At the time the peace treaty was signed in January 1973, the ICCS was established to monitor the truce, with two Communist delegations and two neutral delegations. When I arrived, the neutral delegations were Iranians and Indonesians. Each delegation consisted of about 200 members, all supposedly military officers and enlisted men.

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It seemed like an excellent opportunity to recruit some defectors in place, prepared to report back to the agency after they returned home to Hungary and Poland. We were not looking for outright defections, and in fact refused more than one.

I had five full-time case officers, and we began collecting biographic data immediately. We also began briefing other base, station and State Department officers to act as’spotters’ for us, thus expanding our reach considerably. I also visited the bases at Nha Trang, Da Nang and Bien Hoa to brief the officers there. For some reason I never did get to Can Tho.

One of our better points of informal contact with our targets was on Sundays at the 50-meter, above-ground swimming pool at Tan Son Nhut, which became a gathering place for the ICCS officers. On one occasion at the pool I had a heated argument with a Hungarian major, whom we had already identified as a member of the AVH, equivalent to the Soviet KGB. One of the more absurd claims of Communist propaganda asserted, ‘There are 10,000 U.S. troops at a hidden camp in the Delta, ready to come out and help the ARVN if they get into difficulty.’ When the Hungarian major started spouting that line, I blew up. I said it was no doubt possible for the VC or NVA to impose that kind of discipline on their people, but asked him: Did he seriously think American troops could be so concealed? Would Hungarian troops be able to tolerate the kind of isolation it presupposed? Where were the heavy-lift supply planes? How about swimming pools, commissaries, PXs, etc.? In any case, since the ICCS had freedom to travel anywhere in South Vietnam, why did his delegation not expose this alleged violation of the peace treaty?

I got no answer except sputters, but the general in charge of the Hungarian delegation complained to Tom Polgar, the chief of station (COS), about me. When Tom mentioned it, I told him the story with no apologies. He agreed that the Hungarian deserved it, and we dropped the matter.

Which brings me to a point I should have made earlier. Why would the Hungarians complain to Tom Polgar, who probably everyone in Vietnam knew was the senior CIA man in the country? They just assumed I worked for Polgar, since our cover was paper thin. Oddly enough, no one ever came out and accused us of being CIA. I guess that was the quid pro quo for not pointing out the AVH officers we had identified.

I can sum up my one year in that job by saying that those of us not previously exposed to the Poles discovered how lightly the mantle of communism rested on their shoulders. We had so many volunteers that we had to turn some away and could afford to be selective. The Hungarians were a different matter. We eventually did have some limited success, but I have to say those boys were for the most part dedicated Communists. I have often wondered how they are fitting into the new post-Soviet reality.

All of my previous overseas experience had been as a COB, COS or deputy chief of station (DCOS) — and in each case the office was small, with a couple of case officers and a secretary — so the sheer size of our presence in Vietnam, the largest in the world, took some getting used to. Bases were usually run by a COB, a deputy COB and a chief of operations. With the Saigon base, the third man on the totem pole was the executive officer (XO). At the end of my first year, the man holding that position completed his tour, and Bill J. asked me to take over as XO.

Once the last of our POWs were released in March 1973 and all but 50 U.S. military attachés had been withdrawn, Vietnam became old news. Americans seemed oblivious to the fact that the ARVN lost an average of 1,000 troops per month in skirmishes with the VC in 1973 and 1974. We would occasionally have dinner on the roof of the Caravelle Hotel. From there, you could watch the artillery duels going on out in the countryside.

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