April 19–20, Weekend in Saigon
SOME OF THE VIETNAMESE confessed to me later that I was the last person they had expected to see back. McTighe was more likely, but they didn’t know that he had been physically stopped from being able to return. The staff could have expected a bank liaison in Saigon, like someone from the lawyer’s office, sent by the bank to help them out. I seemed young and ambitious, not at all impetuous. And I was analytical, so maybe the Vietnamese staff read me as being remote. I’m told that once people get to know me, I’m warm and folksy, but I suppose in Saigon, especially in the weeks leading up to the end, my softer side was not on display.
I was definitely not thought of as the kind of guy who would risk his job, and his life, to come back and help staff members he had only worked with for two years. Burning a million dollars, defying the US ambassador: these things were absolutely out of my character, I admit it. But the rush back to Saigon to help the staff seemed like a natural instinct to me. The only surprise was that to do so, I had defied the bank’s direct order. But I guess you never know what will push someone to explore their limits.
Over the weekend, the staff began to move their things into Walker’s old house and my villa. The houses were only a few blocks apart, and both had high walls surrounding the properties. It was somewhat reassuring to think that the sudden influx of so many people into the residences was concealed from easy view, but it was impossible to relax completely. Chuyen had told Cuc, who told everyone else. Cuc was young but had a fill-the-room personality. She was perfect for the personnel department because she was the kind of woman people listened to. The first step of our exit strategy was to get everyone to the centralized locations. Cuc communicated that order to the staff and told them they had better get there quickly and bring the minimum with them. One small bag each. No luggage, no obvious jewelry, nothing out of the ordinary. They should be dressed in their work clothes, and they should only carry as much on them as they might reasonably bring to work. It had to look natural.
On the fly, it was decided that the men should stay at Walker’s house, and the women and children at my villa—even though my place had some touches that made it decidedly a bachelor pad. I had converted an old wooden teller’s desk from Manila into a liquor cart full of bottles of Scotch and whiskey. But the French school across the street provided some cover for the sudden influx of women and children.
I decided it would be more appropriate for me to stay with the men at Walker’s house rather than try to make myself unobtrusive among the women and children in my own home. Walker had left for Hong Kong with his wife and child in such a hurry that his two-story villa on Pham Ding Phung was still fully furnished and even had a small staff to run it. A cook and gardener helped the house’s new occupants. A tall brick wall surrounded the property. The big gate was made of solid metal, so no one could see through it. Walker had told me that the villa had once belonged to Madame Nhu, the notorious, despised, and deposed First Lady of South Vietnam. In the summer of 1963, she had shocked the world when she called the Buddhist monks’ suicides “a barbecue” and said she would clap her hands to see another one. Her family’s regime was overthrown a few months later, and the former first lady was now in European exile.
Madame Nhu’s tastes had run toward the opulent. In the presidential palace, she had a silk-upholstered bed and real tiger skins covering the parquet floor. The home Walker was living in was more modest, but in addition to two upstairs bedrooms and a kitchen, it also had a library and a great room. In other words, it was large and could accommodate a number of our people in comfort.
Wives didn’t want to be separated from husbands, and vice versa, but no one ever complained to me. Everyone understood. In case of evacuation, the women and children would go first. It seemed the chivalrous thing to do, especially since the disastrous Danang evacuation just three weeks before was still fresh in our minds. Women, children, and old people had been left behind, along with anyone who had not been physically strong enough to battle for a spot on the tarmac and race against thousands for fewer than two hundred seats on the plane. The flight out of Danang had been full of able-bodied young men.
In our situation, women and children actually had a better chance of getting out. The men ran the risk of getting drafted if they weren’t already conscripted into service, or of being shot on the spot for desertion or treason. There was a real fear that some disgruntled South Vietnamese soldier assigned to guarding the exits would shoot first and ask questions later.
FNCB had a disproportionate number of women on staff. The imbalance was due to the fact that most South Vietnamese men were working in some capacity for the military or the government. Most of the men who moved into Walker’s house that weekend were not bank employees, but the husbands of people on our staff, which meant that we had high-ranking officers in the army and government officials in our crew. I passed no judgments. I knew how hard it was for these men to say good-bye to their country. Were they supposed to sacrifice their families too? It was not for me to say who should and should not be leaving. If anything, these men had the most to fear from a Communist victory.
As Walker’s house filled with men, the mood grew increasingly tense. I could see that they were nervous about their wives and children: there was a lot of pacing the floors and smoking. I wasn’t about to lock anyone inside the house, but I did try to remind everyone that too much movement in and out would arouse suspicion. Many of the men were not bank employees and did not speak English. I relied on Chuyen to communicate for me, but he was especially preoccupied and cranky that weekend. He had practical concerns on his mind. “I still have a bank to run,” Chuyen grumbled. “And you keep talking about taking out my employees.”
I stopped whatever I had been doing and stared at Chuyen. He couldn’t be serious, could he? To my mind the bank was functioning in Saigon for show only. I had stopped working on any real bank-related business before I left Hong Kong, and besides, I was fired. My focus was solely on getting people out of Saigon.
“To be honest, Chuyen, I don’t care if the bank is running or not right now,” I growled.
Chuyen took personal offense. My disregard for bank business was disrespectful, and that was grounds for an argument.
“Wriston himself told me that I am in charge of this branch,” he said. He raised his voice, which quivered with barely concealed anger. “We cannot just shut down. People will panic; clients will demand their money. It will cause problems for the company, and tell me, how will we handle that?”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to think about it from Chuyen’s point of view. He had done a fine job of running the bank branch in Saigon. Wriston had personally sent a telex saying that he entrusted the branch to Chuyen, who should be congratulated on doing a great job so far. Before signing off, Wriston had made sure to reference the fact that they were “fellow alumni”; both Wriston and Chuyen had graduated from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. It was such a thoughtful and personalized telex, and it came directly from one of the most esteemed and powerful men ever to run a financial firm. Chuyen had tacked it up for the whole staff to see on the branch’s bulletin board. In all the chaos to come, it was the one thing that Chuyen would regret leaving behind. When the Communists eventually did storm through the city, the telex would still be on display.
Chuyen had run away from North Vietnam as a teenager and been in the South Vietnamese Army for nine years. He had a diploma in politics from an elite American university and had even worked at the American embassy in Saigon for a while. Now he was a high-ranking officer in a capitalist bank. Chuyen’s résumé encapsulated everything the Communists were against. If he were taken into custody, who could guess the amount of “reeducation” it would take to break him? As he voiced his very real concerns about running the bank, I realized that this was not a man worried about his safety. Chuyen was so loyal to FNCB that in spite of significant danger to himself, he was still worried about the company.
As a bank we had promised to protect our clients’ assets, and our sizable reputation was on the line for that. So I could see what Chuyen was thinking. Things in Saigon were still so calm. It just didn’t seem possible that the Communists were less than a hundred miles away. A city about to fall under siege was supposed to be chaotic. But where were the looters and explosions? What if the country didn’t fall? We had to have a plan for every eventuality.
My only defense was that I had seen the memo. Wriston had reiterated that the staff’s safety was paramount. I read that to mean that the bank’s assets were secondary. “Look, Chuyen, Wriston told you that no matter what you do with the bank, the safety of our staff is what is most important,” I gently reminded him. “Let’s get people into place to go, and keep just enough to cover our asses at the bank, okay?”
So far, there had only been one issue with winding down the bank’s operations. One of the bank’s better-known customers was a woman who ran a large fruit plantation in the delta. She often brought ripe papayas and pineapples as gifts for the staff to enjoy on their breaks. She was an elegant woman, easy with a smile and wealthy from the look of her well-cut pantsuit and jade jewelry.
“I’ve received this letter from the bank,” she had said, pulling out a typed letter on FNCB stationary to show Hien, a customer service representative. The letter had been written to certain bank clients to inform them that FNCB was immediately refunding their prime deposits. Prime deposits were made for fixed periods of time, ranging anywhere from six to thirty-six months. The variable interest rate was guaranteed up front and linked to the prime lending rate, so if the prime rate changed, the client benefited.
Hien calmly explained to her customer that FNCB Saigon could no longer guarantee future payments. “We will return your money to you in cash,” she began, but the woman cut her off by shaking her head.
“I don’t want to take my money out. What if I refuse to accept it?” challenged the woman. “I have no place to put that much cash. What else am I going to do with it besides keep it in the bank?”
The plantation owner’s tone remained pleasant the whole time, but it was clear there was no room for discussion. This was a woman accustomed to getting her way. Holding her head high, the woman turned on her heel and walked out the door.
The rest of the weekend, waiting at Walker’s, felt interminable. Eckes had nothing to tell me except to keep waiting. Cuc in the personnel department made up a list; Chuyen, Robert, and I went over the numbers again and again.
Of the thirty-four Vietnamese employees at the branch, thirty-two were coming with us. One young woman, a teller on the main banking floor named Nguyen Khoa Thuy Diem, had another way out. Her father worked for an American news organization—I think it was Time or Newsweek—and it was organizing its employees’ evacuation. So that was one person we didn’t have to worry about.
Nguyen Thi Than from the bookkeeping department on the second floor had also told us that she wouldn’t come with us, but in her case, it was because she was forbidden. Chuyen called Than’s father several times over the weekend: “Please, allow your daughter to come with us. She will have a job in the United States; she can send for you.” But Chuyen’s pleas were ignored. Than’s father was immovable. As it turned out, Than would leave the country anyway. She fled as a “boat person,” five years after the fall of Saigon. She was one of the lucky ones: she made it to the United States alive.
“So I’ve got thirty-two Vietnamese employees to adopt, plus their families,” I read from my notes, looking up at Robert and Chuyen for assurance.
Robert shook his head. “You will have thirty-one. I have a Taiwanese passport that I can use to get out.”
“Why are you still here?” I wondered aloud.
“My wife,” Robert answered factually. “She cannot travel on the passport with me. Will you still take her with the others?” he asked. Of course, I assured him. But I had real concerns. Even without the two women and without Robert, our group was still huge. I had only a rough estimate of how many children everyone had and whose husband or wife was coming, but by my reckoning, I had over one hundred people to get out of Saigon—and fast.
What difference would a few more make? Over the weekend, while I waited for Eckes to give me a signal, I thought I might try to convince a few of the bank’s most trusted Vietnamese advisors to come with us.
Advisor Nguyen Thanh Hung had been a consultant for FNCB since we had commenced operations in Vietnam, and the staff always referred to him formally, as “Advisor.” He was older than anyone else in the bank, in his mid-sixties, and he had had a long and distinguished career in banking. Prior to becoming a consultant for us, he had been the inspector general of all the banks in Vietnam. Advisor Hung had been invaluable in giving FNCB advice on how to work in Saigon, and with whom to do business. I couldn’t imagine trying to leave without him.
I drove out to the advisor’s house in Ben Hoa. Hung lived about fifteen miles out of the city. I didn’t know how to get there, so I had my friend Bich with me. He was the bank’s lawyer, and he knew Hung. As it turned out, I would be glad I hadn’t gone alone.
“Advisor Hung, would you and your family come with us?” I began to ask, but was cut off when Advisor Hung lunged at me and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt.
“Goddamn you Americans! You caused this horrible mess.”
The man’s black eyes were absolutely wild. I was taller than he by six inches or more, but he had stretched up and, in a flash, wrapped both his hands around my neck. I was so surprised I didn’t move until he began to squeeze, choking me. I gagged. Bich pried us apart. I took a few steps back, trying to regain my breath and find a way out. But before I could say anything, Hung lowered his gaze and apologized in a tight voice.
“My family will stay. My father is still living.” The tradition of filial piety was too strong for Advisor Hung to break. His father was eighty-nine years old, and Hung could not bring himself to leave his elderly father to face the Communists; the family had already run away from them once. In the early 1950s they had fled North Vietnam to take refuge in Laos and Cambodia before making a new life in Saigon. “But my youngest son, Nam, would you take him with you?” Hung beseeched me.
“Consider it done,” I vowed. I could not blame Advisor Hung for his emotional outburst. I would be feeling the same if I found myself in his shoes. If he wanted to give his youngest child a chance at freedom, of course I would help. “Just get him to Walker’s villa by this weekend.” The eighteen-year-old was traveling by himself to make a life in a new country without his family. The poor boy looked bewildered when his father dropped him off, and he came with only the shirt on his back. I told him to go upstairs to my closet to take whatever he found that might fit him.
As it turned out, Advisor Hung’s father didn’t live long. He died just two months after the fall of Saigon. By then, it was too late. Hung, his wife, and the rest of their children were stuck in Vietnam. The new regime got word of Advisor Hung’s experience in banking, and they put him to good use. The Communists recruited him to help them nationalize the banks. But after six months, the Marxist economists decided that this old man was a capitalist relic and no longer relevant. Advisor Hung was retired from banking and sent to be reeducated in a labor camp. It was years of physical toil and grueling work. He got out in 1981, just in time to see his wife before she died of an aneurism. The son Hung asked me to evacuate, Nam, would eventually become an American citizen in 1990. He was able to sponsor his father and a sister to come to the United States in 1992, but Advisor Hung was old and sick by then. He lost both legs to untreated diabetes and died in 2008.
Hung wasn’t the only one I failed to convince to join the bank evacuation. Dr. Uong Ngoc Thach was another one. The doctor had saved me once. I was terribly sick with a kidney stone attack shortly after I arrived in Saigon. I was convinced I was dying. Thach soothed me with medicine and spent the night in my villa checking on me. I’ve followed the doctor’s advice and eaten a bowl of high-fiber cereal every morning since, and I’ve never had a kidney stone again. Dr. Thach earned my undying devotion, and I thought it might be my turn to pay him back for his kindness by helping evacuate him. Dr. Thach appreciated my offer, but he didn’t want my help getting out. He was prepared.
“I won’t go,” he said stoically. “I was on the other side; I know how they are.”
By “the other side,” Thach meant he had been either Vietcong or Viet Minh, the Vietcong’s precursor. He had left the Communists, and he knew just how bad their retribution would be. All the more reason, I argued, he should come with me.
But Thach refused, saying, “I will take the Black Pill rather than face them again.”
I also asked two of the bank’s lawyers, Bich and Kinh, if they would come with us. They worked for a shrewd and intelligent woman named Madame Trai. She had already gotten out and was in Paris by the end of April 1975. Bich and Kinh, Madame Trai’s junior associates, had been left trying to hold the firm together. Through my time at the bank, both of them had become my close friends.
When I asked, Kinh insisted he was going to be fine. Caltex, a subsidiary of Chevron and an important client, had promised him a way out. When we reconnected years later, Kinh had moved to Texas after the fall of Saigon.
The other lawyer, Bich, declined for family reasons.
“My old mother and my two young sisters—I have to take care of them,” he told me. “I will be fine.”
After a while, he actually was fine. But first the Harvard-trained lawyer had to go to reeducation camp to undo all his capitalist learning. It took six years. After a thorough reeducation, Bich got a job as an advisor to the new government’s Ministry of Oil. When I went back to Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City) in 2010, he was doing very well for himself. Bich sent a car to fetch me and my partner from our hotel in the city. The driver drove us to a large home outside of the city. Bich’s wife fixed us a delicious lunch, and we reminisced pleasantly for a while before Bich finally asked, “How come you never asked me to go with you?” Poor Bich had been reeducated so completely that he had no memory of my offer.
On Sunday I made the short drive from Walker’s house to my villa. I wanted to see how the women and children were settling in. The moment I opened the door, it was as if I had stepped into a madhouse. Someone flew by in a flash and thundered up the stairs without seeing me, and I could hear a teenage girl hollering after a laughing gaggle of kids in the yard. Their mothers had formed a circle near the kitchen, cackling and gossiping while they peeled the skin off small fruits they tossed carelessly on a growing pile. The shades were down, darkening the room and making it seem even more stifling. I only had one air conditioner, up in my bedroom, and relied on ceiling fans for the living room. All they did was push the stagnant air around. There were papers everywhere, laundry drying on the back of furniture, stacks of dishes in the sink, and the sharp smell of stale garlic and fish sauce.
I had grown to love Vietnamese food, and I could appreciate the complex flavor that fish sauce lent to the national cuisine. The Vietnamese call it nuoc mam, and they put it on everything. The condiment is as ubiquitous in Vietnam as ketchup is in America. It’s made from fish buried in salt until it ferments. When the smelly liquid drips off, it is bottled and sold. The complex flavor of nuoc mam is one thing, but there is no getting used to the smell. I didn’t appreciate the odor of fish guts permeating my place.
“What the hell is going on in here?” I asked, but no one heard me. I picked my way around the mess, getting madder and madder with every step. I have always been pretty fastidious about picking up after myself, and it was physically uncomfortable for me to see my well-tended home in so much disarray. Bedrolls, pillows, and blankets were tangled in corners. Furniture was upended to make room for so many people. Every available surface in the kitchen was covered with food preparation items. I knew it was temporary—the result of so many people living in a tight space—but it was also dangerous. They had not even noticed I was walking around. It was loud with talking, crying, and laughing. It was advertising to the whole world that something unusual was going on. I couldn’t hold my temper another second. All my pent-up anxiety over the restless weekend, the frustration at so many failed attempts, all came roaring out of me.
“SHUT UP!” I yelled.
Heads finally turned toward the front door. Everything got quiet except for the wail of a child upstairs, but even that was quickly shushed. No one at the bank had ever seen me lose it before, and they stared up at me as if I were some horrible monster. I was red-faced, and my eyes were bulging out of their sockets.
“I want these kids QUIET. And I want this place picked up. I’ll be back in one hour.”
I turned on my heel and tried to leave gracefully but ran into a chair that wasn’t supposed to be there. I shoved it out of the way with my foot and huffed out the door.
When I got back, it was three hours later. I had calmed down but was still worried that my people were being so careless. We had to keep a low profile. My background in the clandestine service (SOG) made me nervous about making our presence too obvious. I had heard that police searches were becoming a relatively routine occurrence in Saigon. They would be ostensibly looking for deserters, but “outsiders”—anyone staying in a house who was not registered at that address—were also rounded up. Maybe a bribe would suffice, maybe not. I did not intend to find out, and I needed to explain the situation to the women in my villa, but perhaps a bit more reasonably. When I got back to the house, the place was spotless. Total peace and quiet greeted me when the front door opened. I heard footsteps squeak upstairs and a worried face poke down the staircase, but I grinned.
“That’s better,” I said politely, “please keep it this way.”