How an insane—and unsuccessful—Viet Cong assault on the U.S. Embassy blew a hole in America’s will.
As midnight drew near on January 30, 1968, the Marine Security Guard at the United States Embassy in Saigon began its routine shift change. Marine Corporal Tom DeWitt and I had just posted Sergeant Ron Harper and Corporal George Zaccarinni inside the chancery of the embassy. We were now heading out for our posting at the old embassy building, which was still being used for diplomatic offices, several blocks away alongside the Saigon River. I was a corporal and had been stationed with the Marine Security Guard (MSG) in Saigon for a little more than a year. Although I didn’t realize it at that moment, as our vehicle pulled away from the embassy, DeWitt and I were surely the last Americans out of the compound that night before all hell broke loose, culminating in one of the most pivotal events of the entire Vietnam War.
With DeWitt in the passenger seat and me riding on the tailgate of our International Scout, our driver took a right out of the compound’s side vehicle entry onto Thong Nhut Street. As we pulled out onto the street, something caught my attention. I noticed that the small wooden Vietnamese National Police kiosk situated on the sidewalk near the gate was totally vacant. Typically, in addition to the two men normally assigned to the post, there would also be several other police officers milling about. The kiosk was only a block away from the local police precinct station, and at shift change, police officers would usually stop by and shoot the breeze with the policemen—whom we called White Mice because of their white uniform shirts—on duty. But on this night, with not one of the White Mice in sight, my antennae shot up as we drove along the dark and quiet streets toward our post at the old embassy.
As soon as DeWitt and I got to our post, I immediately telephoned Sergeant Harper, whom we had just left back at the embassy, to give him the heads up that the Saigon police guard at the side gate was missing and that something strange was going on. “Hey, Harp, you got nobody covering your backside.” I said. “There’s nobody there.” I made clear to Harper that I was certain of this fact. I knew then that this was a harbinger of bad things to come. Several hours later, it became apparent to me that many of the local police knew an assault was imminent at the embassy that early morning.
The 100-man Saigon Marine Security Guard unit had grown to be the largest of its kind in the world. Only the Paris MSG unit came close in size, and it was only half our strength. In the year I had been in Saigon, there were a number of tense moments in the political and military life of South Vietnam. The Marine Security Guard had grown accustomed to dealing with them. Indeed, only 2 ½ months before Tet, we served double rotations on posts when the political battles between Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky grew hot and street violence appeared imminent. We took it all in stride. Marines there knew their weapons, their duties and responsibilities, the “lay of the land” and each other.
We were a “tight” unit that had been together for a good while, with excellent leadership from Leo Crampsey and Bob Fury of the State Department and Marine Captain Robert J. O’Brien, Gunnery Sgt. Allen Morrison and Staff Sgts. Leroy Banks and Darrell Partain. Most of the rest of the Marines in the unit were noncommissioned officers, corporals and sergeants and a few lance corporals. All things considered, we were as prepared for action as any Marine Security Guard unit in the world. We had good men, but unfortunately, at the time, we had few arms. We were limited to .38-caliber revolvers, some 9mm Beretta submachine guns and 12-gauge shotguns.
In the days and weeks just ahead of the attack, it was clear that “something was up.” The fight between the North Vietnamese Army and the reinforced 26th Marines at Khe Sanh was raging, and its reverberations were felt across the country. In Saigon, we knew this was a big deal, that something very big was happening in I Corps, and only one Marine regiment was at Khe Sanh to contend with the threat. Sensing something more was afoot, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Frederick C. Weyand, commanding general of U.S. II Field Force, consulted with General William C. Westmoreland and got his permission to move his maneuver battalions closer to Saigon to provide greater security to the capital city in the week leading up to Tet. Likewise, our State Department and Marine leadership took precautions, double-manning our posts. All of those responsible for security in the city—the Marine Security Guards and members of the 716th Military Police Battalion—were cognizant of tensions in the air but went about their duties as usual. We all had the feeling in those last days of January that soldiering intuitions were coming to the fore.
But January 30 had dawned as lovely as usual in Saigon. The city was bustling as families prepared for their New Year’s celebrations. Roads into Saigon were clogged with holiday travelers heading home to spend Tet with loved ones.
The new $2.6 million, six-story U.S. Embassy, opened just four months earlier in September 1967, represented America’s power and its clear intent to remain a vital force in Vietnam for years to come. An 8-foot-tall wall surrounded the 4-acre compound, and high atop the embassy building was a helipad that provided our security guards an excellent vantage point. We could see for miles across the city, as well as down onto Thong Nhut Boulevard itself, the major thoroughfare leading to the Presidential Palace, roughly three-quarters of a mile away.
On the night of January 30, Marine Sergeant Rudy Soto was posted on the roof, armed with a .38 revolver and five rounds, a 12- gauge shotgun and a radio. While he had a commanding view from his rooftop perch, the modern structure had a design flaw as far as maintaining security was concerned. The tall outer wall encircling the compound, while providing protection, also provided perfect cover for anyone attempting to hide along it, even from the rooftop position. The enemy could approach unseen by merely hugging the wall and moving to the desired point of attack. And that is what the Viet Cong were preparing to do.
Soon after midnight, what Sergeant Soto the roof were green tracer rounds that were coming uncomfortably close to him as he stood watch. Tracer rounds flying could see clearly from around the Saigon night during Tet were not uncommon, as reveling residents welcomed the New Year. But orange tracer rounds were ours; green tracer rounds belonged to the Communists. Soto was seeing more green tracer rounds and was growing a bit concerned.
Our security posts on the night of January 30 were spread around Saigon at the new and old U.S. embassies, all four U.S. Agency for International Development posts, the Joint Public Affairs Office, the ambassador’s and deputy ambassador’s quarters, the residence of Ambassador Robert Komer, and the Marine House, our living quarters. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker also had a personal security unit. That night, just as the attack was launched, approximately two-thirds of our total strength was on duty. As was our standard procedure, each post reported its status to the embassy on the hour. When I phoned in the status of our post at 2 a.m., Sergeant Harper reported to me that the fight was on at the embassy.
All of our Marines who were not on duty were on standby and ready to move at a moment’s notice should relief of any posts become necessary. Captain O’Brien was with his men when the call came from the embassy requesting relief from the attack. His response was swift and sure, and all available Marines were mustered and piled into vehicles headed to the fight at the embassy. One group, led by O’Brien, approached the embassy from Mach Dinh Chi Street, and Staff Sgt. Leroy Banks led a second relief column, which was approaching from the direction of the Presidential Palace.
By this time, guerrilla and sniper activity was breaking out across the city, and the relief forces had to use fire and employ maneuver tactics to get into the action. At least in one instance, American forces were being interfered with by some elements of the local police force. The streets, eerily empty and tranquil just a couple of hours earlier, were now descending into chaos.
Orders had gone out for all other posts to stay where they were. DeWitt and I remained at the old embassy throughout the night.
Like all other MSGs on posts across Saigon at that moment, DeWitt and I were isolated. We were all “easy pickings” for the Viet Cong during those early hours of the assault. As the extent of the attacks became clear, DeWitt and I talked over the gravity of the situation. A very level-headed guy, DeWitt showed judgment superior to mine when I started saying I was going to leave our post and go to the aid of my fellow Marines under attack at the new embassy. DeWitt convinced me otherwise and was correct. I was simply exhibiting youthful foolishness.
We could now hear very well the sounds of battle rattling all around us outside the walls of our old embassy building post, as could the rest of the city, which was getting a very early wake-up call that morning. At one point, there was an attempt to enter the building via a locked back door by an unknown party. DeWitt and I, on the other side of the door, had our weapons at the ready should it be Viet Cong or other unauthorized individuals. Fortunately for us—and them—whoever it was gave up, and we had no other action throughout the night.
Two MPs from the 527th MP Company, attached to the 716th MP Battalion, were stationed at the side entrance of the embassy, providing external security that night. To their eternal credit, in the last moments of their young lives, they may very well have saved the day by eliminating the assault force’s leadership. After the Viet Cong team blew a 3-foot hole in the front wall with a satchel charge, they began pouring into the compound, where they were confronted by MPs Pfc William E. Sebast and Spc. 4 Charles L. Daniel. The Americans began blasting away, joined in fire by Sergeant Soto from the embassy roof, probably killing or mortally wounding the Viet Cong squad’s leadership at the very outset of the engagement. In the same exchange of fire, Sebast and Daniel were killed.
But at that point, without their commanders and seemingly without a clear plan, the guerrillas’ attack seemed to get bogged down. As the firefight with the MPs played out, Sergeant Harper had the time to slam shut and lock the massive 4-inch-thick teak chancery doors, which proved capable of withstanding a rocket-propelled grenade. In that critical joint action, entry to the embassy building itself was blocked and, frankly, it averted what would have been an even more costly and humiliating blow.
With the attacks underway, calls went out for reinforcements, and rapid response teams were dispatched to the embassy and other sites being hit simultaneously throughout the city. Among the first to reach the scene were two more 716th MPs, Sergeant Jonnie Thomas and Spc. 4 Owen Mabust. Unaware of the danger lurking within the embassy compound, they were killed as they pulled up to the embassy front gate.
As more reinforcements arrived at the embassy, including additional MPs and Marine Security Guards, a standoff with the Viet Cong began. Since it was still dark and it was confirmed that the chancery itself had not been penetrated, Gunnery Sgt. Morrison recommended to Captain O’Brien that they await daylight to secure the remainder of the embassy grounds. By that time, ample Marine and MP forces were on hand to move into position and complete the operation.
At daybreak, more reinforcements from the 101st Airborne Division were airlifted by helicopter onto the embassy roof as Marines and MPs swept into the compound. The skirmishing, which was now being covered by a number of newspaper reporters and television crews, was over in short order with all but one of the attackers killed. Early Associated Press reports hit the wires quoting some of the military police as saying some of the attackers had penetrated the chancery. This report, which rapidly spread across the globe, had a dramatic impact on immediate perceptions of the specific action and the relative success of the Tet Offensive in general.
While four MPs and another American, Marine Corporal James Marshall, were killed in the action, the attackers had inflicted relatively little damage to the embassy itself in their failed mission. In the meantime, battles raged across the city, including at the Bachelor Officers Quarters, the national radio station and Phu To racetrack, that left dozens of Americans killed. None, however, had the sensational impact of the embassy assault.
Great Britain’s WWII prime minister, Winston Churchill, spoke eloquently to his battered and beleaguered people after the Battle of Britain with the words, “Never before in the course of human history has so much been owed by so many to so few.” He was, of course, addressing the recent conclusion of the German attempt to bring the British Empire to its knees by aerial bombardment. It did not work. The British beat back that attack.
Fast forward some 28 years later in Vietnam when, in those early morning hours of January 31, 1968, a 20-man Viet Cong assault force executed a wildly audacious attack on the new U.S. Embassy compound, a vertible fortress in the center of Saigon. What amounted to a suicide strike has gone down in military history as perhaps one of the most significant—and successful—“economy of force” operations ever conducted. Never mind the fact that 19 of the 20 guerrillas who entered the compound were killed and that they failed in their primary mission to break into and seize the chancery building with the intent—apparently—to hold it to their deaths.
At the embassy compound battle, it was the personal and professional quality of men in the fight, their training, character, teamwork and dedication to duty that made the difference in victory and defeat. But, alas, the success of the embassy defense almost immediately became inconsequential, even in the eyes of U.S. political leaders and planners.
The fact was, as a result of that specific attack, as decisively foiled as it was, the United States would never regain momentum in Vietnam in the eyes of its own people, as well as with those around the world.
After the fight for the embassy was over and the enemy eliminated, those of us in Saigon could not foresee how badly the United States would be shaken, how its spirit at home would be broken, how its citizens were so ill prepared to accept such a shocking report from the embassy, even though at the end of the Tet Offensive, Communist military forces were thoroughly thrashed and the Viet Cong as a viable military force ceased to exist.
Yet, Ho Chi Minh could argue, as did Churchill nearly three decades earlier, that in his war against the Americans, never had so many of his countrymen “owed so much to so few.” For back in the United States, the psychological impact of the embassy strike was such that the country thought it was beaten—and, so it was, even though its forces stood victorious and unbent on the battlefield.
Wilburn “Bud” Meador enlisted in the U.S. Marines in May 1965, graduated from Marine Security Guard School in August 1966 and was posted to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon from January 1967 to January 1969. Currently, he is an assistant professor in the Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth.
Originally published in the February 2010 issue of Vietnam. To subscribe, click here.
