Free The Falklands Intercept by Crispin Black Page A

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    â€˜I was posted as a young Third Secretary in Saigon in 1972 just after Cambridge. Had a great time. Most of it in the famous Continental Hotel, where all the journalists and senior American officers congregated. ‘Hung out’ they called it. Some young officers too. The most glamorous were not the soldiers but the US Marines. They had an impressive swagger and nice manners to boot. They were also fighting a different style of war to the US Army, much more the sort of thing our troops had tried in Malaya some years before. Anyway, they seemed to have thought about war a little whereas many of the army officers seemed obsessed with ‘free fire zones’ and Agent Orange. It really was like something out of Graham Greene. I was young and clever and not bad looking. Things were great.
    â€˜And then the Americans began to withdraw and the whole thing fell apart rather quickly in April 1975. I had been dispatched up country to see what was happening and got back too late to be evacuated. I was lucky to get back to Saigon at all in fact. I had been in Da Nang which fell pretty easily and had then got caught up in the hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring south. There was panic and despair. I got swept along to a small town called Xuan Loc where the South Vietnamese army made an extraordinary last stand. The South Vietnamese infantry division that held the town for eleven days was despised by the Americans for its poor discipline and cowboy attitude. In the end it fought with astonishing energy to the end. Few others did. They were charming too and made sure I got out well before the town fell and was transported safely to Saigon. I shall remember till the day I die saying good-bye to them. They didn’t know where their families were. They weren’t especially enamoured of the South Vietnamese regime. Many of them were personally disreputable, black marketeers and so forth. But they loathed communism and would rather go down fighting than live under it. Some of them got away in the end but not many.’
    She looked wistfully out of the window overlooking Downing Street. ‘By the time I tipped back up at the embassy our ambassador had already left for the airport. Famously, he travelled in a silver Jaguar and the pictures were broadcast across the world. The British Ambassador leaving was felt to be a key moment. It was my fault. I wasn’t frightened but I felt on my own and wondered what would become of me. A young French diplomat, Gilles Navarre, who was a close friend, came up trumps. To be fair the Americans would have got me out. They are good like that. But I certainly felt safe once I had reached the French Embassy.
    â€˜I always felt a little sorry for the Yanks. They had a rough time of it – 58,000 of their young men were killed – they got little thanks for trying. Many were from poor backgrounds .Needless to say urban blacks were ‘over-represented’ as the modern politically correct jargon would have it. Basically, the poor blacks and poor whites did most of the fighting. Some were volunteers, others conscripted. Most tried to do their duty. Some were extraordinarily brave. There were a few shirkers no doubt but they were rare in the front line. Until the late 1960s the army and the marines were impressive fighting forces – well led, reasonably motivated. I liked the GIs and their young officers up to a certain rank were good and cared about their men. Or at least the ones I met.
    â€˜The further away from Saigon you got the better the American soldiers were. It was in Saigon itself that I developed an abiding dislike of the senior American military, their State Department and above all the CIA. Everyone in air-conditioned offices and pressed uniforms or smart Brooks Brothers suits working out how to claim extra allowances and having a good time. All revelling in the fact that they were at war. Except they weren’t. They were enjoying the prestige