Karen Kaiser (formerly Griffith) was the librarian at the school I attended in Saigon in the 1974 -75 school year. Her book is especially precious to me because it brings to life circumstances and conditions that escaped my 8-year-old’s understanding but that surely impacted me nonetheless.
CHAPTER 24: March 1975
One week after the assault on Ban Mê Thuột, North Vietnamese troops controlled the city and the province. South Việt Nam’s President Thiệu unrealistically ordered General Phu to retake Ban Mê Thuột and withdrew all ARVN forces from Kon Tum and Pleiku in the Central Highlands to assist him.
The units at Ban Mê Thuột suffered heavy losses, and General Phu abandoned his attempt to retake the city. The retreat to the coast began. Rather than report for duty, many soldiers deserted to save themselves and their families. Senior officers departed the highlands by helicopter, leaving a leaderless mob mixed with fleeing civilians trying to make their way to the coast—the convoy of tears. Relentlessly attacked by the North Vietnamese, hundreds died along the way.
As Deputy Chief of the CIA office in Sài Gòn, Conrad La Gueux received reports of the poorly executed retreat and viewed the tragic situation from a seat on an Air America helicopter. At that moment, his long experience in intelligence told him that the ARVN could not win the war. It was over for South Việt Nam, and he needed to convince the ambassador.
Steve’s work diary
19 March 1975: … With the fall of Ban Mê Thuột and the pullback of ARVN troops from the Central Highlands, things could get a bit hectic. … Haven’t noticed any change in mood in Sài Gòn.
Đà Lạt, in the southern section of the Central Highlands, provided fresh fruits and vegetables to the markets of Sài Gòn until the chaos of war disrupted transportation to the city.
Ambassador Martin transferred part of the embassy staff elsewhere, reducing the size of the mission. The U.S. government closed some of its facilities and eliminated jobs. The faculty at the Phoenix Study Group hosted a farewell luncheon for one of the teachers whose husband’s government job no longer existed.
Even so, government officials agreed to provide a larger building for the school at the end of the school year. I felt like the “Push me, Pull you” statue on Lê Lợi street.
The Marine Monument on Lê Lợi Street.
On the one hand, rumors about moving to a new school suggested smooth sailing. On the other hand, the talk didn’t mesh with North Việt Nam’s capturing provincial capitals one after another.
The pros and cons of going or staying chased each other around in conversations with Steve. A revolving door of possibilities circled my brain, pushing sleep away for hours.
“Hear anything from Don since he and Nga went to the States on home leave?” I asked Steve.
“Just that they’ll be back in April. They will stop in Guam to finalize Nga’s US citizenship.”
“Should we think about leaving, too, just ‘til things settle down? We don’t know what will happen, maybe nothing, but all we get is bits and pieces of news. I’m starting to worry.”
Steve sighed heavily and shook his head, “I’ve got to finish the project … unless USAID decides to close it down, which it won’t do as long as Ambassador Martin insists that South Việt Nam can somehow survive. Look, whatever’s happening in the highlands isn’t affecting us.”
It was always all about the project for Steve.
“Maybe USAID will put the project on hold,” I said. “If they did, we could go to Bangkok or somewhere and return when things are less iffy.”
“What about your job at the school? Has anybody talked about closing it?”
“Nothing from the embassy about the school, either. If it were dangerous here, wouldn’t someone say something?”
“You’d think so.”
“I don’t want to give up my job—it’s the first one I’ve had that I like, but I could take a leave of absence.”
“I think we’re okay for now … at least until somebody tells us otherwise.”
So, we stayed.
Steve’s Work Diary
20 March 1975: More bad news today about the war. Kontum, Dar Lac, Quảng Trị, and Thừa Thiên-Huế provinces seem to be giving up. ARVN is moving back to consolidate positions. Đà Lạt appears to be in danger, and the rumor is that all Americans are being pulled out of there. New curfew tonight @ 2200. Office morale is rapidly going downhill. The Vietnamese resent very much that we ask why the people aren’t willing to fight. I look for this to cause problems later on. It is difficult to get any work done with an objective point of view. Personnel in VHA are more worried about their families, and their attention is on this rather than work. [Neither] USAID nor the embassy here have made any statement.
A series of unrelated events chipped away at our feelings of security. Steve came into my sewing room and sat in the extra chair. He held a finger to his lips, signaling he had something to tell me but didn’t want Muoi to overhear.
“Just heard the USS Enterprise reached the South China Sea off Việt Nam,” he whispered. “Something about evacuating Americans.”
“What! We’re being evacuated!” I whispered back, a swarm of bees buzzing under my rib cage.
“No, no, I don’t think so. It’s probably just posturing, we’ll see, but I wanted you to know in case.”
Air America friends Burt and Jeannie Foote let us use their APO address to send and receive mail until the Defense Attaché’s Office rescinded their APO privileges for no apparent reason. At the same time, the DAO mysteriously restored Steve’s access to the PX and commissary—even more bizarre, the PX stocked fashionable Vogue dress patterns for the first time, and the commissary offered goodies not seen there before.
I attributed low attendance at the American Women’s Association March program to disinterest until I discovered how many American women had packed up their children and left the country. What’s happening? Nothing makes sense!
~
Our British friends, Jane and Pete Jackson, would return to England soon and invited Steve and me for a farewell dinner at their favorite curry restaurant.
Jane and I had worked together at the Montessori school for a short time. Pete, a non-commissioned officer in the British Army attached to the consulate, spent most of his career in Southeast Asia. He loved to tell how he and Jane married in Malaya, Jane wearing a sari.
They picked us up in a Land Rover and drove us through the crazy Sài Gòn traffic into a dodgy part of town I’d never been to before. Grime-covered street lights clicked on, turning the night into a film noir movie set. He stopped before a seedy-looking eatery, and I wondered if Pete had made a mistake.
The restaurant’s open front revealed a poorly lit, shabby interior furnished with a collection of crudely made round tables and stools crowded together near the entrance.
A glimpse of the kitchen in the back didn’t instill confidence in the quality of the food, but our friends recommended it.
How bad can it be?
We piled out of the car into the street before I spotted them. Standing in front of the restaurant, two solidly built, swarthy men carrying menacing-looking knives in their belts stared at us.
Oh boy, now what?
Pete took in the situation immediately and didn’t hesitate. He walked up to the men, looked them in the eye, and … shook their hands! He knew them—Kulbir and Ganju—Gurkha soldiers employed as guards at the British Embassy. Pete was their commander.
The British Army first encountered Gorkhali soldiers during the Anglo-Nepalese War between the British East India Company and what is now Nepal. As the British refer to them, Gurkhas were closely associated with the khukuri, a forward-curving Nepali knife, and had a reputation as fierce fighters. There is an adage: If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha.
Kulbir and Ganju knew the best place to eat curry in Sài Gòn. The six of us took a corner table, and the grungy restaurant turned into a cozy, exotic eating place. The Gurkhas were not reticent, and the dinner conversation was lively and exciting.
The evening proceeded comfortably until a commotion at another table disturbed our good time. A group of Vietnamese men became loud and unruly, alarming the owners, who didn’t know how to disarm the situation.
While the rest of us tried to ignore the noise, both Gurkhas rose slowly and deliberately from the table. They approached the offending group with the force of a tidal wave. Staking out positions on either side of the troublemaker, they towered over him like giant sequoias. One of the Gurkhas leaned down and whispered something so calmly you knew he meant business.
Immediately, the noise ceased, and order returned to the dining room. The Gurkhas strolled back to our table and resumed their meals without another word, as if nothing had happened.
“What was that all about?” Steve asked.
“I don’t know,” said Pete, “but I would not want to make these guys mad.”
~
“Bonjour, Karen.”
A familiar French accent wafted across the parking lot of the Institut Français. I turned to see Guy Nandillon walking my way. He worked in the administration office and had helped me register two years before when I was new in town. Always gregarious and friendly, he was the antithesis of most Americans’ opinions of the French.
“Bonjour, Guy. Comment ça va?”
“Bien, Bien.” He continued in English, “I need a favor. Do you have apples?”
“Apples? No, but I might be able to find some at the commissary—fruit is scarce these days. Why?”
“My daughter is sick. The doctor thinks apples will be good for her.”
I was happy to help Guy in return for his kindness to me and, a few days later, delivered a bag of apples to his apartment, where I met his wife and daughter.
I wanted to get to know them better, and the idea of having a casual dinner at the apartment lingered on the edges of my mind for a week. The French were a close-knit community and rarely socialized outside their sphere, but Guy and Maddie seemed different, and I decided to venture an invitation.
My primary concern was Maddie, who only spoke a little English, and my French could have been more fluent. To avoid a stressful evening, I invited my friend from the Cercle Sportief, Catherine, an American woman who spoke beautiful French, and her husband, Armand Malo, a Frenchman who spoke beautiful English.
Both couples accepted, and the evening was a lot of fun. My nervousness disappeared. Stretching beyond our usual social circle with those people created a feeling of belonging in that strange, foreign place like nothing else possibly could. I hated to think we might lose it all.
~
The People’s Army of North Việt Nam marched into Quảng Trị, South Việt Nam’s northernmost city,prepared for battle. They were disappointed. Its defenders had abandoned the city days before. It fell to the invaders without a fight.
The Imperial City of Huế, thirty-four miles to the south,followed six days later as PAVN forces rolled over the ARVN units, picking them off one by one until they retreated to the coast. The Army of the Republic of [South] Vietnam in the I Corps Tactical Zone disintegrated. Deserters joined the panicked mob of refugees taking to the sea to save themselves.
Đà Nẵng, fifty miles south of Huế and six hundred miles north of Sài Gòn, sat in North Việt Nam’s crosshairs. Half a million refugees had already been evacuated, and 16,000 ARVN soldiers forced themselves onto barges and transport planes, pushing foreigners aside in a mad attempt to escape south to Na Trang or Phan Rang for safety.
PAVN troops captured one coastal city after another without firing a shot. ARVN officers and men deserted by the hundreds. U.S. Army Chief of Staff Frederick Weyand assessed the situation in light of such intelligence.
"It is possible that with abundant resupply and a great deal of luck, South Việt Nam could survive. However, without U.S. strategic air support, it is doubtful.”
Colonel William Le Gro, senior staff officer at the U.S. Defense Attaché Office, agreed and predicted that without strategic bombing, South Việt Nam would fall within ninety days.
~
My mood soared when Muoi handed me the dinner invitation Topping’s maid delivered.
Why not throw a dinner party? It’s better to fret among friends than stay home and worry alone.
I’d struggled to put on a cheerful face at school while swallowing my fear, but the Vietnamese staff at Steve’s office had no problem showing how terrified they were, making conditions there barely tolerable. A pleasant evening with friends was just what Steve and I needed.
The Toppings, Al and Jan, lived in a beautiful, modern villa and owned an impressive collection of blue and white Oriental porcelain. Each stunning piece sat in a lighted niche, like a museum display.
Lynn and Bob Bell and another American known only as Mike also attended the dinner. We didn’t know Mike or why he was in Việt Nam, buthe’d just come in from the central highlands bringing with him first-hand intelligence about the state of South Việt Nam’s army.
“The ARVN,” Mike said, “hate Americans for leaving. They blame us for the situation they’re in. I once saw a pissed-off ARVN soldier pull a gun on an American guy screaming it’s his fault they’re losing the war. The dude was lucky he didn’t get his head blown off.
“Then a couple of congressmen spend two days in Sài Gòn and think they know all about the situation … that the ARVN don’t have the will to fight and that President Thiệu wants someone to bail him out.”
“What’s your take on it?” Al asked.
“The Vietnamese could be fierce fighters if they were motivated. The problem is their commanders failed them.”
“What do you mean?” Steve asked. “Why don’t they fight for their country?”
“Look,” Mike continued. “For generations, traditional Vietnamese focused on three levels of society—family first, then the village, then their emperor who set the example of proper behavior—a very orderly system.
“The ARVN is an army of individuals with guns, but not with a broad sense of obligation to the group. The concept of loyalty to their entire country is unnatural to them.
“The officers and generals failed their men when they abandoned them at Ban Mê Thuột to save themselves in the same way they think America abandoned them. It’s a vicious circle. That’s why the soldiers see no reason to keep fighting. Their main objective is to save themselves, their families, and their village because that’s their first loyalty.”
“I never thought of it that way,” said Bob. “But it makes sense.”
“Read Fire in the Lake,” Mike added. “Frances Fitzgerald wrote a remarkable book that explains it all.”
Steve must have read my mind. “Wish I’d read it before we came to Vietnam,” he said.
~
Gloom settled over everyone at Steve’s office. All reasons to get on with work vanished. Some of the senior engineers became physically ill and stayed home. Project bosses at Jorgensen’s home office advised Don Burgess to delay his return from home leave in the U.S. until the situation in the provinces calmed down.
The Jorgensen staff at the Vietnamese Highway Administration worried more about their families than their jobs. Their attitude frustrated Steve. Neither of us understood their mindset.
“It’s nuts at the office,” Steve said, walking into the apartment at lunchtime, earlier than usual. “Work’s at a standstill. All the Vietnamese want is to stay home with their families. I might as well be home, too.”
“They’re really worried, aren’t they? Any word from USAID?”
“Nothing,” he said, “and Lew is acting crazy, ranting about how ‘we have to stick to the schedule.’ I’m thinking about taking a few days off to get some relief from him. I don’t give a damn about the schedule.”
“Wow! Okay … look, things are good at school. I can take some time off. What would you think about getting out of the country for a week? How about Penang? Maybe things will settle down by the time we get back.” An excuse to travel suited me just fine.
“Yeah, I like that idea. I’ll ask Mr. Bei to rush our visas through.”
~
With paperwork processed in record time, and itineraries on Lew’s desk, we arrived at Tân Sơn Nhựt Airport and found it operating as usual. On the tarmac, workers loaded rice onto a civilian DC-8, part of the US government’s airlift of rice to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, under siege by the Khmer Rouge.
The flight to Penang made one stop in Bangkok, where the newspapers reported little about Việt Nam.
~
Penang Islandpopped up in the Malacca Strait, eleven miles off the coast of the Malaysian Peninsula. Our flight from Bangkok landed at the airport in Butterworth on the mainland. A hired driver took us across the eleven-mile bridge to our lodging, the Rasa Sayang Hotel on Batu Feringgi Beach, thirty minutes away on the island.
The resort seemed to welcome us as soon as the driver turned off the two-lane road into the entrance gates. Ahead, the hotel extended a namaste with its sweeping roof line shaped like prayer hands. The lush grounds and beachfront location promised serenity, something neither of us had felt in weeks.
“Look at this place,” I said to Steve. “It’s a tropical paradise. I’m so glad you got them to change our room. From this balcony, we can see the bay. It’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah, it was more expensive but worth it, I guess. What d’you want to do now? Explore the gardens, go to the pool? The beach?”
“Let’s walk around, get the lay of the land.”
Not one, but several pools curved through the gardens. One featured a swim-up hot tub area. Betel nut palms lined a white-sand beach, and a palapa roof made of palm fronds announced the location of the tiki bar nearby. Mist-gray mountains hugged the bay. Magical.
As often happens at a resort, people start to chat, and the next thing you know, you have new best friends. This happened to us at dinner the first night. A group of lively Europeans who occupied a table next to ours at dinner struck up a conversation. They “adopted” us, and we’d meet them for after-dinner drinks in the lounge.
One couple in the group, Edie and Gerhardt Eckert, seemed particularly intrigued that we lived in Việt Nam and intended to return. Why wouldn’t we go back to our home? That two armies battled each other was nothing new, and the conflict hadn’t impacted Sài Gòn. We believed everything would have been handled and life would return to normal when we returned.
~
During the day, we toured the island. At the Tropical Spice Garden, nutmeg—the same spice that filled little glass jars on grocery store shelves in the US—grew on trees. Tapioca dried in the sun after being extracted from cassava roots. We watched local women making batik, first outlining a floral design with paraffin wax, then filling the design with color from paint pots using a fine brush. After the paint dried, they boiled the fabric to remove the wax. The entire process could take days.
We sampled fresh banana chips, suffered sunburns when we stayed too long at the beach, and rode a cable car through the lush jungle to a scenic overlook with a view of the Malacca Straits that separated the island from Indonesia.
In the evening, we dined under the stars. We walked along lantern-lit garden paths while making pie-in-the-sky plans for the future—graduate school in New Zealand, sailing the Mediterranean, starting a family. Options seemed endless. Sài Gòn’s stress slipped away. Yet, like a painful paper cut, it refused to be ignored.
Steve stopped at the concierge desk in the hotel lobby to grab a newspaper on our last day. Before he could look at it, Gerhardt, our new German friend, rushed over.
“Have you seen the headlines?” He yelled. “Đà Nẵng is captured. Việt Nam is falling apart. Sure you want to go back? Maybe you should stay here.”
Steve looked up from the newspaper in his shaking hands, his blue eyes cheerless.
“My God, Karen . . .” Steve said, his voice hoarse.
“What happened? Let me see!”
I crowded in, reading over his shoulder. On the front page, a single photograph of the airport showed a mass of humanity swarming over a transport plane like ants on sugar cane. The reality caught us off guard.
“Đà Nẵng and every city on the coast has fallen to the communists,” Steve said. “And no one’s stopping them. Where are the ARVN units?” The question was rhetorical. We knew the answer to that.
“Why did it take leaving the country to find the truth?” I asked. “Maybe the report is exaggerated, but we’re out now. What if we stay here like Gerhardt said?”
“Not possible; we only have tourist visas,” Steve answered. “Besides, I have to get back to the office. There’s still work to do. We have to get back there.”
“You’re right . . . too many loose ends. It was a crazy idea.”
On the flight back to Sài Gòn, the paper cut could be ignored no longer.
~
I first noticed the city sounded less noisy but more agitated, with fewer taxis and more army trucks. Little changes told me people were scared.
At the Kỳ Đồng apartment, Muoi fussed over her chores and muttered to herself, trying to hide her fear. After the terrible news of Đà Nẵng’s fall, little doubt remained about South Vietnam’s fate.
When I arrived at the Phoenix Study Group, I didn't know what to expect, but I was unprepared for the TV news crew lying in wait at the front door. Annoyed at the intrusion and dreading the choices we had to make, I tried to ignore the reporter until he stuck his microphone in my face.
“What d’you think’s going to happen? How d’you feel about the fall of Đà Nẵng? Will the school stay open? How many families are still here?” He peppered me with questions.
The restorative effects of a serene tropical paradise vanished. I hadn’t had a chance to process what the fall of Đà Nẵng meant in terms of the school or anything else. I dug my fingernails into my palm to keep from screaming, “Get out of my way!”
My mind flashed on thoughts of Pauline and the other church members, Muoi, Patty, and the people who worked for us or interacted with us daily in restaurants and shops, teaching French or tennis or driving us around town.
I had no words to describe how I felt about America’s betrayal of those people, not to mention its betrayal of its citizens, keeping us in the dark to rely on rumors and suppositions. We wouldn't have known how serious the situation was if we hadn’t left the country for a week.
“It’s all just so sad,” was all I could muster by way of a civil response.
Welcome back to Sài Gòn!
Steve’s Work Diary
31 March 1975: … Lew said he had cabled the home office with some questions and would try to call and get answers at the end of the week … Situation doesn’t look too good for Nha Trang right now. The people [Vietnamese staff] at the office are all shaky and say they are going to die. Most of the day was spent trying to find out more information about Đà Nẵng and the Central Highlands.
In Hà Nội, the government changed the name of Campaign 275 to the Hồ Chí Minh Campaign and ordered General Văn Tiến Dũng to “liberate Sài Gòn before the rainy season,” which occurred in mid-May.
South Việt Nam would keep half a country if it won the war. If it lost, it would lose everything. North Việt Nam would either keep half a country or win it all. There could be no tie.
