July 1, 2001
CIA's Air America finally gets its due for wartime heroics
Marius Burke, 63, of Melbourne directed evacuations of Americans and
refugees in Saigon for Air America, an airline run secretly by the CIA
in Southeast Asia. Air America wasn't honored for its contributions
until last month. Image copyright © 2001, Craig Rubadoux, FLORIDA
TODAY.
Melbourne man recalls Saigon evacuations
By Tony Manolatos
FLORIDA TODAY
United States rescue helicopters dodged heavy gunfire and flew just
above the tree line to pick up Americans and refugees from rooftops in
Saigon 26 years ago.
Panic filled the voices of the evacuees. Some clung to the outside of
helicopters because there was no room inside. A South Vietnamese woman
hurled her baby into a helicopter lifting off a rooftop.
North Vietnamese troops swarmed Saigon, blowing up fuel tanks,
blocking airport runways, destroying unmanned helicopters and shooting
at just about anyone trying to escape.
"Everyone wanted out, and we managed to get everyone out,"
Marius Burke of Melbourne said, recalling the fall of Saigon at the end
of the Vietnam War. But Burke's voiced trailed off and he looked away:
"With a few exceptions."
Burke was the last civilian pilot to fly out of Saigon on April 29,
1975, when the communist North Vietnamese captured the city, including
the U.S. Embassy. In the largest airlift of refugees during the Vietnam
War, civilian pilots flew more than 6,000 people to safety with little
help from the U.S. military.
Burke, 63, directed the evacuations in Saigon for Air America, the
so-called private airline secretly run by the CIA in Southeast Asia.
The gunfire the pilots survived during the evacuation was light
compared with the other trials during the Vietnam War.
As Air America did what the military either couldn't or wouldn't do,
the political fallout from the mysterious and dangerous missions led to
misinformation, misunderstandings, contempt, lack of respect and lack of
recognition, mostly from U.S. troops during the war and later from the
CIA and the public.
Even though more than a quarter of a century has passed since Air
America's last mission, the pilots - portrayed as thugs on the silver
screen and deemed unworthy of civil service retirement checks - still
haven't shed the bum rap.
Although the CIA's secret was out by the 1980s, the agency didn't
award Air America for its contributions until last month at a ceremony
in Las Vegas.
"It's a small amount of recognition for years of
frustration," Burke said of the CIA medallions and citations.
 |
Ben VanEtten of Indialantic and W.R. "Hutch"
Hutchinson of Loxahatchee, Fla., look at a book about Air America.
Image Copyright © 2001, Craig Bailey, FLORIDA TODAY.
|
Air America's largest mission involved assisting native fighters in
Laos battling the North Vietnamese. But the airline carried out a
variety of missions and operated under several names, including Southern
Air Transport and Air Asia, throughout Asia between 1947 and 1976, said
William Leary, professor of history at the University of Georgia.
Missions were flown from Indonesia to Nepal, from Korea to Laos, and
throughout Japan.
Air America also flew special missions outside of Asia, including the
only successful airstrike during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba,
Leary said. The pilots flew combat missions during the uprising of
Guatemala in 1954, and when the CIA attempted to overthrow the
Indonesian government in 1958.
A major airlift operation in Tibet, from the late 1950s to the early
1960s, supported Tibetans rebelling against the Chinese invasion.
Additionally, missions were flown to the North Pole to investigate an
abandoned Soviet spy station, and arms were delivered to some Middle
Eastern countries.
After Air America closed in the mid-1970s, the CIA mainly went about
its business with private contractors.
"Legally, it created problems for the CIA to act as a private
company, so they disposed of their ownership," Leary said last
week.
After the shutdown, about four Air America pilots continued to fly
secret operations throughout the world for the CIA, Leary said. One of
the pilots, James Rhyne, is the only person to receive the CIA's top two
honors. Rhyne died in May in North Carolina while flying an experimental
aircraft.
The 67-year-old, who was in charge of Air America operations in Laos
during the late 1960s, was awarded the Intelligence Star for his work in
Laos, where he lost a foot during battle, Leary said. Rhyne later was
awarded the Intelligence Cross for work still classified by the CIA.
Leary isn't certain whether a secret airline currently exists within
the CIA. The CIA isn't saying how it conducts covert air operations.
Today, at booths and tables in a Melbourne diner, a handful of these
former undercover pilots gather weekly to have breakfast, poke fun at
each other and share old war stories. The conversations turn grim when
someone mentions how the government chooses to treat these men.
"The lack of recognition has been the worst part," said Air
America veteran Ben Van Etten, 61, of Indialantic.
Although some of the pilots still question the U.S. involvement in
Vietnam, all are proud of their work, and some don't mind their newfound
hero status.
"There's a lot of self-satisfaction," said William
Hutchison, 68, of Loxahatchee, one of the pilots who flew night missions
into enemy camps to plant radio transmitters and other spy equipment for
the military. "We felt very patriotic." Whether rescuing
downed military pilots, planting radio transmitters in enemy camps or
delivering rice to guerrilla fighters, Air America pilots were heroic to
many and unsung for a reason. Instructed for decades not to discuss
their risky and covert missions, many pilots, who thought they were
working for a private Delaware-based airline, knew the CIA only as a
"customer."
Pragmatic pilots
Days after the fall of Saigon, Burke typed Vietnam Report: Saigon
Evacuation for his commanders. In it, he says the evacuation came very
close to becoming a disaster.
The precarious trips from downtown Saigon to a nearby airport, where
military planes and personnel waited once they joined the evacuation,
would have gone much smoother if the refueling tanks at the airport had
not been destroyed.
But because the military was slow to get involved, Air America pilots
were forced to fly several trips to U.S. Navy ships in the South China
Sea, which was about 100 miles from the evacuation sites. After the
enemy overran the airport, the pilots headed directly to Navy ships,
refueled, dropped off evacuees and headed back into the fray.
Once again, Burke said, Air America pilots were alone in a deadly
area with lives at stake. Once again, they were saving lives while no
one paid much attention to theirs. Once again, a stubborn ambassador,
who needed rescuing but wasn't prepared to carry out the evacuation,
hamstrung Air America pilots.
Despite the pitfalls, Burke and the rest of the Air America pilots
went about their business. Pragmatists in an area not known for its
sensibility, the pilots did their duty knowing they wouldn't receive any
more support or recognition for this mission than they had received for
thousands of other clandestine missions before the fall of Saigon.
Misportrayed, mistreated
Fearing political and military fallout from other countries, the CIA did
not publicly recognize Air America as anything more than a commercial
airline until 1987, during a memorial ceremony in Dallas. The ceremony
honored the 242 Air America pilots who died in Vietnam.
"These individuals put themselves in harm's way performing
heroic acts, but it often takes a number of years to acknowledge
activities in the agency," CIA spokesman Tom Crispell told Florida
Today. "It's the way business with the CIA has to be done."
Many people who have heard of Air America probably think of the
pilots as the drug-running mavericks portrayed in the 1990 movie
"Air America," starring Mel Gibson. The movie is based on
Christopher Robbin's book, Air America. But a historian said the movie
and the book are erroneous.
"My nearly two decades of research indicate that Air America was
not involved in the Vietnam drug trade," said Leary, the Georgia
professor. "It's one of these urban myths that's impossible to put
to bed."
About 2,000 pilots flew for the airline at the height of the Vietnam
conflict. Thousands of mechanics and other staff rounded out the unit.
But because they served as contractors and not soldiers, Air America
veterans are not entitled to federal benefits, including retirement
checks given to millions of military veterans and other retired
government workers.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., does not pay
homage to Air America. None of the names of the pilots killed in the war
appears on the memorial. Repeated requests for a postage stamp honoring
the unit have been rejected.
And because most troops believed the pilots earned handsome salaries,
they dealt with military resentment.
The pilots did earn more than their military counterparts, but
neither was rich. Melbourne's Burke, for example, earned $500 a month as
a Marine during the early 1960s. When he joined Air America in 1963, his
monthly pay rose to $750.
In addition, the Air America pilots paid for their room and board. If
they wanted a community hall or a community pool, they had to pay for it
or build it.
It all was part of the government's cover. When the pilots weren't
working, they lived normal lives. That was their disguise.
Faster than military Because Air America pilots were in Southeast
Asia since the 1950s - military ground troops didn't enter South Vietnam
until 1965 - they knew the terrain better than most military personnel
did.
That meant "commercial" Air America pilots flew the
majority of search-and-rescue missions for downed military aircraft,
especially during the early stages of the war, Burke said.
"We could get in and out faster than they could,"
Indialantic's Van Etten said.
While flying headlong through enemy fire at times, search-and-rescue
pilots routinely were forced to land on the sides of mountains or on the
banks of rivers, making the flying some of the most difficult in
aviation history.
Air America's history started with the Flying Tigers of World War II.
Gen. Claire Chennault left the U.S. Army Air Corps to form the Tigers
after butting heads with military brass over war tactics. Chennault felt
the military lacked aggression.
The Tigers ferried supplies and people around China during its civil
war in the late 1940s. The CIA bought the company, Civil Air Transport,
in 1950, and renamed it Air America nine years later.
After serving in the Korean War, Civil Air Transport pilots entered
Indochina in 1954 because the French asked the United States for help
protecting the region. President Eisenhower, loath to commit troops,
turned to the CIA, the U.S. spy machine and ambassador of covert
operations geared toward protecting national security.
Air America's chief responsibility in Southeast Asia was supporting
the "secret war" in Laos.
The anti-communist Laotians were important to the United States for
several reasons. Laos served as the gateway between North and South
Vietnam. The Laotians also opposed the North Vietnamese movement because
they wanted to guard their independence.
Because a treaty made Laos off-limits to outside military forces, the
CIA secretly trained the Hmong Army in Laos beginning in the late 1950s.
Meanwhile, Air America pilots delivered food and weapons to the Hmong
and shuttled them to where they were needed.
After more than 13 years of fending off the enemy, the effort turned
futile. Laos was overrun as teen-age boys, women and old men continued
to fight. The Hmong army was ravaged.
"I had so much respect and admiration for those people,"
Burke said. "I knew what we were doing was the right thing, if for
no other reason than we were helping those people."
The last day
On the last day of the war, Burke no longer was a helper. He was a
rescuer.
Sixteen hours before his last flight, on April 28, 1975, Burke had
flown into Saigon from the South China Sea. Fighting had escalated in
the city, and Burke had spent the night aboard a ship.
Burke sensed the end was near and returned to the military command
ship about 7 a.m. to meet with the Marine general in charge of ground
operations. Few troops were in the area. Most left after the Paris peace
agreements were signed in 1973.
Burke met with the general because he needed the Marines to seal off
evacuation facilities, including the U.S. Embassy and the Tansonnhut
Airport, in order to begin evacuations. The general told Burke he could
not offer any help until the U.S. Ambassador to Saigon, Graham Martin,
signed off on the evacuation.
Burke wasn't sure when the ambassador would give the order. He didn't
have much faith in him.
About two weeks earlier, Burke and Martin clashed over evacuation
preparations. Burke wanted to mark the rooftops of 32 buildings and
wanted his pilots to practice landing and taking off from the rooftops.
The ambassador said the moves were gratuitous and would only create
tension and worry.
"The ambassador told me he had good information that Saigon was
off-limits to the North Vietnamese and they would never push that
far," Burke recalled.
So Burke did what he thought was right. He started landing on the
building where he lived.
"I wanted people to get used to seeing the helicopter so they
wouldn't panic when I was forced to land and take off from there,"
he said.
On April 29, 1975, panic was everywhere when Burke left the general
and returned to Saigon. Realizing they could not wait for the Marines,
Burke and about 30 other Air America pilots began lifting people out of
the city, mostly from the tops of buildings.
Martin eventually signed off on the evacuation and Marines began
landing in Saigon about 3 p.m. By then, Air America had lost its landing
pads and runways at the airport, its refueling facilities on land were
destroyed, several aircraft had been stolen or destroyed and enemy
gunfire came from seemingly everywhere.
Burke completed his last flight about 11 p.m., dropping off Americans
and refugees on a Navy ship in the South China Sea. After climbing out
of his helicopter, Burke was frisked and his weapons were thrown
overboard.
"We were treated as refugees and were unable to determine if our
services could be further utilized," Burke said.
No pilots were shot down that day. But that did not soften an
indignant Burke. He summed up his feelings in the report he wrote for
his commanders after the evacuation.
"No one was concerned about our welfare, but we were expected to
provide services for everyone else and then fend for ourselves," he
wrote.
"It is just unfortunate that the many people, who despite
operating under less than ideal conditions and having little outside
support, really got the job done when it counted. Yet, they have never
received the recognition they deserve. I salute all those fine crews and
support personnel of Air America who made it happen."
