All Systems Go[ne]
The final days of Black April 1975
We live in a sea of systems. So many of them run smoothly that we don’t even take notice. When was the last time we thanked a tree for spewing out oxygen so that we have air to breathe? Or the highway department for maintaining our smooth roads? Or our tear ducts for moistening our eyes?
But should any of these systems break down we notice it soon enough. Breathing, road safety, the ease of seeing—any interruption in these demand immediate attention.
Some systems last for a long time before their foundations fall apart completely. For centuries, overlording systems of governing it possible for foreign powers to invade, colonize, and wage war in Vietnam.
At the end of Black April 1975, the governing structure in South Vietnam—that of the U.S.’s illusory system of establishing peace there—fell apart completely in the face of the North Vietnamese’s system of ousting foreign powers.
Tom Glenn, head of covert National Security Association (NSA) operations in Saigon in ‘75, wrote in his 2015 article Bitter Memories that:
. . . on the night of 26 April, I was trying unsuccessfully to sleep when a blast threw me from my cot and slammed me to the floor. I ran to the comms center. The guys looked dazed but everything was working and nobody was hurt. A bulletin arrived within minutes telling us that North Vietnamese sappers had blown up the ammo dump at Bien Hoa, just north of us. That meant, among other things, that panic in the streets would ramp up a couple of notches.
The hit on Bien Hoa showed that the military systems of the North Vietnamese were in prime working order. U.S. embassy systems were still up and running enough to get communications out.
Unfortunately, the people of the country had long been losing confidence in the systems they’d relied upon to keep them safe. In the face of invasion by an enemy they’d been taught by the U.S. to fear, they felt that had no choice but to panic and flee. (As you’ll see at the end of this essay, CIA Station Chief Tom Polgar points out that not all systems had deteriorated into chaos.)
Image caption: Cargo net lifts refugees from a barge onto the SS Pioneer Contender for evacuation from the fallen city of Da Nang on April 1, 1975. It took the freighter eight hours to load some 6,000 refugees. (AP Photo/Peter O'Loughlin)
Mapping out a plan
I have probably uttered the words “my father evacuated 1000 people out of South Vietnam at the very end of the war,” a thousand times. It has begun to sound as if all he needed to do was implement a simple transition from idea to planning to execution of the plan.
In other words, it is tempting to think that there was a cookie-cutter system that was just plopped into place. Today we might think of it as downloading a free template from Pinterest or Canva—a readily available and idyllic system of floating off into the sunset.
But there were no resources like that then. (There still aren’t).
My father, James E. Welch, CIA officer, had to work from scratch and it’s obvious from the daily notes he left that he had to scramble quite a bit. Here is a list he made in Saigon as he was prepping to go:
Insecticide – to take & more
Wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes, lime
Detergent soap
Funds – cash check
Check house – trunks
Call Xuan
Small Hibachi
Pens & paper – felt pens.
Orders from JGS* that no evacuation will be made from Phu Quoc
Ice box from dispensary for tetnus antitoxin–important – not refrigerator.
Tell people to bring newspapers
1-caliber .38 revolver
*The Joint General Staff (JGS) was a body of senior uniformed leaders in the South Vietnamese military which advised the Ministry of National Defense and the President of South Vietnam.
What an array of things to do–get soap and insecticide, get gun, make sure to take orders assuring the powers-that-be that no one will defy orders to stay in danger.
Once down on Phu Quoc Island, he created a system of safety, security, and general community relations. On this agenda [again, no date given] he highlights the need, the absolute need, for racial tolerance.
Agenda
Nung guards are part of our community and must be treated equally; your safety may depend on them. There have been frictions between the N. guards and Vietnamese, especially in matters of water distribution. We admonish all Vietnamese to create good relations with the Nungs–not opposition. It is for the good of all of us.
Since yesterday’s meeting, there have been two more grass fires. One endangered the latrines. There must be no more grass fires [allowed] to get out of control.
Three safes must be moved into Bldg 5 this morning.
Per standard communications protocol, radio handles had to be established, identified, and systematically used.
Another note of “To-Do’s” was clearly aimed at a contact in Saigon and the struggle to keep up communication systems with “headquarters.”
2. Second Brandy (call Brandy 5) will be in operation by 2100 hours today. We will then have 24 hr. Standby service at main location. If Baker wishes to contact at any time, Brandy 5 will respond. However regular contacts as in past will remain on schedule.
3. You stated two days ago ground-to-air communication system being forwarded. Please advise when this will arrive and if com-man will accompany.
Message for: Baker Charlie, when will you join us. Your family oky and notified [of] your status.
39 people here have elected to return to Saigon. They are warned they may not return here.
My parents were quite liberal and open in regard to many things. Nonetheless, I don’t ever recall an open discussion about what made me different from my four brothers as a teen in the 1980s.
I can be forgiven then, I think, for literally laughing aloud when I first came across this note in which my father listed feminine products:
Need paper products—napkins or Kleenex, three cases. Sanitary napkins for women. No idea of quantity but if we are here for more than a month, send 400.
The idea that he was aware of such things struck me as funny for a moment, then sobering. In the situation of caring for a thousand people, he had to attend to the universal needs of the whole community—from racial relations to Kotex.
My father was under tremendous pressure to create a system where none had existed before. There could be no breakdown in it or people would suffer more than they already were as they faced the loss of their homeland.
On January 27, 2013, retired Saigon CIA Sation Chief Tom Polgar recounted Saigon’s last days on his blog. He writes about how some systems of the city, like traffic and eateries, remained viable and how other systems, like our mighty military, were brought to their knees:
It was really quite dark when we left. Out toward Tan Son Nhut you could see a few fires, but basically the city had its normal nighttime picture. The street lights were on, the traffic lights were working. It was a very eerie thing and this was what so unusual about those last days.
I'm not speaking only for the last night, but any of the last weeks in Saigon. They were so unreal because everything appeared to be so normal . . . A day before the collapse you could still go to restaurants and get a very nice meal and a good wine.
Nobody fired at us on the way out. And that's another thing. The North Vietnamese are a rational people . . . And the last thing in the world they wanted to do was to create an incident that would provide a peg for American intervention.
Our reception on the U.S.S. Blue Ridge showed the American military at its worst. They started out by searching everybody. I think the Ambassador was the only one who was not searched. They searched us and they searched our belongings. And in normal peacetime I far outranked the admiral commanding the ship.
Nobody objected, though. We were tired. We were pretty placid.
And we were a defeated army.
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Until next time,
Kat ❦
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Your father’s lists are amazing! They make this amazing story so close and real!
As always, Kat, your sharing of first person sources, like your dad's to-do lists, bring the reality of that time to life. Thanks for your careful research, and for sharing these little pieces of history which tell so much.