Put that in your pipe and . . .
Reflections on February 1975
February 1975 was a strange time in the Vietnam Era. In retrospect, we can see that the Fall of Saigon (April 30, 1975) was quite assured, but in that dry month, Ambassador Graham Martin was doing all he could to keep his brittle facade of strength in place.
That official line of optimism was being passed on to the families in Saigon in an effort to assuage any panic that might be taking root. That month my mother wrote home to her parents:
Our leader gave us a briefing the other day, 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!
However, everyone’s safety had been compromised when, the previous autumn, Congress had confirmed only a portion of the requested aid. That shortfall sentenced the Southern Army (ARVN) to desperate half-measures in the face of the Northern forces’ escalating advance. Thus Ambassador Martin had sent in an additional request for $300 million in supplemental aid.
In an effort to assess the situation, President Gerald Ford sent a delegation to Saigon in the hope that the inspection tour “would perhaps give them a more realistic view” of the aid needs of South Vietnam and Cambodia and of the proper American role in Southeast Asia. (NY Times, 2/14/75)
On that delegation was the inimitable representative Millicent Fenwick of New Jersey. CIA Analyst Frank Snepp recounts a conversation with her in his 1976 book Decent Interval:
For the next three hours, my colleague and I fielded questions on everything from communist intentions to Thieu’s survivability. Mrs Fenwick, a lady of surpassing grace, was smoking a pipe . . .
. . . and throughout the session, some perverse imp in my psychological bottle caused me to address her repeatedly as “sir.”
“Is there any chance,” she asked me at one point, “the North Vietnamese might agree to a new cease-fire?”
“Well, sir,” I said, “they are facing pressure and constraints that could nudge them that way . . .”
The conversation, Snepp wrote, went on for some time while “both legislators listened intently and took notes.”
Where, I wonder, was Rep. Fenwick’s pipe during that time?
Was she puffing harder and harder on the thing if she were sensing the lack of sincerity behind Snepp’s words? He was doing his duty to represent the views of the Embassy, but he could not do so without some discomfort.
As I paused to catch my breath, I felt a twinge of guilt. My comments and prognostications were hardly as spontaneous or original as I tried to make them sound. In one way or another they had all been carefully rehearsed in Administration position papers during the past year and were the basis of Kissinger's fondest hopes for Vietnam.
Or perhaps she’d set the pipe aside to take it up again later when she reviewed her notes of the day, perhaps in “hours of pleasure and contemplation, the many thoughts of the present and future?” (See pipe letter below.)
In that month of February 1975 when so much was on the line and so many hopes were being held firmly but that were already slipping away, I wonder what my CIA father knew or didn’t know about the precariousness of the situation through official channels.
Unofficially, his staff was quite forthcoming in their assessment. My mother wrote:
If Congress refuses more aid, the situation does look bleak. Jim asked [his staff member] Mai Lan 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.”
The congressional delegation headed home on March 2nd, harboring mixed reviews, but the events in the weeks to come would unravel any need of aid consideration, leaving those of us in Saigon with less and less clarity but getting closer and closer to admitting that it was all going up in smoke.
Addendum.
My father was a pipe smoker, too, though I don’t recall him using it much, if at all, while we lived in Vietnam. He was a fan of Winstons and seemed to always have them on hand, but a cigarette cannot hold a candle to the elegance of a pipe. (Fenwick purportedly took up the pipe when her doctor told her to stop smoking cigarettes—clever girl!)
This undated “love letter” from a pipe was found in my father’s papers.
Hello Jim: Remember me? Gosh, I've been waiting here for you all these years. Remember those many hours of pleasure and contemplation, the many thoughts of the present and future? Those were happy days and the memories of those hours are precious, just you and I. When was it Jim, that I was with you? When in school here or did I travel too? Remember how we struggled with present problems and the uncertain future? Things did seem rough, didn't they? But I guess we worked them out.
Jim, I just can't remember when you sat me down for the last time but pal I've kept this lonely vigil well, I hope, so let's sit down and go over those moments of pleasure Just For Old Times Sake. Then when you go, Jim, take me with you. ~your pipe
Thank you for reading.
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Until next time,
Yours truly,
Kat ❦
P.S.
Thanks, Kat. There seems such a blurred line separating "worthy cause" from "quagmire" to "lost cause," especially when viewed in real time. These lines are so much easier to see from a distance. I wonder, in the case of Viet Nam, would more funding have changed outcomes really? Or had that already slipped over the "lost cause" line? And who knew this and for how long? Do many questions.
This timely piece reminds us that we forget the past at our peril, for we are then doomed to repeat it.