S6 Ep3: The fall of Kabul and the fall of Saigon with Frank Snepp

On this episode of Secrets & Spies, we are joined by former
CIA officer and Peabody Award-winning investigative journalist
Frank Snepp.

Frank was a CIA officer who served in the Vietnam war and he was
there at the fall of Saigon, so in light of the recent events in
Afghanistan we take a look at the similarity and differences
between the fall of Saigon and Kabul.

We also discuss the intelligence picture that led up to the
chaotic scenes we have witnessed as US and NATO forces attempt to
evacuate personnel and Afghan allies from Afghanistan.

Frank has asked me to add this about the fall of Saigon:

"Because of US Ambassador Graham Martin’s reluctance to
accelerate departures and risk upsetting the “controlled
conditions he thought were needed for a diplomatic solution to
the military crisis, the pullout from Saigon devolved into every
man and woman for themselves. 





Every agency battled for seat space on outgoing aircraft,
violating the quotas assigned to each one. Vietnamese girlfriends
and maids were often shoehorned into evacuee lists ahead of
Vietnamese who had loyally at great hazard worked with US
agencies in sensitive positions.  On the last day of the war
there was no master list in the embassy of the Vietnamese at
highest risk and most deserving of being flown to safety. 





As Snepp points out in his memoir of these events, Decent
Interval, nearly 52,000 people were lifted out of Vietnam in the
month of April 1975 on American military aircraft – 6,763
Americans and roughly 46,000 Vietnamese and other third-party
personnel. Counting people who departed by commercial carriers,
undocumented black flights and the 6,000 who came out by barge
the total number of evacuees for which the embassy could claim
some responsibility that month was 65,000. 


Another 65,000 escaped on their own just before the Communist
takeover and in the two years that followed, bringing the total
evacuees for that period to 140,000.





Ambassador Martin told Congress in early 1976 that 22,294
Vietnamese employed by US agencies had been evacuated by April 30
of the previous year. That was a small fraction of the indigenous
employees of these agencies and their families – 90,000. To judge
from Martin’s figures less than one third of these deeply
imperiled people benefitted from the airlift.





Only the Defense Attaché’s Office which had largely controlled
available aircraft and the boarding process, came close to
evacuating all the “locals” on its payroll, 3,800. But Colonel
William Le Gro, who headed DAO intelligence operations, later
acknowledged that only 20 percent of the Vietnamese whom his
staff had ushered onto outgoing aircraft were truly high risk.





Out of the 1,900 “indigenous employees” of the CIA station only
about 500 were finally evacuated – together with 2,000 others
including family members who had enjoyed privileged contacts with
the Agency over the years." 


You can read more about Frank’s experiences in Vietnam in his
excellent books “Decent Interval” and “Irreparable Harm” which
are both available to buy via Frank’s
website:http://franksnepp.com/

Frank’s journalism and other writings can be viewed on his blog:
franksneppexclusives.com/

Check out our past interview with Frank about the CIA
mission in Vietnam
https://pod.fo/e/213e1

Our film “The Dry Cleaner” has been
released!

Check out the trailer here: youtu.be/j_KFTJenrz4 And you can buy
the film here: www.drycleanercast.co.uk/watchthefilm


Music

Music on this podcast is provided by Andrew R. Bird (Andy Bird)
You can check out his work here:
https://www.monsteromnibus.com/?fbclid=IwAR0%E2%80%A6BdNQbuCvt9KWU



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