1975 Tet: A Time of Happiness Mixed with Anxiety
A Chapter Reading from "For the Love of Vietnam"
This chapter, February 1975, is excerpted from my 2023 publication, For the Love of Vietnam: a war, a family, a CIA official, and the best evacuation story never heard.
It’s a blend of the personal experiences of my family and the historical circumstances of the time and includes the heartwrenching plans of one South Vietnamese family should they not be able to escape the communists: “My father will shoot us and then commit suicide.”
Chapter: February 1975
February brought the celebration of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. Traditionally, it provided one of the few long breaks during the agricultural year between the harvesting of the crops and the sowing of the next ones.
Essentially, for the Vietnamese, it is a combination of the festivity and good times of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Our family was drawn into the celebrations when Hoa, the maids, and Mr. Bi bought and cooked us a traditional Vietnamese dinner at our house.
Since 1968, the holiday had become inextricably linked with the most dramatic turning point of the war. Known as the Tet Offensive, the massive Viet Cong attack effectively tipped the war in the North’s favor despite the fact that they sustained major losses and were essentially crippled by the effort. It was the visual footage of the Tet battles that soured the American public’s support of the troops in Vietnam—how, after three years of fighting and hundreds of thousands of troops, could the enemy still mount such an attack? The images and echoes of it still hung in the air in 1975, a dark underscore to an otherwise happy time.
“Tet is really upon us and we are all praying that it will be a quiet one,” wrote my mother, adding that she hoped the war didn’t flare up too badly. “I realize how bad it all sounds there—much worse than it seems here.”
Despite her assurances, she went on to admit that the House Seven employees were not feeling safe and were, in fact, making dire plans to avoid the wrath of the communists should their offensive continue.
“Jim asked Mai Lan, the radio star, what her family plan would be if the Commies took over and they could not get out. She said, ‘My father will shoot us and then commit suicide.’ It just seems unreal. However, there is a plan to get certain people out if necessary. Anyway, Tet is a time of happiness for the New Year mixed with anxiety.”
Ambassador Martin’s official line of optimism was being passed on to the families in an effort to assuage any panic that might be taking root. “Our leader gave us a briefing the other day,” she wrote in late February, “and I am still not quite sure of what he said but he doesn’t see this country falling in the foreseeable future and ‘we are as safe here or safer than any large city in the U.S.’ So, don’t worry!”
Such confusing messages were putting her on edge, but she tried valiantly to stay positive, describing a visit to an orphanage in Gia Ding for an afternoon Mass and an open house, but even in that she couldn’t get away from the growing truth. “It is a beautiful area and so quiet and peaceful (by day). By night it is war.”
The same conflicted messages were being agonized over in Washington. Persistent requests for funding finally prompted select members of Congress to travel to Vietnam to see for themselves what was transpiring half a world away. One of those inquirers was Representative Pete McCloskey of California, who immediately saw through the unsubstantiated messages of those on the ground in Saigon. After a visit in late February and early March of 1975, he was no clearer on how U.S. aid would benefit the turbulent situation.
During the attacks, Saigon was overshadowed by thick black clouds of smoke. The attacks were unexpected because there was usually a tacit cease-fire during the festive holiday of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year.
“Graham Martin and his Station Chief [Polgar] were incapable of giving a fair appraisal to a visiting team of Congressmen,” he said. “They were so emotionally wrapped up in the desire to save South Vietnam. Martin was saying the Vietnamese can stand, all you have to do is give them more ammunition and more equipment.”
The delegation returned to the States unconvinced by this display of blind optimism and no further support was extended to the South Vietnamese Army. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese were advancing their plans diligently, if carefully. Three divisions were deployed to surround the city of Ban Me Thuot in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands. NVA artillery units shelled steadily for days so that the southern soldiers would not hear the tanks moving into place for a planned attack in early March.
My father had been planning to take Chris, Mike, and John to Nha Trang for a few days to fish and snorkel “to their hearts’ content.” The resort town was just 115 miles southeast of the well-disguised military build-up taking place in Ban Me Thuot. Fortunately, their mid-February trip to the resort town was canceled due to logistical issues. A fellow CIA agent later reported that he and his son had visited Nha Trang just months earlier, when the fighting had been much quieter, only to narrowly miss being hit by a half-dozen Viet Cong B-40 rockets. One landed just 50 yards from them, leaving a hole a foot deep and two feet across.
Excerpt taken from the 2023 publication of For the Love of Vietnam: a war, a family, a CIA official, and the best evacuation story never heard.
Karen Kaiser and I are available to tell more stories like these. Please visit Kat-Fitzpatrick.com for more information.
More about “For the Love of Vietnam:”
Click here if you would like to see a full synopsis of the book and how I tell the distinctly different stories of :
how my father ended up in Vietnam running a propaganda radio station beginning in 1972,
our family life blended with historical context from July 1974-April 1975, and
the incredible evacuation of 1000 South Vietnamese that my father orchestrated in late April 1975.
I hope you enjoy this glimpse of history—if you do, please leave a comment so I know!
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