The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project WOLFGANG J. LEHMANN Interviewed by: Robert Martens Initial interview date: May 9, 1989 Copyright 1998 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Vietnam 973- 975 Paris Agreements and U.S. presence in Vietnam Hanoi(s 975 offensive Effects of Watergate ,ole of Soviet Union and China .nternational Commission for Control and supervision Economic and political situation in South Vietnam South Vietnamese military Mathias ,esolution 975 .ntervie0 12 Vietnam 973- 975 March 975 Evacuating Plaiku and 3ontum Evacuation planning Evacuating Consulate 4eneral Early April 975 Evacuating Vietnamese employees to 4uam U.S. relations 0ith South Vietnam Evacuations contractors, dependents, 6 nonessential personnel Problems 0ith evacuations Staff performance ,emoving U.S. documents 8ate April 975 Air attack on flight line ,emoving the embassy(s banyan tree ,ocket attack on DAO compound 1 Operation 9Fre:uent Winds; Decision to continue evacuation at night Final evacuation Conclusion The 0arden system Summary of evacuation INTERVIEW : Wolf Lehmann went to Vietnam in June 1973, initially as Consul General in the city of Can Tho, which is located in the Me,ong Delta. He then went to Saigon in March 1974 as Deputy Chief of Mission to Ambassador Graham Martin. For fre1uent periods he was Charg2 d3 Affaires during that 13 months or so prior to the final fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. This period from the time that Mr. Lehmann arrived in Vietnam was one in which support for the war in the 6nited States was declining. We were getting into the beginning of the second Ni8on Administration. Watergate was opening severe wounds in the American body politic. As time went on and as public support for the war declined, the difficulty of gaining material support from Congress for the South Vietnamese Government was increasing drastically, as well. This was a time, of course, when there were no American military forces in the country. These had long been withdrawn. This was a period when it was still hoped that somehow the South Vietnamese Government would be able to maintain its independence from the communist North Vietnam. With that bac,ground, I believe we are in a position to begin the interview. There were many opinions as to why South Vietnam99that is, the Republic of Vietnam99 ceased to e8ist at the end of April 1975. Some people claim that the fate of Vietnam was sealed from the very moment that the Paris agreements were signed in December 1972 over the strong objections of President Thieu, and that all that really remained was the so9called decent interval before the end. Do you agree with that view? 8EHMANN2 . think the Paris accords 0ere severely deficient in several respects, but . don't agree that 0ith the signing of the accords the end 0as preordained to be 0hat it eventually came to be at the end of April 975. The agreement 0as, indeed, deficient, in certainly t0o major respects, the most important of 0hich 0as that it allo0ed the North Vietnamese Army to remain in South Vietnam. 2 Another deficiency 0as the fiction that there existed something called the P,4, the People's ,evolutionary 4overnment of South Vietnam, and that 0e accepted the notion that this fictitious entity 0as a legitimate party to the Paris agreements. That, incidentally, is 0hy 0e at the embassy, 0henever 0e had to refer to the P,4, 0e al0ays put it in :uotes. We never let it stand on its o0n as 0e 0ould for the D,V, 0hich 0as the formal official title of North Vietnam. Hanoi certainly considered the Paris accords to be a victory for them and publicly said so after the fall of South Vietnam. Nevertheless, . don't believe that the end 0as inevitable. Everything depended on 0hether the United States and South Vietnam 0ere able and 0illing--and . 0ant to underscore "0illing"--and primarily the United States, 0ould insist that the agreement be carried out as 0ritten. .t 0as particularly important that the United States sho0 0illingness to back up that insistence 0ith some sort of force if that should become necessary. That 0ould not necessarily have meant the re-introduction of American ground forces, but certainly the possible reintroduction of American air po0er 0as a factor in the background. Of course, that did not come to be. .mmediately after the Paris agreements 0ent into effect, Congress, at the initiative of Senator Church, prohibited the reintroduction of U.S. combat forces into Vietnam. That bit of Congressional myopia--or 0orse--left us very little leverage to insist that Hanoi honor the terms of the agreement. .n fact, our aid to the ,epublic of Vietnam, both military and economic, 0as progressively reduced very soon after the agreements came into effect, and U.S. intervention, of course, became increasingly remote as a political crisis developed in Washington, a crisis that eventually led to the Nixon resignation. : I believe that, on the other hand, Soviet and Chinese aid was continuing, or at least Soviet aid. Could you comment on the e8tent of that support and the contrast between that flow of communist aid to North Vietnam and the decrease in aid by the 6nited States to the Republic of South Vietnam? 8EHMANN2 Both Soviet and Chinese, especially Soviet aid, 0as continuing at a very heavy pace. The agreement had a provision in it that both sides could replace military items--ammunition, hard0are etc.--on a one-for-one basis in South Vietnam. We never did that, because 0e never had ade:uate budgetary facilities to actually replace military items lost by the South Vietnamese during that sort of lo0er-intensity period of conflict that 0ent on in 973 and 974. Moreover, the restriction did not apply to North Vietnam. There 0as absolutely no 0ay of ensuring the other side's compliance 0ith that particular provision. .t 0as simply disregarded. Hanoi did not permit the .CCS--the .nternational Commission for Control and Supervision--to exercise its authority in that regard even if it had 0anted to. Hanoi did not agree to the re:uirement, also stipulated in the Paris agreements, that there should be established certain entry points through 0hich this one- 3 for-one replacement of ammunition and other military items 0ould be monitored. So these 0ere never established, except on our side. : There may well have been two or three times as much as the authorized one9for9one level coming in, for all anyone ,nows, at least more than the mere replacement flow of materiel. 8EHMANN2 Oh, it 0as far more than that. The magnitude of the amount of ammunition, military e:uipment, trucks and 0eapons 0as even alluded to by 4eneral Van Tien Dung, 0ho 0as the North Vietnamese commander 0ho eventually con:uered the South. When you read his account, 0hich 0as first published in Nhan Dan, the Hanoi ne0spaper, in serial fashion and later as a book, 0hen you read his account, he speaks of thousands of trucks and guns being moved to the South on the Ho Chi Minh Trail Net0ork. No, it 0as never honored at all by them. : Going bac, to the broader course of the war and the situation in both Washington and Asia, you3ve been 1uoted as saying that the reason why the war ended in a North Vietnamese military victory at the time it did99that is in April 197599was Watergate. Would you comment further on that? 8EHMANN2 Hanoi, of course, had never given up the idea of eventually con:uering the South. As far as they 0ere concerned, it 0as a :uestion as to 0hen and ho0. We kne0 there 0ere differences of opinion in the Hanoi leadership during the period of 973 and 0ell into 974 as to 0hat should be given priority. The :uestion that 0as facing them at the time--and 0e had a fairly good reading on that from our admittedly fragmentary intelligence, but a fairly good capacity for making an accurate estimate--the :uestion facing them 0as 0hether they should divert resources to deal 0ith their serious, domestic internal problems, and put eventual unification of the country under their control on a longer term basis--Asiatics think in long terms, very long terms--or 0hether they should go for broke :uickly and force an early solution. They had :uite an argument about that. President Nixon resigned in early August of 974. That 0as follo0ed 0ithin a 0eek by a drastic reduction of U.S. military assistance to South Vietnam, mandated by Congress. .n fact, the vote that reduced the amount do0n to A700 million, 0hich 0as less than half of 0hat 0e had been using earlier, and much of that A700 million 0asn't really available, a point . 0ill elaborate on later on, that vote 0as preceded by a vote on a resolution that all military aid to South Vietnam should be cut off. And 1C members of the United States Senate voted to cut off all aid immediately. These 0ere the facts that led to a decision by the Hanoi leadership to undertake a large-scale massive offensive operation in 975 in an effort to end the 0ar on their terms. : And ta,e advantage of this situation? 8EHMANN2 Hanoi's decision 0as based on its evaluation of the political situation in the United States. They concluded, that given the political situation in Washington resulting 4 from the Watergate crisis, the United States 0ould not effectively interevene. At the embassy in Saigon, in a message that . sent to Washington as ChargD at the time, on August 3, 974, 0e said that 0hat had been happening in Washington--primarily in the form of the drastic reduction of military assistance to South Vietnam-- 0ould lead to a political decision by Hanoi to make an all out military effort to con:uer the South.