On the same day that I got back, however, the USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] came to me and told me they were taking Americans out in two final helicopter lifts. They said they would take me. But later, when they came for me, I hid behind a tree so they couldn’t find me, and they left without me. I watched them fly away. I thought then that I needed to stay with my people.

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But then I started thinking, ‘I’ve got to get these people out of here. The enemy is coming down.’ Soon I saw our beaten armies as they passed near our village. They were a pathetic force. After I saw them I went down to see the province chief to talk to him. I told him, ‘I am going to take my people out. There are only about 250 left, but I’m going to get them out of here. And I want you to give me some protection when we go out, tomorrow.’ He said we were on our own, for his men would be fighting, and they could not escort us. It was up to me alone. I took my people out the next day. I got the money from the Catholic Relief Agencies; I had only $1,500 to get three boats to circumvent the enemy and get around the outside of their lines. We went down to Vung Tau on the coast and waited there.

I realized that the war was ending, so I went to the embassy in Saigon and asked them if they could give me a boat to transport my 250 people to some island where we could get away from the Communists. And the embassy representative, a friend of mine who worked for the CIA, said to me, ‘Father, we have some 200,000 people we have to take care of. We can’t do it. Your people are harmless, and they’re not a threat to the Communists. They’re just poor people, and the enemy won’t hurt them if they come in.’ I could see that he was right.

I tried to take my nurse out and a little boy who had helped me at the hospital. And she said she had to go south to get her baby; she went away and came back in about an hour. She said, ‘I can’t get out because the enemy has the roads blocked off and we are trapped in the city. We’re surrounded here.’ And I said, ‘Well, there is no sense in staying. The enemy is at the gate. They’ll be here tomorrow. It’s time to leave.’

So on the morning of April 29 I arranged for the three of us to leave Vietnam. I really wanted to bring all of my people out. But what could I do, really? That was impossible. I tried to get a boat for them–I had the money–to have them picked up in Vung Tau, but now I couldn’t even get out of Saigon. And I knew that even if I could get back to them and stay with them, my presence would be bad for them once the Communists came in. It didn’t make sense for me to stay any more and put them in danger. I stayed at the Jesuit House in Saigon, and the Vietnamese Jesuits there had also decided to stay. But I was a controversial figure among the Vietnamese. I was an American and so I was persona non grata. I would be jailed if I stayed, and they would all also be suspect. I had to leave them, too.

So I eventually asked one fellow if he could drive me to the CIA safe hotel that had an evacuation helicopter pad on the roof. He said, ‘Sure, I’ll take you. We may get stopped by the policemen, but I’ll try.’ When we arrived at this CIA hotel, American soldiers were standing at the gate with rifles that wouldn’t have done much good when the North Vietnamese came in. I said, ‘Hey, can I come in there with you guys?’ and they said, ‘Sure, come on in.’

After I entered the compound, I went up on the roof to wait for the helicopters. We were told that we could only take out one bag with our possessions. Some of the CIA people had bags of whiskey. They opened those bags and passed the whiskey around, and each of us took a parting drink. We drank it all. As we stood there, off in the horizon you could see a big plane bursting into flames when it hit the ground–there was a tremendous flareup. It was a big transport plane [see the April 1995 issue of Vietnam to read about the crash of the C-5A evacuation aircraft]. I saw it go down and I thought of hell when I saw the flames and smoke.

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