ONE MAN REMEBERS THE FALL OF SAIGON 10 YEARS LATER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605280006-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: April 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605280006-8
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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
`~" 26 A
1 198
pri
5
One roan remembers
the fall of Sae on
10 ye ars later
By Paul Ouinn,ludge
Special to The Christian Science ilAOnitor
Bargkok, Thailand
was slow to realize that the war was ending.
In fact, I only began to take the idea seriously after
watching the country's second city, Da Nang, fall
apart.
It was late March, and I was working for the Ameri-
can Friends Service Committee, a Quaker relief organi-
April 29, 1975: Americans
line up to be airlifted
from Saigon by helicopter
zation. Our siz-person
team had evacuated,
temporarily we thought,
from the Vietnamese
town of Quang Ngai.
Almost as soon as we
reached Saigon, two of
us decided to go back.
We had salaries to pay at
the service committee's'
rehabilitation center. Be-
sides, we were curious.
All went well as far as
Da Nang. Quang Ngai
had fallen, so we con-
tacted the underground.
The other side had no objection to our trip, we were told.
But there was fighting on the road: We'd have to wait.
US officials at the consulate general in Da Nang were
also counseling patience. The city was choked with the
remnants of divisions of the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam -the South Vietnamese forces.
We saw a policeman wander by -still in uniform,
carrying an M-16 rifle and a briefcase, but barefooted.
Yet consulate officials sounded confident. The govern-
mentwould hold the city for a couple of months and
move 250,000 people to safe zones, they said. On no ac-
count should anyone pull out -this would cause panic.
Shortly afterward the city collapsed.
It was not attacked -the North Viet-
namese army had not yet reached the city.
It simply disintegrated. One morning I
heard shots, looked out of my bedroom .
window, and saw South Vietnamese
troops striding drunkenly down the street,
spraying the shuttered shophouses with
rifle fire.
We packed up and
headed for the main
Buddhist pagoda. As
we were about to leave
by the front door of the
hotel, the manager
stopped us. The sol-
deers had just shot
someone there, she
said; and she led us to a .
side exit.
Ahead of us, walk-
ing in the direction of
the pagoda, were sev-
eral armed, drunken
soldiers. We walked
slowly down the street
behind them, keeping
close-to the wall and .
praying they would not
turn around.
They didn't.
The word from the
consulate now was to
leave immediately.
We spent our last
night in Da Nang m a
U S residence called -'
"flee Alamo." I found
m self sittin next to
ou of uiet frien
Filipinos. They sae
they were accountants
but I noticed later they
were well armed. They_
were CIA contract
staff.
In the middle of the
night we were told an
evacuation by air was
impossible: South Viet-
namese troops were
running wild in the airbase. We would
leave:by sea.
Before light we were driven in a closed
truck to the wharf. Open barges, already
overflowing with what seemed to be sev-
eral thousand people each, were moored,
waiting. Anonymous hands took our bags
and pulled us up. When our bags were
passed back a few minutes later the salary
money -several months' pay for some
50 staff members -was gone.
Others were much less fortunate: Sev-
eralpeople, we were told, had been
crushed when they fell in the water be-
tweenbarge and wharf.
Off the coast we met the US Lines
cargo ship Pioneer Contender. The small
group of Westerners and Filipinos were
led to a rope ladder guarded by an armed
marine in civilian clothes. He covered us
while we boarded the
ship, holding off other
refugees with his rifle.
By now we were
moving at what seemed
full speed, and the ship
.began to take on the
rest of the refugees,
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605280006-8
 _~
Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605280006-8
,_ gangway. `There was were two activist opposition members of
dhng the embarkation
could not speak Viet-
- namese: They menac-
ingly shouted or ~~ as little bloodshed as possible, he
stomped on fingers said
. .
when someone tried to He and others would try to persuade
jump the line. At one ~~ ~ surrender quickly. Yet he was not
point they turned fire sure that all members of Minh's govern-?-
hoses on the refugees. ment were so peaceably inclined.
Someone was reported As we talked, the skies began to rum-
overboazd. But the ship ble. "That's bombing," Chung said. We
kept going. laughed at his nervousness; it was thun-
As the afternoon der, we replied.
wore on, the swells be- The rumbling came closer. Chung was
came higher. The right, we decided - it was bombing. We
barge, slowly lightened ran outside and saw an A-37 fighter cir-
of its load, began to cling above the city. The anti-aircraft
pitch dramatically. We guns at the palace opened up, so, it
went down the gang- seemed, did the heavily armed troops in
way and formed a hu- the area. We ran for cover. Nhuan, an-
manchain, pulling peo- other opposition deputy, and I took shel-
ple up onto the ship. ter under a sink.
When the empty barge gut it was not the expected coup. The
was cut loose, it was planes were flown by members of the
piled high with belong- North Vietnamese Air Force and led by
ings -suitcases, tele- one of the enemy's moles in the Saigon re-
visions, a gime, Air Force pilot Nguyen Thanh
motorscooter. Trung
We spent the night During a lull in the firing I decided to
in the open air, arrived in Cam Ranh the go home.
next morning, and then flew back to Sai- The next morning I went downtown to
gon. The city was crowded but surpris- say goodbye to some journalist friends
ingly calm and normal. leaving on the evacuation. The streets
In the final days I began to work as an were much quieter than usual - a 24-hour
interpreter for the $BC. On April 27 we curfew had been announced -but by no
decided to go to Bien Hoa, about 20 miles means deserted.
north of the capital. We did not get very As I passed the cathedral, I looked to
faz: Just a few miles outside of town, next my left. There seemed to be quite a big
to the imposing US-built Newport bridge, crowd of people by the US Embassy. This
guerrillas had cut the highway. was my only glimpse of the images of
Finally the South Vietnemese troops Panic that came to symbolize the fall of
decided it was safe to advance. We went Saigon. The rest of the city was calm. _
!1__il__nnil_ -__i ___i ______, 1L _~Cti__
with them, and got partway up the slope
Nhuan out of the city before the final of-
fensive, but he had refused. The only
thing left to do was to try to end the war
of the bridge before automatic fire opened gon was going to turn into the last charn_ el_
up. I seemed to spend an excessive house of the war, President Minh
amount of the day lying on my stomach surrendered.
on the burning hot pavement of the After the surrender was announced we
bridge.
The skies were overcast when I got
back to Saigon, the rains were due any
day now
mounted the red, blue, and gold flag of the
titulaz victor, the Provisional Revolution- .
ary Government omour car and prepared
to drive azound town.
Downtown I bought a paper: Duong We were joined by a Vietnamese
Van Minh (Big Minh) had been inaugu- friend. Crippled since childhood, he had
rated that afternoon, the third president in been part of the Saigon student peace
a week. ~ movement. Arrested for translating a
As I glanced at the paper, I bumped publication of the US peace movement, he
into a Vietnamese journalist. "You dbet- was accused of being a communist and
ter look out tonight," he warned, tortured. He had spent more than a year
"Nguyen Cao Ky [head of the South Viet- in prison. When he left prison, he was a
namese Air Force) is planning a coup." member of the underground.
I went to President Minh's house, half He joined us that day rather shyly caz-
a block or so from the presidential palace, tying a rifle. "Do you know how to use
to say hello. A bunch of the new ministers one of these?" he asked. No. "Neither do
I," he said and tucked it out of harm's
way.
panic as everyone the National Assembly, Ho Ngoc Nhuan
rushed for the steps. and Ly Qui Chung.
The US marines han- The underground had offered to get
We seemed to be out on the streets alit-
tle eazly. The gutters were full of uni-
forms, an armored personnel carver stood
abandoned outside our back alley, but not
all South Vietnamese troops had
dispersed.
I looked in the rearview mirror and saw
a truckload of troops behind us. They
would probably not appreciate our flag, I
thought. My friend asked me to slow
down. "I'd like to talk to them," he said. I
tried to calmly obey. The truck pulled
alongside. The soldiers in it did not look
as if they wanted to continue the war.
"Do you know where Van Hann Uni-
versity is?" my friend asked them. They
did not. "Well, follow us," he said, "and
point your guns in the air, you can dump
your guns there." They did so.
There was still fi~htin,~downtown. We
ran into some of North Vietnamese sot-
diers finned down neaz a large US resi-
dence. eater e i was a resi-
dence where em o s a assem ed for
evacuation but had been for~tt-en. e
soldiers were un erstan a Iy busy but
quite polite. We went on our way.
Back at the university the courtyard
was full of surrendered weapons. In one
corner the body of a student lay on the
back a pickup truck. He had called on a
South Vietnamese tank to surrender, we
were told, but had been killed.
Outside the North Vietnamese tanks
were clattering past, heading downtown.
Then a couple of guerrillas shambled into
the university courtyard, accompanying a
very pretty woman cadre. She looked at
home in a student setting -she was per-
haps agraduate of the urban student
movement. Very confidently she took
charge of the university and the pile of
abandoned weapons.
The change had begun.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605280006-8