ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND LIFE NOTES
My gratitude goes first to the members of the FNCB Saigon Branch staff and their families. There was an outpouring of encouragement among the Vietnamese when I told them I was thinking of turning our story into a book. Dozens helped me to re-create the events of nearly forty years ago by sending photos, letters, and emails and being available for questions by telephone. Their contributions to the narrative have been invaluable, and their personal stories have humbled and enlightened me in so many ways. I admire their courage and determination in overcoming adversity and succeeding in a new world. My special thanks to Cuc, Chi, Chuyen, and Minh Ha for their time and patience.
For all the following who provided written or verbal submissions of their stories, I am most appreciative: Bui Thi Bich Lien; Robert Chang; Luong Thi Mai; Nguyen Nhuoc Dam; Nguyen Thi Than; Nhan Sun Anh; Tran Thi Dau; Tran Minh Ha; Bui Tuan Tu; Dang Thi Coi; La Quoc Huy; Le Thi Anh Tuyet; Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh; Tran Thi Nga; Nguyen Thi Hien; Pham Thi Cuc; Truong Lee Khanh; Nguyen Thi Huynh Hoa; Nguyen Thi Mong Chi; Le Thi Minh Tan; Trieu Huyen Lang; Trieu Muoi; Uong Chuyen Dinh; Pham Thi Dan Ha; Uyen Dao, daughter of Dao Long Bien and Pham Thi Kim-Thoa; Minh Lee, widower of Nguyen Thi Ngoc-Dung; Catherine Do, widow, and Alex Do, son of Do Quang Quynh; Hoang Si Binh, widower of Pham Thi Dung; Hang Thu Tran, daughter of Tran Van Kien; Nguyen Nam, son of the bank’s advisor Nguyen Thanh Hung; Bill Walker, Saigon branch senior operations officer; Bob Hudspeth, first manager of FNCB Saigon; and Bob Wilcox, American resident vice president of FNCB Agana, Guam, and his staff, who greatly assisted with the greeting and temporary settlement of FNCB Vietnamese evacuees in Guam.
The evacuation and successful resettlement of the South Vietnamese in the United States was helped by a vast network of American staff of FNCB, including George Vojta, Rick Wheeler, Peter Howell, Dick Freytag, Perry Wooten, and many other loyal Citibankers. My thanks in particular to Bill Walker, Rick Roesch, and Bob Hudspeth for taking the time to talk with my writer. I owe a debt of gratitude to the memories of Michael McTighe for motivating me to go back to Saigon and Jim Eckes for getting me and all of us at FNCB Saigon safely out!
Bruce Fogel, thank you for insisting I record the facts while I could still remember them, and Chepy Valeriano, you are one of my best and most devoted friends, thank you for tireless transcription and decades of support. Jan Nicholson, you are a very treasured friend. Under Jan’s wing, I was invited to many of Jan’s elegant dinner parties not just in New York City, but in the Hamptons, Fire Island, and Tuscany, Italy. Jan made me tell the story of the bank’s Vietnam evacuation so many times at these parties that I am sure all the repetition helped me remember it well these thirty-nine-plus years! I have so much to thank Jan for, not only her constant support of the story but her great confidence that one day it would be told in all its fullness. Last in time, but no less important in embracing this story and patiently coaching this reluctant author, are Sam Anderson, former head of the Vietnam USO and then worldwide head of the USO, and his close New York City friends artist and illustrator Sid Presberg and songwriter and game show producer Shelley Dobbins. They have been coaches to this very day, with Shelley ninety-two now and Sam and Sid sprouting angel’s wings—and on to other important business, no doubt!
I’m very fortunate that Kay and Tom Crouse have stayed in touch with me these many years. Tom was one of the two Citibank officers who ordered me to close the FNCB Saigon branch in April 1975. He’s been asking about my Vietnam story ever since. Tom has been a tremendous resource to me and to my writer, Monique Brinson Demery. Thanks to the persistence of Tom and Kay, and their friend Marcus Brauchli, I got an introduction to the producers of CBS’s 60 Minutes.
The entire team at CBS News deserves my thanks and appreciation. They ran an excellent segment on my story titled “Daring Rescue Days Before the Fall of Saigon” (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/daring-rescue-days-before-the-fall-of-saigon or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfdIzqS7bXE). Thank you for sharing my story with your viewers, and my gratitude to producer Shachar Bar-on, associate producer Alexandra Poolos, and the film crews in New York and Ho Chi Minh City, and Braden Bergan, who accepted and successfully completed the special assignment of locating my old Saigon villa in preparation for our Vietnam visit. My deepest thanks go to correspondent Lesley Stahl; she went above and beyond in befriending me and in providing me with invaluable advice to begin the road to publishing this book. Thanks to Lesley’s daughter, Latham Taylor, for her counsel.
My agent, Amanda Urban of ICM Partners, has held my hand during this process, answering all my questions and steering this ship in calm waters. I am grateful for her guidance, along with Ron Bernstein and everyone at ICM Partners on their New York and Los Angeles staff. Thank you to Marie Arana, author, editor, journalist, and member of the Scholars Council at the Library of Congress, for being extremely generous with her time and sound advice.
Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, came highly recommended and has been a wonderful editor. His direction has brought this book to life. Peter, Clive Priddle, and the team at PublicAffairs have worked tirelessly. I want to acknowledge their great efforts to promote, distribute, and publish the book. Pete Garceau did an especially fine job on the book jacket. Thanks too to PublicAffairs’ Michelle Welsh-Horst, senior project editor; Jeff Williams, book designer; and Melissa Raymond, managing editor. I would also like to thank the marketing and publicity team of Lindsay Fradkoff, Jaime Leifer, and Nicole Counts for their efforts on behalf of this book. Copyeditor Beth Wright of Trio Bookworks, proofreader Lisa Zales, indexer Robert Swanson, and cartographer Mike Morgenfeld all deserve credit for their contributions.
Thanks to Peter Osnos, I was introduced to writer and journalist Richard Pyle, who has a forty-seven-year history with the Associated Press, during three of which, in the early 1970s, he was head of the AP station office in Saigon. Richard also has a number of books to his name, one specifically about the war in Southeast Asia: Lost Over Laos: A True Story of Tragedy, Mystery, and Friendship (Da Capo, 2003). Richard had some immediate advice for me: “Start writing down your thoughts about your life and any memories of whatever comes to mind / vignettes.” I followed Richard’s advice, and I’m glad I did. Unfortunately, shortly after we got under way, Richard took seriously ill and felt the best thing for me was to get a new writer. I followed his advice, and thanks again to Peter Osnos, I was introduced to Monique Brinson Demery. I am happy to report that Richard Pyle has had successful treatment for his illness and is progressing nicely as we write.
My writer, Monique! How a beautiful young woman with two energetic children, Tommy and C.C., a very handsome and successful husband, Tom, a new home, and puppy dog, Piper, found time to work with an old farmer like me is still a mystery. Monique has been my guiding light, inspiration, artist of the English language, and North Star of my story. Additionally Monique is a very quick thinker, positive, and always ready with just the right word and answer. She has a lovely personality, great laugh, and hardy enthusiasm. Her guidance and spark have added magic to this story, and her wisdom has spun this story to its peak. If you enjoy this book, don’t wait to read Monique’s Finding the Dragon Lady: The Mystery of Vietnam’s Madame Nhu (PublicAffairs, 2013).
I would be nowhere in life without my family. They taught me to have a positive, happy, humorous, and hardworking approach to life. For that I thank the memory of my great-grandparents John F. Schuetz (Chicago police officer, badge #4381, known as “Honest John” Schuetz, killed in the line of duty on the evening of January 27, 1919) and Catherine Schuetz; my grandparents William Francis Riordan and Jane Elizabeth Broadwell Riordan, and Bartholomew Murphy and Rose Schuetz Murphy; as well as my parents, William Joseph Riordan and Rosemary Murphy Riordan. To my brother, William Bartholomew Riordan, and his wife, Kathleen, and to my sister, Rosemary Riordan Palicki, and her husband, Leonard, thank you for being my greatest friends and for raising such wonderful families yourselves. My nieces and nephews are terrific. I recognize that I have big shoes to fill as an uncle—my own were sparkling stars of Chicago and pretty fantastic, not to be outdone by my aunts: Great Uncle Henry Schuetz and Great Uncle Harold Burns and his wife, Great Aunt Clara; Great Aunt Nell Murphy Duffy and her daughter, “Aunt” Cele Duffy; John B. Murphy, C.M., and Clarence “Slug” Murphy, both missionary priests in China; George Murphy and his wife, Dorothy Karasinski Murphy. From my father’s Kansas City side of the family Ferg and Ruth Ferguson; uncles James Riordan and John Clement Riordan; Margaret Broadwell Riordan and George Riordan. Add to these relatives our adopted family of relatives, the Ostranders: “Old” Joe, Maggie, “Aunt Helen,” Dorothy, and Joel and his family. The Ostranders took my dad in in the Depression and helped him get a good job and were instrumental in introducing my dad to my mom. Each and every one of these personalities, relatives and adopted relatives, had stories to tell and told many different and exciting versions of them.
I honor the memory of my neighbor growing up in Chicago, Dan Cullen, who called me his “No. 1 man.” I was always interested in the home projects he was undertaking. Mr. Cullen encouraged me to help, learn, and enjoy working with my hands. He died a tragic but heroic death on December 7, 1957. The Chicago El motorman was operating one of the old wooden Elevated 4 coach trains in morning rush hour. It caught on fire just as the train arrived at the Howard El Station, but instead of stopping the train at the station, Mr. Cullen drove it through to avoid harming the crowd of passengers on the platform. He stopped the train beyond the station, where he was unable to exit. To save so many, he burned to death.
Bert Finzer was a neighbor lad and good friend my age who died on a mission in the Vietnam War as a US Air Force pilot.
My work ethic has served me well in life, and for that I’m greatly appreciative of the formative experiences I was given. My first job was given to me by Charlie and Jim Wilson when they employed me for one dollar an hour at the Wilson Candy Factory. Bob Wells and other Junior Achievement advisors from the Chicago office of Ernst and Ernst (now known as Ernst and Young) advised my brother and me on making and selling door to door aluminum “potato baker makers” and later “western-style carry-all trays.” The principal at St. Margaret Mary’s grade school in Chicago, Sister Mary Liguori, and the nuns participated in a project called “Let’s move this hopeless case along!” At Gordon Tech High School in Chicago, Father Gracz, the principal, was one of my angels. I have family friend Tom Cotter to thank for strongly encouraging me to go to college, and at St. Joseph College Rensselaer, Indiana, there were also several professors who nudged this lad along. Special acknowledgment to Professors Ralph A. Marini, Robert W. Morell, and Father Edward P. McCarthy. Their help got me accepted to an MBA program at Roosevelt University in Chicago, but I didn’t avoid a few speed bumps, like the F in finance (of all subjects!). However, thanks to Dean Brandel L. Works, I was given one more chance, and true to his name, that worked.
There were so many helpful Citibank officers and staff in New York City, Japan, and the Philippines who helped me in my career before my assignment to Vietnam. Just a few I’d like to name here who didn’t figure into the Saigon story: Kay Yoshida, the Japan desk officer in New York; Funaki-san, the “stencho” (manager of the Osaka branch); Kawanishi-san, the operations manager of the Osaka branch; Ase-san, secretary to the Osaka branch manager; and Takano Masako, secretary to Japan country head George Vojta. I knew Nam Lee Yick from FNCB in New York. He taught me the “Asian Rule of Ten,” which came to mean, at least for me, that you need not worry about the details when calculating, just round everything to the nearest large number and leave it to the number guys in the back rooms of the bank to get the details right. I always felt that I was more of a salesman than a “real” banker!
In June 1982, I was making more money from my real estate investments and rental income than I was as a vice president (one of a thousand) at Citibank. I felt that the bank was changing, becoming less client-relationship-oriented and more “cold nose” driven. Also at that time I was beginning to lose friends from the AIDS epidemic, and I was forty years old. I thought I’d like to pursue my real estate business of brownstones and brokerage at my pace, and have time for myself and my family and friends who needed help.
In 1989 my parents called me from Chicago. They had decided to sell our family house and move to a rental apartment; they were finding it increasingly difficult just to keep up home ownership. Their retirement dream, and mine, was to own a farm in Wisconsin. They asked, “Would you move out from New York and buy a farm with us and build a house and live there with us?” I said yes! And so in the summer of 1991 we closed on our beautiful 41.55-acre farm with a 13-acre hardwood lot. The property overlooks Lake Michigan. From that time we started planning our house and hoped to start building in early 1993. As fate would have it, in mid-October 1992 my dad suffered a large intracranial hemorrhage and died in early November. After resting for a year or so and rethinking, my mother and I broke ground in March 1995, and moved in October. I named the property after my parents, William and Rosemary, and it became Willrose Farm. My mother enjoyed seven years of good health here, right up to her death on December 16, 2002. Molly, our yellow Lab, kept me company until time took her on April 27, 2009.
Then I met Gilbert. Without him in my life and his organization, knowledge of computing, and teaching skills, and most of all his love, I would be writing all of this with a quill pen on parchment paper and be years behind. Gilbert’s mother spoke nothing but Cantonese, and I learned maybe five words of the language. Nevertheless, love shines through, and I always felt loved and embraced in her presence and with her generous acceptance of my love of her precious son.
There are so many other people in my life who have been and remain dear and supportive friends. Maybe if I am allowed a second book, I can spin the yarns each has inspired in me. For now, dear friends, please accept my gratitude for your gift of friendship: Dr. Chester and Loretta Stanley; Frank and Gwen McAuliffe; Eddie Gregoire; Sarah Sundvahl; Buck and Grace Kane; Bill Metzler; Bob Hiett; Nora O’Malley; Joan Nolan Finnerty; Andy Fantacci; the staff of The R&D Command, Office of the Army Surgeon General, in particular General Colin F. Vorder Bruegge, Majors Byron Howlett, JR, and Jack Webb, Col. Crosby, and Nathan Price; my two immediate Vietnam bosses in the joint command Studies and Operations Group (SOG), Navy Lt./Dr. Bob Ramuzzi and Navy Lt./Dr. Rudy Gross, and our Vietnamese counterpart Dr. (Bacci) Tri; Emer Manawis; Kathleen Dollymore; Mary McDonough; Dr. (Bacci) Thach; Eiji Tachibana; Kumiyoshi Asikaga; Stephen Racaza; Clem and Gerry Bichler; Jack Murdoch; Nguyen Hai Viet; Clarence Wasson; Craig Southwood Palmer; Bill Chen, my Chinese language teacher and friend to this day; Bruce Brenn; Carl Desch; Backson Liu; Jim Weadock; Milly and David Fulton; Dan Montana; Wesley Sutliff; Dr. John Young; George Snyder; Harsa Oseman; Jack Byers; Eddie Buxbaum; Bob Newman; Peter Morales and Jim Mancato; Harry Pangburn; Dallas Pratt; Andrew Pan; Peter Frankel; Joe Brown; George Grau; Herb Rogers, S.J.; Billy McNichols, S.J.; Mary Guthrie Riordan; Mary Ellen (Murphy) and Tim Hughes; Killian Burton; Peter and Margaret Poull; Otto Finger, artist and friend; Al and Barbara Weyker; Bill Karrels; Dan Lagerman; John Locke; John Schoenknech and the rest of the Milwaukee FrontRunners/Walkers; Lynde Uihlein; Arturo Ysmael, S.D.S.; Hariett (The Spy!) Cavanaugh Arnold; Edith Bahringer, Jerry Shoemaker, and all my swimming pool pals; and my Thursday night Wine-and-Cheese friends, especially Barbara Frenz and Jill Kunsmann, who brainstormed book titles with me.
And to all the unnamed kind and gentle souls who were good to me in countless ways along the journey thus far, my respect and gratitude.
JOHN P. RIORDAN