demanded to know: “Is it true?” One editor called to say he was holding the front page for confirmation.

  Minute by minute the calls came in. A half hour passed. Then one of the machines typed out: “Kennedy pronounced dead by doctors at the Memorial Hospital …”

  Kennedy’s assassination, seeing Billy, and listening to Reines natter on about police versus the police hit Sam all at once. He blurted: “I am going to die if I don’t get the fuck out of here!”

  That day, Sam bought a one-way airline ticket to Saigon.

  * * *

  Word of Sam’s arrival in Vietnam preceded him. To Sam’s surprise, Reines didn’t hold his abrupt departure against him. Reines secretly admired and envied Sam and took it upon himself to cable the UPI bureau chief in Saigon, saying, “Keep an eye peeled for a skinny young man with horn-rimmed glasses. He’s a little green but he’s a damn good writer. He should be—I taught him!”

  The cable worked. Sam got a job as a UPI stringer earning eighty bucks a story, “More if we run one of your pictures,” he was told.

  Sam Esposito’s byline started appearing weekly, then a few times a week, then daily. He was a rising star among a growing number of in-country correspondents. As an accredited correspondent, he was issued a MAC-V press pass, which enabled him to hop on any Huey helicopter any time and go anywhere with the army. He never hung back. He saw Vietnam being scorched with napalm. He watched as the Air Force sprayed miles upon square miles with the defoliant Agent Orange. He rode out on missions with scared kids, and rode back with blood-spattered soldiers—some of them in body bags.

  It didn’t take long for Sam’s skepticism to grow. In one of his dispatches he wrote: “Here’s how I view the war at this point. South Vietnam’s government is corrupt. The Viet Cong are vicious murderers—a street gang with a devotion to Ho Chi Minh that rivals religious fanaticism. North Vietnam’s Army seems to thrive on punishment—no matter how many bombs the B-52s drop on them, no matter how often U.S. soldiers defeat them in battle or how high the body count, they just keep coming. Meanwhile, our military releases unrealistic body-count numbers claiming hundreds of enemy killed every day. All this while the diplomats sit around in Paris talking and wringing their hands.”

  * * *

  In time, Sam made a name for himself among the Saigon press corps for calling out the military on their exaggerated body counts and official action reports that turned out to be bullshit. Meanwhile, as more American boys died in Vietnam, college students back home were chanting “Hell no, I won’t go!” By 1966, the Washington Legend decided it needed a seasoned correspondent in Vietnam to dig beneath the daily press briefings and Pentagon blather. The paper sought out Sam and made him its Saigon bureau chief.

  With this new responsibility, he reported with even greater vigor. Though his coverage included mentions of VC and North Vietnamese atrocities, he focused more on excesses by the U.S. military, on their inability to win over the “hearts and minds” of Vietnam’s population, and on the fact that they could demonstrate no clear measure of victory. His reporting won Sam the intense ire of the president.

  Once, while sitting in Le P’tit, Sam ran into a former White House newspaper correspondent who had arrived in-country the previous day and was assigned to cover the deteriorating situation in Vietnam. He described how Sam’s columns were getting a lot of attention in the Oval Office.

  “Man, are you pissing off Nixon!” he said. “He calls your stories ‘Esposito neg-atorials.’”

  “I like that,” Sam responded. “Negatorial has a nice ring.”

  “Wait, it gets better. So I’m interviewing Nixon and right away he says something like ‘I can’t wait to get that bastard Yalie fuckin’ cocksucker reporter friend of yours. Even George Bush can’t rein that fucker in, and he practically owns Yale and could probably get Esposito fired from half the newspapers in the country. But not the Legend. Who’s running that rag now? Charlie Waverly’s widow? Who the fuck d
oes she think she is?’ he says. ‘Who the fuck does Esposito think he is?’

  “Then right in front of me—because he knows I’m going to Vietnam and will play this back to you—he turns to his chief of staff—his buddy Haldeman—and says, ‘I want a dossier on Esposito. Give me everything you can get on that prick! Everything!’”

  “I’ve heard that he’s not too happy,” Sam smiled.

  “Yeah, well, watch your back, Sam. Nixon never forgets an enemy. He’ll get you if you’re not careful.”

  But the angrier Nixon got at Sam, the more Sam investigated, the more his stories appeared on page one, above the fold, and the more Americans became disenchanted with a war that had by this point dragged on longer than any war in the nation’s history.

  Fortunately for Sam, the Legend’s biggest competitor, the Washington Post, exposed a seemingly small-time burglary at an apartment and office complex called the Watergate that eventually implicated the Nixon Administration for its political dirty tricks. Two years later, on August 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon was forced to resign, becoming the only president in U.S. history to have done so.

  Gerald Ford was sworn in as president. Now all eyes were on him to end the Vietnam War.

  Sunday, April 6

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  IN OFFICE LESS THAN EIGHT MONTHS following the humiliation and resignation of his predecessor Richard Nixon, President Gerald R. Ford sat in pensive silence, his hands absentmindedly caressing the polished surface of the desk before him. This was Kennedy’s desk, he thought. This is where the war began, when Kennedy ordered advisors to Vietnam.

  With him were Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who also served as the President’s National Security Advisor. Kissinger waited several uncomfortable minutes before speaking. “Is there anything else we need to discuss before General Weyand arrives, Mr. President?”

  “You know, this damn war has chewed up three United States presidents already,” Ford murmured, half aloud. “I’ll be damned if it’s going to ruin me as well.”

  “We have already brought our troops home,” Kissinger replied, his voice equally subdued. “Perhaps it’s time to sever the last of our support to the current regime. Thieu is increasingly unstable. If he falls, we will be seen as culpable and fall with him.”

  “And if we abandon him now we will look like cowards who let an ally go down in defeat. Is that what we want?”

  The intercom light on his desk blinked on as the voice of Ford’s secretary interrupted them.

  “Sir, General Weyand is here to see you.”

  “Send him in,” ordered the President, leaning forward in his chair.

  “Mr. President. Jim, Henry.” General Weyand greeted them with a nod in each direction. Weyand wasn’t a big man, but he carried himself with military bearing, a presence in any room, even the Oval Office.

  “Good morning, General,” said Ford. He neither liked nor disliked Weyand, but he appreciated the man’s forthrightness and sense of duty. Weyand had always given him straight answers and the unvarnished truth, good or bad. Unfortunately, of late it had all been bad. “Get any rest on the ride home?”

  “It is the other side of the planet, sir—in more ways than one. I’ll catch up on my sleep when the jet lag catches up with me. My report couldn’t wait.”

  “You’re right, of course. So how is our friend Thieu faring? Can he hold on? More to the point, can his troops?”

  “And does our ambassador still have confidence in him?” Kissinger added.

  “It’s not looking good, Mr. President. North Vietnam’s got the full-court press on, with several of their infantry and armor divisions racing to see who can get to Saigon first. Hue’s gone, overrun. Once Da Nang falls—and it won’t be long, by the looks of it—the other northern and Central Highland cities will quickly follow. We all know the South Vietnamese Army is weak and North Vietnam’s General Giap knows it, too. I think the only reason he’s waited this long was to see what we’d do when push really came to shove. Now that he sees we’re effectively standing down, he’s turned loose the dogs.”

  Weyand turned toward Kissinger. He was used to strong men who used force to get their way. But Kissinger was a manipulator on a grand scale, a Machiavelli who had a hand in everything that was unfolding, and who had somehow managed to survive as counsel to this president as well as the last when all of the other architects of the war had gone down in disgrace. Weyand disliked him intensely.

  “As to your question, Mr. Secretary,” he said in a level voice, “the ambassador still thinks Thieu can pull it together, find the backbone to rally his troops and halt the advance. I have my doubts, but that’s not my call.”

  “Did you present the plan we agreed on?” said Kissinger.

  “Yes, sir, I did. And I think Ambassador Martin and I convinced President Thieu that it’s his only chance to turn this around, to prevent a complete rout. It could work, but it would still be a holding action. The NVA smells blood in the water. They’re not likely to back off now.”

  “I don’t expect the media to back off, either,” Ford interjected. “We watched your press conference on the news while you were en route home. I don’t think they were convinced that Thieu or his forces can stand up to the NVA now. That bastard Esposito was especially pushy. But if we let the damn journalists dictate the outcome of this war before it’s actually over we really will have lost it—lost it all—South Vietnam, the war, our involvement, all the sacrifices our soldiers have made over there, everything!”

  As Ford spoke he became increasingly agitated, finally slamming his fist on the desk—the Kennedy desk—for emphasis.

  “Is that it, General? Is that your complete assessment of the situation on the ground as things stand today? And I’d welcome your personal opinion—if Thieu can stop the NVA advance is there any chance for a negotiated solution, absent a military one?”

  Weyand gathered himself to meet the president’s gaze.

  “Mister President, there’s no way to dance around this,” he replied. “The current military situation is critical. As for the probability of survival of South Vietnam as a truncated nation, I think that’s marginal at best. The government of Vietnam is on the brink of military defeat. Given the speed at which events are moving, I believe the U.S. should plan now for a mass evacuation of some six thousand American citizens and tens of thousands of SVN and third-country nationals.”

  Ford sat stone silent for a full minute as he absorbed the general’s comments.

  “Henry,” he said, finally. “We’ve got to get Congress to act! There’s not much else this office can do alone. Let’s get the House and Senate leaders in here, and include McGovern and Joe Biden—we need the Democrats on board. There are lives at stake here—thousands of them!”

  Monday, April 7

  YOU BUY ME SAIGON TEA?” WHISPERED a sweet voice in Steve Carwood’s ear. The pretty young woman sidled up close and draped a slender arm across his shoulder as he turned from the bar to face her.

  Impossibly young was Carwood’s first thought. No doubt illegally young was his second. After three years with the CIA in Saigon, Carwood knew this routine well enough. Like most of the bar girls in Saigon, she was a beauty, and oh-so-adept at manipulating any man who wandered in the door. Any man with cash in his pocket and lust in his heart.

  Behind the bar on a raised platform, a trio of equally young women danced to a jukebox song. They wore high heels and very little else. The club was dark and packed at this hour with customers lined up shoulder to shoulder along the bar, all of them eyeing the girls, mesmerized as they watched their fantasies slowly gyrating to the music.

  “I show you good time, no short time,” the girl at Carwood’s side said with an alluring smile. “I be your babysan you buy me one Saigon Tea.”

  “Not tonight, sweetheart,” he said. “No babysan. No Saigon Tea.”

  “You numbah ten!” she said, giving him a gentle slap on t
he shoulder. “You play big joke on babysan!” She shifted closer, her breath warm on his neck, and placed one hand on his thigh. Slowly, her hand moved toward his crotch, which had grown increasingly tight. “I give you numbah one massage, two dollah. Boom-boom, six dollah!”

  Carwood would have liked nothing more than to take her up on her offer. But not tonight. He was at the bar to meet an asset—a well-placed Vietnamese government official named Huan Dinh who lived a clandestine life as the CIA’s top double agent in Saigon. For months now, the man had been passing Carwood secrets about VC activity in and around the city. And for all Carwood knew, he was probably selling CIA secrets back to the VC. It didn’t matter, as long as the CIA got good information, actionable information, and didn’t have to give up too much of importance in return.

  Over the girl’s shoulder, he spotted his man walk into the club. As Carwood stood to leave, the girl firmly grasped the bulge in his pants. “No, please not go,” she insisted. “I want to see the miracle! You so big! Make babysan happy, cry with pleasure!”

  He brushed the girl’s hand away and turned aside, hoping his suddenly prominent pants bulge wasn’t too noticeable. “Sorry, gotta go!” he said, detaching himself from her as he pulled his bar stool between them. She gave him a quizzical look, then immediately turned toward the next man at the bar.

  “You buy babysan Saigon Tea?” he heard her say, as he moved off toward the darkened booths along the back wall, where his man had taken a seat. He didn’t stop at the booth, but paused near it to light a cigarette, striking the match three times before it flared into life. It was their prearranged signal—one strike meant the meeting was canceled, two meant they were dangerously compromised, three the meeting was on and they were to rendezvous at the safe house the CIA maintained nearby.

  Carwood left the club and hurried to their meeting place, a ground-floor flat with a private entrance at the rear of a large apartment building off Tu Do Street. He didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes he heard a key rattle in the lock as the man, silhouetted from behind by a distant streetlamp, quietly entered the darkened room. Like Carwood, Huan Dinh made no attempt to turn on a light, instead moving with familiar ease to a chair across from where Carwood sat. He laid a pack of cigarettes on the table, struck a match, and quickly cupped the flame in his hands as he lit his smoke, then offered the flame to Carwood, who took one of the cigarettes and lit up.